3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116 transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
154 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
156 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
162 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
166 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
168 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
171 =item assertion botched: %s
173 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
175 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
177 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
179 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
181 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183 know which context to supply to the right side.
185 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
187 (F) When vec is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
188 greater than or equal to zero.
190 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
192 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
193 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
194 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
200 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
202 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
203 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
206 bless $self, "$proto";
208 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
210 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
211 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
212 outside any of those arenas.
214 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
216 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
217 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
218 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
219 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
221 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
223 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
224 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
225 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
226 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
229 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
231 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
233 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
235 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
236 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
237 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
238 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
239 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
240 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
243 =item Attempt to join self
245 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
246 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
247 to move the join() to some other thread.
249 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
251 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
252 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
253 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
254 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
255 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
258 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
260 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
261 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
262 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
264 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
266 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
267 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
268 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
269 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
271 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
273 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
274 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
275 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
277 =item Bad filehandle: %s
279 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
280 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
281 open(), or did it in another package.
283 =item Bad free() ignored
285 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
286 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
287 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
289 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
290 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
291 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
295 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
297 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
299 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
300 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
303 =item Badly placed ()'s
305 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
306 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
309 =item Bad name after %s::
311 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
312 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
321 $sym = "mypack::$var";
323 =item Bad realloc() ignored
325 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
326 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
327 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
329 =item Bad symbol for array
331 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
332 wasn't a symbol table entry.
334 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
336 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
337 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
339 =item Bad symbol for hash
341 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
342 wasn't a symbol table entry.
344 =item Bareword found in conditional
346 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
347 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
348 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
352 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
355 use constant TYPO => 1;
356 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
358 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
360 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
362 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
363 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
364 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
366 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
368 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
369 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
370 you need to predeclare a package?
372 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
374 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
375 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
378 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
380 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
381 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
382 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
383 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
384 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
386 =item \1 better written as $1
388 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
389 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
390 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
391 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
392 there are more than 9 backreferences.
394 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
396 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
397 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
398 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
400 =item bind() on closed socket %s
402 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
403 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
405 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
407 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
408 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
410 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
412 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
414 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
416 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
419 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
421 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
422 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
424 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
426 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
427 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
428 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
430 =item Callback called exit
432 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
433 exited by calling exit.
435 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
437 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
438 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
439 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
440 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
441 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
442 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
443 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
444 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
446 =item / cannot take a count
448 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
449 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
452 =item Can't bless non-reference value
454 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
455 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
457 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
459 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
460 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
461 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
463 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
465 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
466 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
467 like this will reproduce the error:
470 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
471 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
473 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
475 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
476 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
477 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
478 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
480 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
482 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
483 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
484 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
485 Something like this will reproduce the error:
488 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
489 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
491 =item Can't chdir to %s
493 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
494 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
496 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
498 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
501 =item Can't coerce array into hash
503 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
504 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
505 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
507 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
509 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
510 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
520 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
522 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
524 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
525 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
527 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
529 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
530 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
532 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
534 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
535 quotas or other plumbing problems.
537 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
539 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
540 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
541 for other types of variables in future.
543 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
545 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
546 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
548 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
550 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
551 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
553 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
555 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
558 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
560 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
561 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
562 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
564 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
566 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
567 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
568 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
570 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m before << HERE in regex m/%s/
572 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
573 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The << HERE shows in the
574 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
576 =item Can't do setegid!
578 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
581 =item Can't do seteuid!
