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 declare 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]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
141 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
143 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
149 or a hash or array slice, such as:
151 @foo[$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 C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
188 greater than or equal to zero.
190 =item Attempt to access to key '%_' in fixed hash
192 (F) A hash has been marked as READONLY at the C level to turn it
193 into a "record" with a fixed set of keys. The failing code
194 has attempted to get or set the value of a key which does not
195 exist or to delete a key.
197 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
199 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
200 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
201 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
207 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
209 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
210 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
213 bless $self, "$proto";
215 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
217 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
218 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
219 outside any of those arenas.
221 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
223 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
224 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
225 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
226 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
228 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
230 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
231 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
232 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
233 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
236 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
238 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
240 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
242 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
243 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
244 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
245 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
246 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
247 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
250 =item Attempt to join self
252 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
253 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
254 to move the join() to some other thread.
256 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
258 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
259 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
260 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
261 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
262 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
265 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
267 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
268 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
269 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
271 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
273 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
274 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
275 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
276 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
278 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
280 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
281 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
282 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
284 =item Bad filehandle: %s
286 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
287 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
288 open(), or did it in another package.
290 =item Bad free() ignored
292 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
293 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
294 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
296 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
297 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
298 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
302 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
304 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
306 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
307 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
310 =item Badly placed ()'s
312 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
313 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
316 =item Bad name after %s::
318 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
319 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
328 $sym = "mypack::$var";
330 =item Bad realloc() ignored
332 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
333 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
334 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
336 =item Bad symbol for array
338 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
339 wasn't a symbol table entry.
341 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
343 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
344 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
346 =item Bad symbol for hash
348 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
349 wasn't a symbol table entry.
351 =item Bareword found in conditional
353 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
354 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
355 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
359 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
362 use constant TYPO => 1;
363 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
365 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
367 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
369 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
370 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
371 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
373 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
375 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
376 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
377 you need to predeclare a package?
379 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
381 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
382 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
385 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
387 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
388 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
389 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
390 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
391 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
393 =item \1 better written as $1
395 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
396 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
397 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
398 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
399 there are more than 9 backreferences.
401 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
403 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
404 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
405 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
407 =item bind() on closed socket %s
409 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
410 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
412 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
414 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
415 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
417 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
419 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
421 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
423 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
426 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
428 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
429 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
431 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
433 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
434 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
435 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
437 =item Callback called exit
439 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
440 exited by calling exit.
442 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
444 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
445 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
446 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
447 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
448 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
449 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
450 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
451 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
453 =item / cannot take a count
455 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
456 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
459 =item Can't bless non-reference value
461 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
462 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
464 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
466 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
467 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
468 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
470 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
472 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
473 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
474 like this will reproduce the error:
477 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
478 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
480 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
482 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
483 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
484 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
485 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
487 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
489 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
490 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
491 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
492 Something like this will reproduce the error:
495 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
496 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
498 =item Can't chdir to %s
500 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
501 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
503 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
505 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
508 =item Can't coerce array into hash
510 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
511 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
512 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
514 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
516 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
517 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
527 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
529 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
531 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
532 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
534 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
536 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
537 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
539 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
541 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
542 quotas or other plumbing problems.
544 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
546 (S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
547 qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
548 for other types of variables in future.
550 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
552 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
553 "our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
555 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
557 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
558 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
560 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
562 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
565 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
567 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
568 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
569 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
571 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
573 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
574 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
575 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
577 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
579 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
580 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
581 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
583 =item Can't do setegid!
585 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
588 =item Can't do seteuid!
590 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
592 =item Can't do setuid
594 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
595 setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
596 sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
597 the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
598 file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
599 sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
601 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
603 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
604 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
606 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
608 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
609 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
612 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
614 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
615 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
616 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
617 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
618 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
619 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
624 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
625 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
626 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
628 =item Can't execute %s
630 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
631 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
633 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
635 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
636 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
638 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
640 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
641 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
642 (remember that the names of character properties consist only of
643 alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
645 =item Can't find label %s
647 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
648 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
650 =item Can't find %s on PATH
652 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
655 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
657 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
658 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
659 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
661 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
663 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
664 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
665 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
667 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
669 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
670 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
671 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
673 =item Can't find %s property definition %s
675 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
676 example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
677 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
682 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
685 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
687 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
688 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
689 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
690 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
691 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
692 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
693 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
694 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
695 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
696 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
697 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
698 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
699 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
700 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
701 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
703 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
705 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
706 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
708 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
710 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
711 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
713 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
715 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
716 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
718 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
720 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
721 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
722 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
723 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
725 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
727 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
728 "string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
729 probably don't want to.)
