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 outside a subroutine
934 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
935 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
937 =item Can't stat script "%s"
939 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
940 open already. Bizarre.
942 =item Can't swap uid and euid
944 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
947 =item Can't take log of %g
949 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
950 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
951 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
954 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
956 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
957 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
958 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
960 =item Can't undef active subroutine
962 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
963 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
964 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
968 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
969 as the main Perl stack.
971 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
973 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
974 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
975 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
976 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
978 =item Can't upgrade to undef
980 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
981 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
984 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
986 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
987 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
989 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
991 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
992 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
994 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
996 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
997 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
998 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1000 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1002 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1005 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1007 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1008 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1009 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1010 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1013 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1015 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1016 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1017 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1018 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1021 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1023 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1024 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1025 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1027 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1029 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1030 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1032 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1034 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1035 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1036 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1038 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1040 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1041 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1042 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1043 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1044 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1047 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1049 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1050 references can be weakened.
1052 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1054 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1055 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1056 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1058 =item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
1060 (W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
1062 chmod 777, $filename
1064 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1065 equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1068 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1070 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1072 =item %s: Command not found
1074 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1075 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1077 =item Compilation failed in require
1079 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1080 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1081 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1083 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1085 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1086 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1087 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1088 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1089 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1090 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1091 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1092 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1093 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1095 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1097 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1098 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1099 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1101 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1103 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1104 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1105 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1106 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1109 =item Constant is not %s reference
1111 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1112 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1113 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1114 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1115 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1117 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1119 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1120 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1121 commentary and workarounds.
1123 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1125 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1126 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1129 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1131 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1132 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1134 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1136 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1138 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1140 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1141 expression compiler gave it.
1143 =item corrupted regexp program
1145 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1148 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1150 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1152 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1154 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1155 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1156 redirected it with select().)
1158 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1160 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1161 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1163 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1165 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1166 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1167 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1168 which case it indicates something else.
1170 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1172 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1173 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1174 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1176 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1178 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1179 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1180 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1182 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1184 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1185 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1186 that triggers this error.
1188 =item Did not produce a valid header
1192 =item %s did not return a true value
1194 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1195 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1196 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1197 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1199 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1201 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1204 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1206 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1207 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1210 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1212 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1213 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1218 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1219 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1221 =item Document contains no data
1225 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1227 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1229 =item do_study: out of memory
1231 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1233 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1235 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1236 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1237 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1238 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1239 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1240 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1241 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1242 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1244 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1246 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1249 =item elseif should be elsif
1251 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1252 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1253 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1254 unlikely to be what you want.
1256 =item entering effective %s failed
1258 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1259 effective uids or gids failed.
1261 =item Error converting file specification %s
1263 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1264 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1265 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1266 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1267 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1269 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1271 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1272 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1273 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1275 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1277 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1278 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1279 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1280 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1281 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1282 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1284 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1286 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1287 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1288 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1290 =item Excessively long <> operator
1292 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1293 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1294 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1295 variable and glob that.
1297 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1299 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1301 =item Exiting eval via %s
1303 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1304 goto, or a loop control statement.
1306 =item Exiting format via %s
1308 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1309 goto, or a loop control statement.
1311 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1313 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1314 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1315 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1317 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1319 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1320 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1322 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1324 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1325 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1327 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1329 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1330 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1331 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1332 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1334 =item %s: Expression syntax
1336 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1337 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1339 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1341 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1342 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1343 routines has been prematurely ended.
1345 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1347 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1348 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1349 "-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1350 quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
1352 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1354 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1355 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1356 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1357 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1359 =item fcntl is not implemented
1361 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1362 PDP-11 or something?
1364 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1366 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1367 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1368 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1369 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1371 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1373 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1374 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1375 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1376 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1378 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1380 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1381 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1382 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1385 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1387 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1388 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1389 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1392 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1394 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1395 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1396 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1399 =item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1401 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1402 meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1403 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1405 =item Format not terminated
1407 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1408 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1410 =item Format %s redefined
1412 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1416 eval "format NAME =...";
1419 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1429 (or something like that).