583 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
585 =item Can't do setuid
587 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
588 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
589 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
590 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
591 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
592 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
594 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
596 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
597 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
599 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
601 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
602 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
605 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
607 (W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
608 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
609 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
610 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
611 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
612 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
617 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
618 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
619 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
621 =item Can't execute %s
623 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
624 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
626 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
628 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
629 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
631 =item Can't find label %s
633 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
634 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
636 =item Can't find %s on PATH
638 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
641 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
643 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
644 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
645 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
647 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
649 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
650 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
651 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
653 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
655 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
656 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
657 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
659 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
661 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
662 example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
663 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
668 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
671 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
673 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
674 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
675 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
676 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
677 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
678 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
679 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
680 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
681 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
682 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
683 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
684 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
685 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
686 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
687 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
689 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
691 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
692 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
694 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
696 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
697 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
699 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
701 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
702 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
704 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
706 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
707 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
708 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
709 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
711 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
713 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
714 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
715 probably don't want to.)
717 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
719 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
720 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
721 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
722 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
724 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
726 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
727 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
728 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
729 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
730 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
731 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
733 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
735 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
736 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
737 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
738 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
739 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
740 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
743 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
745 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
746 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
747 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
750 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
752 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
753 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
754 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
755 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
757 =item Can't localize through a reference
759 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
760 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
761 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
762 that $ref will still be a reference.
764 =item Can't locate %s
766 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
767 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
768 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
769 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
770 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
771 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
772 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
774 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
776 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
777 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
778 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
779 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
781 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
783 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
784 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
785 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
787 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
789 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
790 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
791 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
793 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
795 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
796 doesn't seem to exist.
798 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
800 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
803 =item Can't modify %s in %s
805 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
806 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
808 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
810 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
813 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
815 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
816 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
818 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
820 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
823 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
825 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
826 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
827 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
828 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
829 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
830 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
832 =item Can't open %s: %s
834 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
835 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
836 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
837 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
840 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
842 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
843 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
844 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
845 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
847 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
849 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
850 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
851 the command line for writing.
853 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
855 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
856 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
857 command line for reading.
859 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
861 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
862 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
863 the command line for writing.
865 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
867 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
868 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
871 =item Can't open perl script%s: %s
873 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
875 =item Can't read CRTL environ
877 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
878 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
879 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
880 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
883 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
885 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
886 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
887 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
888 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
890 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
892 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
893 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
894 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
895 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
896 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
897 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
899 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
901 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
902 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
903 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
905 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
907 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
908 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
910 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
912 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
913 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
915 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
917 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
918 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
919 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
921 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
923 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
926 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
928 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
929 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
932 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
934 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
935 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
936 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
937 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
940 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
942 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
943 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
945 =item Can't stat script "%s"
947 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
948 open already. Bizarre.
950 =item Can't swap uid and euid
952 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
955 =item Can't take log of %g
957 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
958 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
959 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
962 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
964 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
965 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
966 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
968 =item Can't undef active subroutine
970 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
971 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
972 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
976 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
977 as the main Perl stack.
979 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
981 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
982 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
983 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
984 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
986 =item Can't upgrade to undef
988 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
989 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
992 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
994 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
995 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
997 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
999 (P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1000 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1001 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1003 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1005 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1006 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1008 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1010 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1011 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1012 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1014 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1016 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1019 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1021 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1022 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1023 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1024 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1027 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1029 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1030 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1031 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1032 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1035 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1037 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1038 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1039 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1041 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1043 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1044 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1046 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1048 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1049 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1050 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1052 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1054 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1055 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1056 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1057 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1058 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1061 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1063 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1064 references can be weakened.
1066 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1068 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1069 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1070 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1072 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1074 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1076 chmod 777, $filename
1078 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1079 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1082 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1084 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1086 =item %s: Command not found
1088 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1089 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1091 =item Compilation failed in require
1093 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1094 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1095 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1097 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1099 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1100 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1101 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1102 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1103 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1104 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1105 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1106 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1107 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1109 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1111 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1112 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1113 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1115 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1117 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1118 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1119 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1120 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1123 =item Constant is not %s reference
1125 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1126 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1127 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1128 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1129 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1131 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1133 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1134 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1135 commentary and workarounds.
1137 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1139 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1140 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1143 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1145 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1146 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1148 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1150 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1152 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1154 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1155 expression compiler gave it.