731 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
733 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
734 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
735 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
736 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
738 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
740 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
741 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
742 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
743 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
744 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
745 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
747 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
749 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
750 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
751 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
752 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
753 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
754 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
757 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
759 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
760 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
761 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
764 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
766 (F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
767 reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
768 can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
769 directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
771 =item Can't localize through a reference
773 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
774 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
775 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
776 that $ref will still be a reference.
778 =item Can't locate %s
780 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
781 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
782 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
783 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
784 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
785 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
786 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
788 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
790 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
791 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
792 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
793 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
795 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
797 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
798 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
799 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
801 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
803 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
804 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
805 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
807 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
809 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
810 doesn't seem to exist.
812 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
814 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
817 =item Can't modify %s in %s
819 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
820 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
822 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
824 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
827 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
829 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
830 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
832 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
834 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
837 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
839 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
840 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
841 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
842 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
843 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
844 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
846 =item Can't open %s: %s
848 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
849 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
850 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
851 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
854 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
856 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
857 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
858 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
859 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
861 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
863 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
864 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
865 the command line for writing.
867 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
869 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
870 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
871 command line for reading.
873 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
875 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
876 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
877 the command line for writing.
879 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
881 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
882 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
885 =item Can't open perl script%s: %s
887 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
889 =item Can't read CRTL environ
891 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
892 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
893 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
894 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
897 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
899 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
900 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
901 it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
902 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
904 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
906 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
907 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
908 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
909 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
910 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
911 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
913 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
915 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
916 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
917 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
919 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
921 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
922 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
924 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
926 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
927 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
929 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
931 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
932 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
933 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
935 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
937 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
940 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
942 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
943 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
946 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
948 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
949 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
950 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
951 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
954 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
956 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
957 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
959 =item Can't stat script "%s"
961 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
962 open already. Bizarre.
964 =item Can't swap uid and euid
966 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
969 =item Can't take log of %g
971 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
972 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
973 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
976 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
978 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
979 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
980 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
982 =item Can't undef active subroutine
984 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
985 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
986 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
990 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
991 as the main Perl stack.
993 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
995 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
996 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
997 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
998 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1000 =item Can't upgrade to undef
1002 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
1003 upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
1006 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1008 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1009 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1011 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1013 (P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1014 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1015 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1017 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1019 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1020 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1022 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1024 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1025 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1026 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1028 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1030 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1033 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
1035 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1036 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1037 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1038 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1041 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1043 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1044 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1045 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1046 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1049 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1051 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1052 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1053 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1055 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1057 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1058 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1060 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1062 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1063 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1064 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1066 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1068 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1069 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1070 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1071 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1072 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1075 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1077 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1078 references can be weakened.
1080 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1082 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1083 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1084 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1086 =item Character in "C" format wrapped
1092 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1093 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1094 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1098 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1101 =item Character in "c" format wrapped
1107 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1108 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1109 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1111 pack("c", $x & 255);
1113 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1116 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1118 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1120 =item %s: Command not found
1122 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1123 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1125 =item Compilation failed in require
1127 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1128 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1129 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1131 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1133 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1134 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1135 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1136 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1137 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1138 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1139 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1140 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1141 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1143 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1145 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1146 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1147 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1149 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1151 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1152 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1153 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1154 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1157 =item Constant is not %s reference
1159 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1160 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1161 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1162 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1163 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1165 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1167 (S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1168 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1169 commentary and workarounds.
1171 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1173 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1174 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1177 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1179 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1180 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1182 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1184 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1186 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1188 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1189 expression compiler gave it.
1191 =item corrupted regexp program
1193 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1196 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1198 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1200 =item C<-p> destination: %s
1202 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1203 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1204 redirected it with select().)
1206 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1208 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1209 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1211 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1213 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1214 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1215 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1216 which case it indicates something else.
1218 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1220 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1221 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1222 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1224 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1226 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1227 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1228 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1230 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1232 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1233 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1234 that triggers this error.
1236 =item Did not produce a valid header
1240 =item %s did not return a true value
1242 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1243 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1244 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1245 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1247 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1249 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1252 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1254 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1255 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1258 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1260 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1261 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1266 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1267 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1269 =item Document contains no data
1273 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1275 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1277 =item do_study: out of memory
1279 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1281 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1283 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1284 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1285 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1286 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1287 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1288 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1289 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1290 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1292 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1294 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1297 =item elseif should be elsif
1299 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1300 Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1301 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1302 unlikely to be what you want.
1306 (F) Empty C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>.
1308 =item entering effective %s failed
1310 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1311 effective uids or gids failed.
1313 =item Error converting file specification %s
1315 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1316 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1317 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1318 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1319 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1321 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1323 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1324 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1325 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1327 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1329 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1330 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1331 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1332 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1333 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1334 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1336 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1338 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1339 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1340 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1342 =item Excessively long <> operator
1344 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1345 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1346 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1347 variable and glob that.