1431 =item %s found where operator expected
1433 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1434 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1435 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1436 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1438 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1440 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1442 =item gethostent not implemented
1444 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1445 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1448 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1450 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1451 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1453 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1455 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1456 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1458 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1460 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1461 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1462 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1464 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1466 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1467 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1468 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1471 =item glob failed (%s)
1473 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1474 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1475 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1476 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1477 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1478 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1479 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1480 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1481 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1482 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1483 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1485 =item Glob not terminated
1487 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1488 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1489 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1490 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1492 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1494 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1495 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1497 =item goto must have label
1499 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1500 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1502 =item %s had compilation errors
1504 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1506 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1508 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1509 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1510 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1512 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1514 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1515 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1517 =item %s has too many errors
1519 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1520 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1522 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1524 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1525 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1526 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1528 =item Identifier too long
1530 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1531 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1532 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1533 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1535 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1537 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1539 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1541 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1542 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1545 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1547 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1548 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1549 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1550 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1551 to your Perl administrator.
1553 =item Illegal division by zero
1555 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1556 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1559 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1561 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1562 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1563 number stopped before the illegal character.
1565 =item Illegal modulus zero
1567 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1568 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1570 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1572 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1573 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1575 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1577 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1579 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1581 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1582 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1584 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1586 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1587 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1589 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1591 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1592 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1593 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1595 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1597 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1598 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1599 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1602 =item (in cleanup) %s
1604 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1605 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1606 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1607 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1608 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1610 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1611 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1613 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1615 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1616 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1617 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1618 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1619 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1620 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1621 L<perlsec> for more information.
1623 =item Insecure directory in %s
1625 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1626 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1627 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1629 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1631 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1632 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1633 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1634 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1635 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1637 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1639 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1640 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1641 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1642 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1643 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1644 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1645 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1646 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1649 =item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1651 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1652 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1656 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1658 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1659 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1660 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1661 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1662 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1663 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1665 =item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1667 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
1668 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1671 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1673 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1674 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1675 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1676 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1678 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1680 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1681 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1683 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1685 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1686 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1688 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1690 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1691 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1693 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1695 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1696 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1698 =item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1700 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1701 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1703 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1705 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1706 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1707 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1710 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1712 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1713 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1716 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1718 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1720 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1723 =item ioctl is not implemented
1725 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1726 strange for a machine that supports C.
1728 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1730 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1731 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1733 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1735 (W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1736 to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1739 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1741 (W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1743 =item junk on end of regexp
1745 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1747 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1749 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1750 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1753 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1755 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1756 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1759 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1761 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1762 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1765 =item leaving effective %s failed
1767 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1768 effective uids or gids failed.
1770 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1772 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1773 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1776 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1778 (W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1779 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1780 instead on the filehandle.)
1782 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1784 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1785 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1786 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1788 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE in reges m/%s/
1790 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1791 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
1792 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1794 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1796 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1804 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1805 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1806 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1807 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1809 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1811 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1813 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1815 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1816 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1818 =item %s matches null string many times
1820 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1821 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1824 =item % may only be used in unpack
1826 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1827 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1828 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1830 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1832 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1833 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1835 =item Method %s not permitted
1839 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1841 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1842 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1843 ended earlier on the current line.
1845 =item Misplaced _ in number
1847 (W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1849 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1851 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1852 double-quotish context.
1854 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1856 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1857 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1859 =item Missing command in piped open
1861 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1862 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1865 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1867 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1868 they have a name with which they can be found.
1870 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1872 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1873 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1874 can vary from one line to the next.
1876 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1878 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1879 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1881 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1883 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1884 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1887 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1889 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1890 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1891 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1893 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1895 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1896 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1897 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1899 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1902 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1904 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1905 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1908 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1909 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1912 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1914 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1915 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1918 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1920 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1921 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1923 =item Module name must be constant
1925 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1927 =item Module name required with -%c option
1929 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1930 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1931 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1933 =item msg%s not implemented
1935 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1937 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1939 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1940 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1942 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1944 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1945 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1946 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1948 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1950 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1951 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1952 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1954 =item / must follow a numeric type
1956 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1957 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1959 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1961 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1964 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1966 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1967 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1968 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
1970 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1972 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1973 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1974 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
1975 provided for this purpose.