1157 =item corrupted regexp program
1159 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1162 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1164 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1166 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1168 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1169 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1170 redirected it with select().)
1172 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1174 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1175 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1177 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1179 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1180 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1181 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1182 which case it indicates something else.
1184 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1186 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1187 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1188 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1190 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1192 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1193 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1194 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1196 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1198 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1199 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1200 that triggers this error.
1202 =item Did not produce a valid header
1206 =item %s did not return a true value
1208 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1209 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1210 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1211 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1213 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1215 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1218 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1220 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1221 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1224 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1226 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1227 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1232 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1233 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1235 =item Document contains no data
1239 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1241 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1243 =item do_study: out of memory
1245 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1247 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1249 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1250 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1251 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1252 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1253 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1254 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1255 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1256 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1258 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1260 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1263 =item elseif should be elsif
1265 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1266 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1267 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1268 unlikely to be what you want.
1270 =item entering effective %s failed
1272 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1273 effective uids or gids failed.
1275 =item Error converting file specification %s
1277 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1278 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1279 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1280 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1281 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1283 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1285 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1286 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1287 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1289 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1291 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1292 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1293 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1294 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1295 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1296 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1298 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1300 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1301 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1302 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1304 =item Excessively long <> operator
1306 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1307 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1308 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1309 variable and glob that.
1311 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1313 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1315 =item Exiting eval via %s
1317 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1318 goto, or a loop control statement.
1320 =item Exiting format via %s
1322 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1323 goto, or a loop control statement.
1325 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1327 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1328 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1329 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1331 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1333 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1334 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1336 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1338 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1339 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1341 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1343 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1344 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1345 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1346 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1348 =item %s: Expression syntax
1350 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1351 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1353 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1355 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1356 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1357 routines has been prematurely ended.
1359 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1361 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1362 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1363 "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1364 quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
1366 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1368 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1369 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1370 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1371 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1373 =item fcntl is not implemented
1375 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1376 PDP-11 or something?
1378 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1380 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1381 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1382 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1383 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1385 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1387 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1388 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1389 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1390 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1392 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1394 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1395 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1396 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1399 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1401 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1402 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1403 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1406 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1408 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1409 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1410 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1413 =item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1415 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1416 meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1417 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1419 =item Format not terminated
1421 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1422 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1424 =item Format %s redefined
1426 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1430 eval "format NAME =...";
1433 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1443 (or something like that).
1445 =item %s found where operator expected
1447 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1448 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1449 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1450 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1452 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1454 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1456 =item gethostent not implemented
1458 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1459 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1462 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1464 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1465 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1467 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1469 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1470 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1472 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1474 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1475 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1476 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1478 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1480 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1481 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1482 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1485 =item glob failed (%s)
1487 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1488 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1489 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1490 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1491 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1492 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1493 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1494 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1495 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1496 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1497 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1499 =item Glob not terminated
1501 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1502 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1503 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1504 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1506 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1508 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1509 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1511 =item goto must have label
1513 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1514 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1516 =item %s had compilation errors
1518 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1520 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1522 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1523 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1524 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1526 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1528 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1529 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1531 =item %s has too many errors
1533 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1534 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1536 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1538 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1539 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1540 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1542 =item Identifier too long
1544 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1545 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1546 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1547 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1549 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1551 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1553 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1555 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1556 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1559 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1561 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1562 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1563 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1564 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1565 to your Perl administrator.
1567 =item Illegal division by zero
1569 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1570 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1573 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1575 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1576 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1577 number stopped before the illegal character.
1579 =item Illegal modulus zero
1581 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1582 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1584 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1586 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1587 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1589 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1591 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1593 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1595 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1596 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1598 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1600 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1601 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1603 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1605 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1606 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1607 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1609 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1611 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1612 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1613 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1616 =item (in cleanup) %s
1618 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1619 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1620 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1621 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1622 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1624 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1625 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1627 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1629 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1630 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1631 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1632 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1633 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1634 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1635 L<perlsec> for more information.