1349 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1351 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1353 =item Exiting eval via %s
1355 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1356 goto, or a loop control statement.
1358 =item Exiting format via %s
1360 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1361 goto, or a loop control statement.
1363 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1365 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1366 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1367 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1369 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1371 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1372 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1374 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1376 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1377 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1379 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1381 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1382 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1383 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1384 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1386 =item %s: Expression syntax
1388 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1389 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1391 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1393 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1394 END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1395 routines has been prematurely ended.
1397 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1399 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1400 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1401 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1402 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1403 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1405 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1407 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1408 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1409 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1410 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1412 =item fcntl is not implemented
1414 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1415 PDP-11 or something?
1417 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1419 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1420 to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1421 or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1422 the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1424 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1426 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1427 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1428 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1429 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1431 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1433 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1434 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1435 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1438 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1440 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1441 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1442 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1445 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1447 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1448 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1449 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1452 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex;
1454 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1456 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1457 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
1458 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1460 =item Format not terminated
1462 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1463 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1465 =item Format %s redefined
1467 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1471 eval "format NAME =...";
1474 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1484 (or something like that).
1486 =item %s found where operator expected
1488 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1489 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1490 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1491 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1493 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1495 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1497 =item gethostent not implemented
1499 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1500 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1503 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1505 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1506 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1508 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1510 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1511 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1513 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1515 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1516 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1517 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1519 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1521 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1522 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1523 "our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1526 =item glob failed (%s)
1528 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1529 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1530 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1531 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1532 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1533 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1534 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1535 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1536 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1537 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1538 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1540 =item Glob not terminated
1542 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1543 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1544 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1545 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1547 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1549 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1550 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1552 =item goto must have label
1554 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1555 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1557 =item %s had compilation errors
1559 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1561 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1563 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1564 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1565 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1567 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1569 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1570 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1572 =item %s has too many errors
1574 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1575 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1577 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1579 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1580 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1581 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1583 =item Identifier too long
1585 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1586 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1587 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1588 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1590 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1592 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1594 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1596 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1597 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1600 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1602 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1603 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1604 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1605 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1606 to your Perl administrator.
1608 =item Illegal division by zero
1610 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1611 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1614 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1616 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1617 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1618 number stopped before the illegal character.
1620 =item Illegal modulus zero
1622 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1623 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1625 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1627 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1628 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1630 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1632 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1634 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1636 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1637 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1639 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1641 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1642 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmtw]>.
1644 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1646 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1647 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1648 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1650 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1652 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1653 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1654 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1657 =item (in cleanup) %s
1659 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1660 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1661 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1662 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1663 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1665 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1666 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1668 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1670 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1671 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1672 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1673 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1674 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1675 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1676 L<perlsec> for more information.
1678 =item Insecure directory in %s
1680 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1681 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1682 the world. See L<perlsec>.
1684 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1686 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1687 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1688 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1689 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1690 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1692 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1694 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1695 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1696 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1697 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1698 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1699 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1700 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1701 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1704 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1706 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1707 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1710 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1712 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1713 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1714 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1715 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1716 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1717 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1719 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1721 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1722 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1725 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
1727 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1728 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1729 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1730 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1732 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1734 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1735 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1737 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1739 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1740 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1742 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1744 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1745 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1747 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1749 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1750 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1751 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1752 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1753 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1755 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1757 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1758 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1760 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1762 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1763 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1764 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1767 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1769 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1770 (W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1773 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1775 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1777 (W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1780 =item ioctl is not implemented
1782 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1783 strange for a machine that supports C.
1785 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
1787 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1788 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1790 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1792 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1793 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1795 =item `%s' is not a code reference
1797 (W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1798 to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1801 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1803 (W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1805 =item junk on end of regexp
1807 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1809 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1811 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1812 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1815 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1817 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1818 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1821 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1823 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1824 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1827 =item leaving effective %s failed
1829 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1830 effective uids or gids failed.
1832 =item listen() on closed socket %s
1834 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1835 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1838 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
1840 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1841 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1842 instead on the filehandle.)
1844 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1846 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1847 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1848 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1850 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex;
1852 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1854 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1855 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
1856 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1858 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1860 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1867 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1868 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1869 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1870 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1872 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
1874 (F) You declared or tried to use a function with a malformed
1875 prototype. The syntax of function prototypes is given a brief
1876 compile-time check for obvious errors like invalid characters. A more
1877 rigorous check is run when the function is called.