1977 =item Negative length
1979 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1980 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1982 =item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
1984 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1985 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
1986 expression about where the problem was discovered.
1988 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
1989 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1992 =item %s never introduced
1994 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
1995 scope before it could possibly have been used.
1997 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1999 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2000 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2001 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2002 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2004 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2006 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2008 =item No comma allowed after %s
2010 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2011 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2012 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2014 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2015 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2016 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2017 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2018 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2019 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2020 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2021 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2022 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2023 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2024 this error was triggered?
2026 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2028 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2029 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2030 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2032 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2034 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2035 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2036 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2037 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2038 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2040 =item No dbm on this machine
2042 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2043 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2045 =item No DBsub routine
2047 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2048 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2049 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2050 ordinary subroutine call.
2052 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2054 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2055 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2056 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2058 =item No input file after < on command line
2060 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2061 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2062 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2066 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2067 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2069 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2071 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2072 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2074 =item No output file after > on command line
2076 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2077 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2078 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2080 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2082 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2083 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2084 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2086 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2088 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2089 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2090 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2092 =item No Perl script found in input
2094 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2095 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2097 =item No setregid available
2099 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2102 =item No setreuid available
2104 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2107 =item No space allowed after -%c
2109 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2110 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2112 =item No %s specified for -%c
2114 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2115 you haven't specified one.
2117 =item No such pipe open
2119 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2120 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2121 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2123 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2125 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2126 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2127 array indices for that to work.
2129 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2131 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2132 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2133 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2134 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2136 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2138 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2139 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2140 names on your system.
2142 =item Not a CODE reference
2144 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2145 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2146 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2149 =item Not a format reference
2151 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2152 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2154 =item Not a GLOB reference
2156 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2157 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2158 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2159 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2161 =item Not a HASH reference
2163 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2164 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2165 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2167 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2169 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2170 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2171 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2173 =item Not a perl script
2175 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2176 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2179 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2181 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2182 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2183 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2185 =item Not a subroutine reference
2187 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2188 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2189 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2192 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2194 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2195 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2197 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2199 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2201 =item Not enough format arguments
2203 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2204 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2208 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2209 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2212 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2214 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2215 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2216 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2217 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2218 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2220 =item Null filename used
2222 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2223 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2225 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2227 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2230 =item Null picture in formline
2232 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2233 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2234 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2238 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2240 =item NULL regexp argument
2242 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2244 =item NULL regexp parameter
2246 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2248 =item Number too long
2250 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2251 about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2252 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2253 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2256 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2258 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2259 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2262 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2264 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2265 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2266 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2268 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2270 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2272 (W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2273 The arguments should come in pairs.
2275 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2277 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2278 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2280 =item Offset outside string
2282 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2283 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2284 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2285 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2287 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2289 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2290 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2292 =item %s() on unopened %s
2294 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2295 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2296 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2300 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2304 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2306 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2308 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2309 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2310 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2311 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2313 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2315 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2316 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2317 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2318 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2321 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2323 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2324 in the current lexical scope.
2326 =item Out of memory!
2328 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2329 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2330 no option but to exit immediately.
2332 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2334 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2335 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2336 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2337 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2339 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2341 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2342 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2345 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2346 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2347 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2348 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2349 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2350 where the failed request happened.
2352 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2354 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2355 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2356 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2358 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2360 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2361 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2364 =item @ outside of string
2366 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2367 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2369 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2371 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2372 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2373 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2374 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2378 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2379 page. See L<perlform>.
2383 (P) An internal error.
2385 =item panic: ck_grep
2387 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2389 =item panic: ck_split
2391 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2393 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2395 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2396 there are in the savestack.
2398 =item panic: del_backref
2400 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2405 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2406 it wasn't an eval context.
2408 =item panic: do_match
2410 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2413 =item panic: do_split
2415 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2417 =item panic: do_subst
2419 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2422 =item panic: do_trans
2424 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational
2429 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2433 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2434 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2436 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2438 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2440 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2442 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2444 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2446 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2450 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2451 it wasn't a block context.