1637 =item Insecure directory in %s
1639 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1640 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1641 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1643 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1645 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1646 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1647 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1648 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1649 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1651 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1653 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1654 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1655 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1656 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1657 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1658 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1659 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1660 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1663 =item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1665 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1666 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1670 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1672 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1673 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1674 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1675 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1676 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1677 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1679 =item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1681 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
1682 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1685 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1687 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1688 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1689 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1690 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1692 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1694 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1695 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1697 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1699 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1700 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1702 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1704 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1705 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1707 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1709 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1710 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you
1711 forgot the C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly
1712 braces can go only up to C<ff>. See L<perlre>.
1714 =item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1716 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1717 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1719 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1721 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1722 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1723 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1726 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1728 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1729 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1732 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1734 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1736 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1739 =item ioctl is not implemented
1741 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1742 strange for a machine that supports C.
1744 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1746 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1747 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1749 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1751 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1752 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1754 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1756 (W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1757 to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1760 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1762 (W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1764 =item junk on end of regexp
1766 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1768 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1770 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1771 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1774 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1776 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1777 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1780 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1782 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1783 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1786 =item leaving effective %s failed
1788 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1789 effective uids or gids failed.
1791 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1793 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1794 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1797 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1799 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1800 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1801 instead on the filehandle.)
1803 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1805 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1806 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1807 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1809 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE %s
1811 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1812 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
1813 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1815 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1817 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1825 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1826 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1827 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1828 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1830 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1832 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1834 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1836 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1837 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1839 =item %s matches null string many times
1841 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1842 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1845 =item % may only be used in unpack
1847 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1848 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1849 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1851 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1853 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1854 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1856 =item Method %s not permitted
1860 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1862 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1863 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1864 ended earlier on the current line.
1866 =item Misplaced _ in number
1868 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1870 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1872 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1873 double-quotish context.
1875 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1877 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1878 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1880 =item Missing command in piped open
1882 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1883 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1886 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1888 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1889 they have a name with which they can be found.
1891 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1893 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1894 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1895 can vary from one line to the next.
1897 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1899 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1900 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1902 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1904 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1905 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1908 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1910 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1911 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1912 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1914 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1916 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1917 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1918 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1920 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1923 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1925 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1926 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1929 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1930 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1933 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1935 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1936 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1939 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1941 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1942 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1944 =item Module name must be constant
1946 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1948 =item Module name required with -%c option
1950 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1951 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1952 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1954 =item msg%s not implemented
1956 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1958 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1960 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1961 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1963 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1965 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1966 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1967 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1969 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1971 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1972 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1973 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1975 =item / must follow a numeric type
1977 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1978 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1980 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1982 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1985 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1987 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1988 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1989 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
1991 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1993 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1994 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1995 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1996 provided for this purpose.
1998 =item Negative length
2000 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2001 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2003 =item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2005 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2006 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
2007 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2009 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2010 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2013 =item %s never introduced
2015 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2016 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2018 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2020 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2021 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2022 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2023 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2025 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2027 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2029 =item No comma allowed after %s
2031 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2032 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2033 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2035 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2036 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2037 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2038 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2039 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2040 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2041 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2042 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2043 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2044 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2045 this error was triggered?
2047 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2049 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2050 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2051 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2053 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2055 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2056 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2057 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2058 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2059 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2061 =item No dbm on this machine
2063 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2064 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2066 =item No DBsub routine
2068 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2069 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2070 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2071 ordinary subroutine call.
2073 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2075 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2076 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2077 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2079 =item No input file after < on command line
2081 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2082 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2083 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2087 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2088 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2090 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2092 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2093 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2095 =item No output file after > on command line
2097 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2098 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2099 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2101 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2103 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2104 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2105 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2107 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2109 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2110 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2111 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2113 =item No Perl script found in input
2115 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2116 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2118 =item No setregid available
2120 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2123 =item No setreuid available
2125 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2128 =item No space allowed after -%c
2130 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2131 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2133 =item No %s specified for -%c
2135 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2136 you haven't specified one.
2138 =item No such pipe open
2140 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2141 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2142 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2144 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2146 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2147 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2148 array indices for that to work.
2150 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2152 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2153 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2154 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2155 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2157 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2159 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2160 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2161 names on your system.
2163 =item Not a CODE reference
2165 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2166 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2167 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2170 =item Not a format reference
2172 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2173 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2175 =item Not a GLOB reference
2177 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2178 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2179 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2180 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2182 =item Not a HASH reference
2184 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2185 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2186 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2188 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2190 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2191 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2192 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2194 =item Not a perl script
2196 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2197 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2200 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2202 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2203 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2204 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2206 =item Not a subroutine reference
2208 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2209 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2210 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2213 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2215 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2216 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2218 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2220 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2222 =item Not enough format arguments
2224 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2225 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2229 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2230 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2233 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2235 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2236 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2237 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2238 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2239 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2241 =item Null filename used
2243 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2244 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2246 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2248 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2251 =item Null picture in formline
2253 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2254 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2255 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2259 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2261 =item NULL regexp argument
2263 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2265 =item NULL regexp parameter
2267 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2269 =item Number too long
2271 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2272 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2273 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2274 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2277 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2279 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2280 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2283 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2285 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2286 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2287 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2289 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2291 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2293 (W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2294 The arguments should come in pairs.
2296 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2298 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2299 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2301 =item Offset outside string
2303 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2304 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2305 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2306 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2308 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2310 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2311 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2313 =item %s() on unopened %s
2315 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2316 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2317 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2321 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2325 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2327 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2329 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2330 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2331 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2332 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2334 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2336 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2337 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2338 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2339 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2342 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2344 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2345 in the current lexical scope.
2347 =item Out of memory!
2349 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2350 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2351 no option but to exit immediately.
2353 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2355 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2356 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2357 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2358 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2360 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2362 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2363 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2366 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2367 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2368 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2369 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2370 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2371 where the failed request happened.
2373 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2375 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2376 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2377 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2379 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2381 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2382 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2385 =item @ outside of string
2387 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2388 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2390 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2392 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2393 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2394 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2395 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2399 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2400 page. See L<perlform>.
2404 (P) An internal error.
2406 =item panic: ck_grep
2408 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2410 =item panic: ck_split
2412 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2414 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2416 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2417 there are in the savestack.
2419 =item panic: del_backref
2421 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2426 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2427 it wasn't an eval context.
2429 =item panic: pp_match
2431 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2434 =item panic: do_subst
2436 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2439 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2441 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2446 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2450 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2451 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2453 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2455 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2457 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2459 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2461 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2463 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2467 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2468 it wasn't a block context.
2470 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2472 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2475 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2477 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2478 invalid enum on the top of it.
2480 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2482 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2483 references to an object.
2487 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2489 =item panic: mapstart
2491 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2493 =item panic: null array
2495 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2497 =item panic: pad_alloc
2499 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2500 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2502 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2504 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2505 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2507 =item panic: pad_free po
2509 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2511 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2513 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2514 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2516 =item panic: pad_sv po
2518 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2520 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2522 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2523 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2525 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2527 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2529 =item panic: pp_iter
2531 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2533 =item panic: pp_split
2535 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2537 =item panic: realloc
2539 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2541 =item panic: restartop
2543 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2544 didn't supply the destination.
2548 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2549 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2551 =item panic: scan_num
2553 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2555 =item panic: sv_insert
2557 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2560 =item panic: top_env
2562 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2566 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2568 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2570 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2571 to even) byte length.
2573 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2575 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2581 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2583 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2585 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2587 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2588 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2589 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2591 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2593 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2594 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2596 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2598 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2600 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2601 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2604 are supported and installed on your system.