2453 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2455 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2458 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2460 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2461 invalid enum on the top of it.
2463 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2465 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2466 references to an object.
2470 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2472 =item panic: mapstart
2474 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2476 =item panic: null array
2478 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2480 =item panic: pad_alloc
2482 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2483 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2485 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2487 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2488 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2490 =item panic: pad_free po
2492 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2494 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2496 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2497 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2499 =item panic: pad_sv po
2501 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2503 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2505 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2506 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2508 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2510 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2512 =item panic: pp_iter
2514 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2516 =item panic: realloc
2518 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2520 =item panic: restartop
2522 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2523 didn't supply the destination.
2527 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2528 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2530 =item panic: scan_num
2532 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2534 =item panic: sv_insert
2536 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2539 =item panic: top_env
2541 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2545 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2547 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2549 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2550 to even) byte length.
2552 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2554 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2560 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2562 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2564 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2566 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2567 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2568 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2570 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2572 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2573 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2575 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2577 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2579 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2580 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2583 are supported and installed on your system.
2584 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2586 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2587 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2588 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2589 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2590 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2591 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2592 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2593 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2594 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2595 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2597 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2599 (S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2600 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2601 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2602 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2603 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2604 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2606 =item Permission denied
2608 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2610 =item pid %x not a child
2612 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2613 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2614 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2616 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2618 (W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2619 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2620 example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2621 currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2622 extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2624 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2626 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2627 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2628 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2629 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2630 with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2632 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2634 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2635 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2636 extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2637 a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2638 with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2640 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2642 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2645 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2647 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2648 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2650 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2652 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2653 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2654 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2655 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2657 You probably wrote something like this:
2664 when you should have written this:
2671 If you really want comments, build your list the
2672 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2676 'b', # another comment
2679 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2681 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2682 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2683 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2686 You probably wrote something like this:
2690 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2691 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2695 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2697 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2698 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2699 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2700 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2702 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2704 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2705 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2707 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2709 (W deprecated) You have written something like this:
2713 use attrs qw(locked);
2716 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2722 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2723 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2725 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2727 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2731 is now misinterpreted as
2735 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2736 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2737 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2740 =item Premature end of script headers
2744 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2746 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2747 before now. Check your control flow.
2749 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2751 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2752 before now. Check your control flow.
2754 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2756 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2757 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2758 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2759 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2762 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2764 (S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2765 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2767 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2769 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2770 {min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2771 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2773 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2775 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2776 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2777 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2778 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2779 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2781 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2783 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2784 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2785 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2786 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2788 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2790 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2791 before now. Check your control flow.
2793 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2795 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2797 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2799 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2802 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2804 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2805 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2806 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2808 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2810 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2811 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2813 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2815 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2816 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2819 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2821 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2822 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2823 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2824 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2826 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2827 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2828 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2829 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2831 =item Reference is already weak
2833 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2834 Doing so has no effect.
2836 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2838 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2839 a reference count of other than 1.
2841 =item Reference to nonexistent group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
2843 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2844 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2845 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2846 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2848 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2851 =item regexp memory corruption
2853 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2854 expression compiler gave it.
2856 =item Regexp out of space
2858 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2861 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
2863 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2864 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2866 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2868 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2869 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2871 =item Reversed %s= operator
2873 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2874 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2876 =item Runaway format
2878 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2879 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2880 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2881 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2882 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2884 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2886 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2887 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2888 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2889 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2890 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2891 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2892 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2894 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2895 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2896 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2899 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2901 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
2902 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2903 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2904 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2905 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2906 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2907 if you're expecting only one subscript.
2909 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2910 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2911 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2914 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2916 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2917 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2919 =item Search pattern not terminated
2921 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2922 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2923 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2925 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
2927 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2928 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2930 =item select not implemented
2932 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2934 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
2936 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
2937 the current implementation.
2939 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2941 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2942 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2944 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2946 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2947 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
2949 =item sem%s not implemented
2951 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2953 =item send() on closed socket %s
2955 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2956 before now. Check your control flow.