2605 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2607 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2608 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2609 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2610 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2611 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2612 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2613 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2614 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2615 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2616 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2618 =item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2620 (S) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you forgot
2621 the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2622 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2623 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2624 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2625 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2627 =item perlio: invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2629 (S) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2630 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of an layer list.
2631 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2632 list was terminated too soon.
2634 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2636 (S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2637 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2638 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2639 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2640 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2641 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2643 =item Permission denied
2645 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2647 =item pid %x not a child
2649 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2650 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2651 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2653 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2655 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2656 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2657 example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2658 currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2659 extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2661 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2663 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2664 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2665 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2666 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2667 with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2669 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2671 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2672 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2673 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2674 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2675 with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2677 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2679 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2682 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2684 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2685 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2687 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2689 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2690 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2691 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2692 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2694 You probably wrote something like this:
2701 when you should have written this:
2708 If you really want comments, build your list the
2709 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2713 'b', # another comment
2716 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2718 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2719 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2720 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2723 You probably wrote something like this:
2727 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2728 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2732 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2734 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2735 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2736 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2737 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2739 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2741 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2742 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2744 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2746 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2750 use attrs qw(locked);
2753 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2759 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2760 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2762 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2764 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2768 is now misinterpreted as
2772 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2773 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2774 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2777 =item Premature end of script headers
2781 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2783 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2784 before now. Check your control flow.
2786 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2788 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2789 before now. Check your control flow.
2791 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2793 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2794 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2795 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2796 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2799 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2801 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2802 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2804 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2806 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2807 {min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2808 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2810 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE %s
2812 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2813 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2814 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2815 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2816 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2818 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2820 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2821 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2822 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2823 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2825 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2827 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2828 before now. Check your control flow.
2830 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2832 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2834 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2836 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2839 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2841 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2842 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2843 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2845 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2847 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2848 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2850 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2852 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2853 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2856 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2858 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2859 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2860 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2861 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2863 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2864 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2865 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2866 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2868 =item Reference is already weak
2870 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2871 Doing so has no effect.
2873 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2875 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2876 a reference count of other than 1.
2878 =item Reference to nonexistent group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2880 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2881 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2882 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2883 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2885 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2888 =item regexp memory corruption
2890 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2891 expression compiler gave it.
2893 =item Regexp out of space
2895 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2898 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2900 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2901 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2903 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2905 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2906 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2908 =item Reversed %s= operator
2910 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2911 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2913 =item Runaway format
2915 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2916 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2917 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2918 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2919 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2921 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2923 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2924 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2925 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2926 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2927 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2928 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2929 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2931 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2932 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2933 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2936 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2938 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
2939 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2940 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2941 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2942 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2943 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2944 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2946 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2947 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2948 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2951 =item Scalars leaked: %d
2953 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
2954 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
2955 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
2956 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
2958 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2960 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2961 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2963 =item Search pattern not terminated
2965 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2966 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2967 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2969 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
2971 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2972 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2974 =item select not implemented
2976 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2978 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
2980 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
2981 the current implementation.
2983 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2985 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2986 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2988 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2990 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2991 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
2993 =item sem%s not implemented
2995 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2997 =item send() on closed socket %s
2999 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3000 before now. Check your control flow.
3002 =item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3004 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
3005 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3008 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in %s
3010 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3011 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
3013 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in %s
3015 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3016 has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3017 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3019 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in %s
3021 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
3022 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3023 where the problem was discovered.
3026 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
3028 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3029 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
3031 =item 500 Server error
3037 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3038 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3039 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3040 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3041 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3042 produce a valid header".
3044 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3046 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3047 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3048 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3049 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3050 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3051 Please see the following for more information:
3053 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3054 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
3055 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3056 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3057 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
3059 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3061 =item setegid() not implemented
3063 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3064 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3067 =item seteuid() not implemented
3069 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3070 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3073 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3075 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3076 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3079 =item setrgid() not implemented
3081 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3082 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3085 =item setruid() not implemented
3087 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3088 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3091 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3093 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3094 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3095 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3097 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3099 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3100 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3102 =item shm%s not implemented
3104 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3106 =item <> should be quotes
3108 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3111 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3113 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3114 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3115 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3116 probably not what you had in mind.
3118 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3120 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3123 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3125 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3126 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3128 =item sort is now a reserved word
3130 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3131 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3133 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3135 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3136 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3137 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3139 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3141 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3142 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3146 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3147 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3148 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3150 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3152 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3153 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3154 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3155 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3158 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3160 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3161 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3163 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3165 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3166 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3167 C<can> may break this.
3169 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3171 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3175 eval "sub name { ... }";
3178 =item Substitution loop
3180 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3181 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3182 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3183 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3185 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3187 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3188 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3189 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3191 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3193 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3194 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3195 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3197 =item substr outside of string
3199 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3200 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3201 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3202 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3203 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3205 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3207 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3208 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3210 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HE%s
3212 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3213 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3214 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3215 clustering parentheses:
3217 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3219 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3220 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3222 =item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3224 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3225 number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
3226 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3228 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3230 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3231 and effective uids or gids.
3235 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3237 A keyword is misspelled.
3238 A semicolon is missing.
3240 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3241 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3242 A closing quote is missing.
3244 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3245 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3246 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3247 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3248 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3249 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3250 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3251 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3252 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3255 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3257 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3258 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3263 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3265 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3267 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3268 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3269 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3270 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3272 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3274 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3275 before now. Check your control flow.
3277 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3279 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3280 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3282 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3284 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3285 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3287 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3289 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3290 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3299 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3300 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3302 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3304 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3305 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3306 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3307 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3310 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3312 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3313 to the probings of Configure.
3315 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3317 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3318 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3319 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3322 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3324 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3326 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3327 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3328 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3329 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3330 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3331 target of the change to
3332 %ENV which produced the warning.
3334 =item times not implemented
3336 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3337 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3339 =item Too few args to syscall
3341 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3342 system call to call, silly dilly.
3344 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3346 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3347 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3348 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3349 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3352 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3353 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3354 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3355 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3357 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3358 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3360 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3362 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3363 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3364 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3366 =item Too late to run %s block
3368 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3369 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3370 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3371 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3374 =item Too many args to syscall
3376 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3378 =item Too many arguments for %s
3380 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3384 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3385 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3389 =item trailing \ in regexp
3391 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3392 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3394 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3396 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3397 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3398 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3400 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3402 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3405 =item truncate not implemented
3407 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3408 Configure knows about.
3410 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3412 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3413 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3414 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3415 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3417 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3419 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3420 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3422 =item umask not implemented
3424 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3425 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3427 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3429 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3431 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3433 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3434 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3436 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3438 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3439 many values were temporarily localized.
3441 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3443 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3444 many blocks were entered and left.
3446 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3448 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3449 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3451 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3453 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3454 another package? See L<perlform>.
3456 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3458 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3459 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3461 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3463 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3464 since been undefined.
3466 =item Undefined subroutine called
3468 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3469 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3471 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3473 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3474 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3476 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3478 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3479 another package? See L<perlform>.
3481 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3483 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3484 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3487 =item %s: Undefined variable
3489 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3490 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3492 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3494 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3495 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3498 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3500 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3503 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3505 (F) The condition of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct is not
3506 known. The condition may be lookaround (the condition is true if the
3507 lookaround is true), a (?{...}) construct (the condition is true if the
3508 code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the condition is true if the
3509 set of capturing parentheses named by the number is defined).
3511 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3512 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3514 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3516 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3517 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3518 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3520 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3522 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3523 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3524 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3525 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3527 =item unmatched [ before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3529 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3530 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3531 first. See L<perlre>. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3532 where the escape was discovered.