2958 =item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2960 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
2961 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
2964 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex m/%s/
2966 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
2967 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
2969 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2971 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
2972 has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
2973 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2975 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
2977 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2978 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
2979 where the problem was discovered.
2982 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
2984 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2985 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2987 =item 500 Server error
2993 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
2994 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
2995 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
2996 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
2997 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
2998 produce a valid header".
3000 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3002 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3003 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3004 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3005 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3006 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3007 Please see the following for more information:
3009 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3010 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
3011 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3012 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3013 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
3015 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3017 =item setegid() not implemented
3019 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3020 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3023 =item seteuid() not implemented
3025 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3026 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3029 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3031 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3032 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3035 =item setrgid() not implemented
3037 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3038 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3041 =item setruid() not implemented
3043 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3044 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3047 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3049 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3050 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3051 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3053 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3055 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3056 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3058 =item shm%s not implemented
3060 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3062 =item <> should be quotes
3064 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3067 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3069 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3070 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3071 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3072 probably not what you had in mind.
3074 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3076 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3079 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3081 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3082 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3084 =item sort is now a reserved word
3086 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3087 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3089 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3091 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3092 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3093 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3095 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3097 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3098 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3102 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3103 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3104 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3106 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3108 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3109 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3110 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3111 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3114 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3116 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3117 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3119 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3121 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3122 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3123 C<can> may break this.
3125 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3127 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3131 eval "sub name { ... }";
3134 =item Substitution loop
3136 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3137 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3138 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3139 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3141 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3143 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3144 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3145 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3147 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3149 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3150 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3151 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3153 =item substr outside of string
3155 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3156 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3157 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3158 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3159 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3161 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3163 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3164 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3166 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3168 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3169 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3170 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3171 clustering parentheses:
3173 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3175 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3176 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3178 =item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3180 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3181 number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
3182 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3184 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3186 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3187 and effective uids or gids.
3191 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3193 A keyword is misspelled.
3194 A semicolon is missing.
3196 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3197 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3198 A closing quote is missing.
3200 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3201 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3202 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3203 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3204 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3205 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3206 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3207 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3208 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3211 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3213 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3214 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3219 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3221 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3223 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3224 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3225 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3226 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3228 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3230 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3231 before now. Check your control flow.
3233 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3235 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3236 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3238 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3240 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3241 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3243 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3245 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3246 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3255 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3256 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3258 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3260 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3261 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3262 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3263 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3266 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3268 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3269 to the probings of Configure.
3271 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3273 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3274 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3275 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3278 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3280 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3282 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3283 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3284 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3285 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3286 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3287 target of the change to
3288 %ENV which produced the warning.
3290 =item times not implemented
3292 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3293 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3295 =item Too few args to syscall
3297 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3298 system call to call, silly dilly.
3300 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3302 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3303 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3304 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3305 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3308 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3309 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3310 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3311 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3313 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3314 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3316 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3318 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3319 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3320 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3322 =item Too late to run %s block
3324 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3325 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3326 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3327 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3330 =item Too many args to syscall
3332 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3334 =item Too many arguments for %s
3336 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3340 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3341 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3345 =item trailing \ in regexp
3347 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3348 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3350 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3352 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3353 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3354 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3356 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3358 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3361 =item truncate not implemented
3363 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3364 Configure knows about.
3366 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3368 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3369 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3370 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3371 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3373 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3375 (W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
3376 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3378 =item umask not implemented
3380 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3381 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3383 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3385 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3387 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3389 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3390 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3392 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3394 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3395 many values were temporarily localized.
3397 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3399 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3400 many blocks were entered and left.
3402 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3404 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3405 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3407 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3409 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3410 another package? See L<perlform>.
3412 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3414 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3415 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3417 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3419 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3420 since been undefined.
3422 =item Undefined subroutine called
3424 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3425 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3427 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3429 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3430 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3432 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3434 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3435 another package? See L<perlform>.