3534 =item unmatched ( in regexp before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3536 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3537 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3538 matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3540 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3542 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3543 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3544 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3545 you were last editing.
3547 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3549 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3550 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3551 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3554 =item Unrecognized character %s
3556 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3557 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3558 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3560 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3562 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3563 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3564 understood literally.
3566 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through before << HERE in m/%s/
3568 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3569 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3570 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3571 literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the escape
3575 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3577 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3580 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3582 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3583 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3586 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3588 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3589 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3590 bad switch on your behalf.)
3592 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3594 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3595 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3596 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3598 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3600 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3602 =item Unsupported function %s
3604 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3605 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3607 =item Unsupported function fork
3609 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3611 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3612 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3613 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3615 =item Unsupported script encoding
3617 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3618 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3620 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3622 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3623 least that's what Configure thought.
3625 =item Unterminated attribute list
3627 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3628 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3629 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3630 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3632 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3634 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3635 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3636 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3637 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3639 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3641 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3642 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3643 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3645 =item Unterminated <> operator
3647 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3648 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3649 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3650 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3652 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3654 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3655 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3657 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3659 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3660 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3661 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3662 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3663 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3664 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3669 when you meant to say
3671 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3673 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3674 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3679 when you should have said
3683 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3684 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3685 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3686 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3687 L<perlref> for more on this.
3689 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
3690 since they are often used in statements like
3692 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
3694 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
3697 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3699 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3701 =item Useless use of %s with no values
3703 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
3704 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
3705 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
3706 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
3707 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
3708 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
3710 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3712 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3713 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3715 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3717 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3718 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3720 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3722 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3723 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3724 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3726 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3728 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3729 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3730 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3731 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3734 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3735 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3736 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3737 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3740 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3741 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3742 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3743 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3746 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3747 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3748 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3750 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3752 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3753 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3755 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3757 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3758 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3759 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3760 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3762 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3764 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3765 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3766 old way has bad side effects.
3768 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3770 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3771 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3773 =item Use of reference "%s" in array index
3775 (W) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
3776 isn't what you mean, because references tend to be huge numbers which
3777 take you out of memory, and so usually indicates programmer error.
3779 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
3782 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3784 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3785 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3786 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3787 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3788 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3789 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3791 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3793 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3794 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3795 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3797 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3798 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3799 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3800 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3801 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3802 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3805 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3807 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3808 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3809 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3810 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3811 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3812 C<defined> operator.
3814 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3816 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3817 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3818 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3821 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3823 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3824 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3825 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3826 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3827 front of your variable.
3829 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3831 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3832 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3833 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3834 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3835 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3837 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3839 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3840 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3841 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3842 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3844 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3846 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3847 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3848 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3849 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3850 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3851 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3853 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3854 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3855 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3856 between interferes with this feature.
3858 =item Variable syntax
3860 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3861 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3864 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3866 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
3867 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3869 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3870 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
3871 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
3872 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
3873 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
3874 variable will no longer be shared.
3876 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3877 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3878 will I<never> share the given variable.
3880 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3881 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3882 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
3883 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
3885 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented before << HERE in %s
3887 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
3888 known at compile time. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3889 the problem was discovered.
3891 =item Version number must be a constant number
3893 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3894 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3897 =item Warning: something's wrong
3899 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3900 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3902 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3904 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
3905 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
3908 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3910 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
3911 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
3912 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
3913 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3917 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3921 but in actual fact, you got
3925 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3927 =item Wide character in %s
3929 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting one.
3931 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3933 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3934 before now. Check your control flow.
3936 =item X outside of string
3938 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3939 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3941 =item x outside of string
3943 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3944 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3946 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3948 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3951 =item Xsub called in sort
3953 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3956 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3958 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3959 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3960 Use a filename instead.
3962 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3964 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3965 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3966 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
3967 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3969 =item You need to quote "%s"
3971 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
3972 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
3973 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
3974 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
3975 what you want, put an & in front.)