3437 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3439 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3440 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3443 =item %s: Undefined variable
3445 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3446 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3448 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3450 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3451 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3454 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3456 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3459 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3461 (F) The condition of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct is not
3462 known. The condition may be lookaround (the condition is true if the
3463 lookaround is true), a (?{...}) construct (the condition is true if the
3464 code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the condition is true if the
3465 set of capturing parentheses named by the number is defined).
3467 The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3468 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3470 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3472 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3473 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3474 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3476 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3478 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3479 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3480 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3481 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3483 =item unmatched [ before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3485 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3486 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3487 first. See L<perlre>. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
3488 where the escape was discovered.
3490 =item unmatched ( in regexp before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
3492 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3493 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3494 matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
3496 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3498 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3499 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3500 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3501 you were last editing.
3503 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3505 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3506 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3507 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3510 =item Unrecognized character %s
3512 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3513 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3514 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3516 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3518 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3519 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3520 understood literally.
3522 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through before << HERE in m/%s/
3524 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3525 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3526 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3527 literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the escape
3531 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3533 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3536 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3538 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3539 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3542 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3544 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3545 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3546 bad switch on your behalf.)
3548 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3550 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3551 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3552 PROBABLY because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See
3555 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3557 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3559 =item Unsupported function %s
3561 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3562 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3564 =item Unsupported function fork
3566 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3568 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3569 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3570 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3572 =item Unsupported script encoding
3574 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3575 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3577 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3579 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3580 least that's what Configure thought.
3582 =item Unterminated attribute list
3584 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3585 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3586 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3587 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3589 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3591 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3592 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3593 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3594 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3596 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3598 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3599 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3600 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3602 =item Unterminated <> operator
3604 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3605 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3606 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3607 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3609 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3611 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3612 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3614 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3616 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3617 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3618 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3619 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3620 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3621 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3626 when you meant to say
3628 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3630 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3631 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3636 when you should have said
3640 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3641 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3642 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3643 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3644 L<perlref> for more on this.
3646 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3648 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3650 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3652 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3653 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3655 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3657 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3658 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3660 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3662 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3663 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3664 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3666 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3668 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3669 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3670 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3671 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3674 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3675 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3676 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3677 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3680 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3681 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3682 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3683 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3686 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3687 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3688 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3690 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3692 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3693 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3695 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3697 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3698 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3699 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3700 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3702 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3704 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3705 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3706 old way has bad side effects.
3708 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3710 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3711 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3713 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3715 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3716 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3717 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3718 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3719 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3720 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3722 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3724 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3725 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3726 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3728 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3729 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3730 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3731 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3732 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3733 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3736 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3738 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3739 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3740 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3741 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3742 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3743 C<defined> operator.
3745 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3747 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3748 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3749 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
3752 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3754 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3755 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3756 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3757 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3758 front of your variable.
3760 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3762 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3763 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3764 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3765 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3766 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3768 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3770 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3771 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3772 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3773 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3775 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3777 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3778 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3779 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3780 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
3781 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
3782 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
3784 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
3785 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
3786 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
3787 between interferes with this feature.
3789 =item Variable syntax
3791 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3792 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3795 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3797 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
3798 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3800 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3801 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
3802 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
3803 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
3804 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
3805 variable will no longer be shared.
3807 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3808 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3809 will I<never> share the given variable.
3811 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3812 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3813 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
3814 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
3816 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented before << HERE in regex m/%s/
3818 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
3819 known at compile time. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3820 the problem was discovered.
3822 =item Version number must be a constant number
3824 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
3825 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
3828 =item Warning: something's wrong
3830 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3831 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3833 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3835 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
3836 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
3839 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3841 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
3842 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
3843 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
3844 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3848 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3852 but in actual fact, you got
3856 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3858 =item Wide character in %s
3860 (F) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting one.
3862 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
3864 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3865 before now. Check your control flow.
3867 =item X outside of string
3869 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3870 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3872 =item x outside of string
3874 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3875 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3877 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3879 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3882 =item Xsub called in sort
3884 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
3887 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3889 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
3890 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3891 Use a filename instead.
3893 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3895 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3896 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3897 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in the
3898 eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3900 =item You need to quote "%s"
3902 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
3903 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
3904 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
3905 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
3906 what you want, put an & in front.)