1879 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1881 Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1883 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1885 Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1886 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1888 =item %s matches null string many times in regex;
1890 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1892 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1893 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
1894 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1897 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
1899 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
1900 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
1903 =item % may only be used in unpack
1905 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1906 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1907 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1909 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1911 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1912 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1914 =item Method %s not permitted
1918 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1920 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1921 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1922 ended earlier on the current line.
1924 =item Misplaced _ in number
1926 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
1927 separate two digits.
1929 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1931 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1932 double-quotish context.
1934 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1936 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1937 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1939 =item Missing command in piped open
1941 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1942 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1945 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1947 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1948 they have a name with which they can be found.
1950 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1952 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1953 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1954 can vary from one line to the next.
1956 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
1958 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1959 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1961 =item Missing right brace on %s
1963 (F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
1965 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1967 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1968 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1971 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1973 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1974 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1975 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1977 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1979 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1980 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1981 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1983 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1986 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1988 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1989 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1992 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1993 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1996 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1998 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1999 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2002 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2004 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2005 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2007 =item Module name must be constant
2009 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2011 =item Module name required with -%c option
2013 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2014 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2015 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2017 =item msg%s not implemented
2019 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2021 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2023 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2024 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2026 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
2028 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
2029 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
2030 or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2032 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
2034 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
2035 must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
2036 of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2038 =item / must follow a numeric type
2040 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
2041 follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2043 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2045 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2048 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2050 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2051 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2052 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2054 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2056 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2057 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2058 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2059 provided for this purpose.
2061 =item Negative length
2063 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2064 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2066 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2068 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2069 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2070 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2072 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2073 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2075 =item %s never introduced
2077 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2078 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2080 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2082 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2083 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2084 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2085 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2087 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2089 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2091 =item No comma allowed after %s
2093 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2094 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2095 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2097 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2098 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2099 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2100 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2101 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2102 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2103 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2104 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2105 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2106 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2107 this error was triggered?
2109 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2111 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2112 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2113 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2115 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2117 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2118 for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2119 define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2120 is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2121 should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2123 =item No dbm on this machine
2125 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2126 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2128 =item No DBsub routine
2130 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2131 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2132 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2133 ordinary subroutine call.
2135 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2137 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2138 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2139 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2141 =item No input file after < on command line
2143 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2144 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2145 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2149 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2150 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2152 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2154 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2155 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2157 =item No output file after > on command line
2159 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2160 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2161 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2163 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2165 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2166 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2167 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2169 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2171 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2172 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2173 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2175 =item No Perl script found in input
2177 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2178 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2180 =item No setregid available
2182 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2185 =item No setreuid available
2187 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2190 =item No space allowed after -%c
2192 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2193 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2195 =item No %s specified for -%c
2197 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2198 you haven't specified one.
2200 =item No such pipe open
2202 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2203 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2204 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2206 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2208 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2209 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2210 array indices for that to work.
2212 =item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2214 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2215 not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2216 %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2217 %usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2219 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2221 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2222 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2223 names on your system.
2225 =item Not a CODE reference
2227 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2228 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2229 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2232 =item Not a format reference
2234 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2235 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2237 =item Not a GLOB reference
2239 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2240 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2241 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2242 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2244 =item Not a HASH reference
2246 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2247 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2248 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2250 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2252 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2253 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2254 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2256 =item Not a perl script
2258 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2259 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2262 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2264 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2265 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2266 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2268 =item Not a subroutine reference
2270 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2271 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2272 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2275 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2277 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2278 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2280 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2282 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2284 =item Not enough format arguments
2286 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2287 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2291 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2292 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2295 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2297 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2298 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2299 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2300 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2301 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2303 =item Null filename used
2305 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2306 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2308 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2310 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2313 =item Null picture in formline
2315 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2316 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2317 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2321 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2323 =item NULL regexp argument
2325 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2327 =item NULL regexp parameter
2329 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2331 =item Number too long
2333 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2334 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2335 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2336 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2339 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
2341 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2342 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2345 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2347 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2348 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2349 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2351 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2353 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2355 (W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2356 The arguments should come in pairs.
2358 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2360 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2361 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2363 =item Offset outside string
2365 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2366 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2367 exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2368 the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2370 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2372 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2373 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2375 =item %s() on unopened %s
2377 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2378 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2379 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2383 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2387 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2389 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2391 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2392 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2393 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2394 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2396 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2398 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2399 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2400 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2401 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2404 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
2406 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2407 in the current lexical scope.
2409 =item Out of memory!
2411 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2412 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2413 no option but to exit immediately.
2415 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2417 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2418 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2419 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2420 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2422 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2424 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2425 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2428 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2429 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2430 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2431 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2432 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2433 where the failed request happened.
2435 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2437 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2438 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2439 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2441 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2443 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2444 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2447 =item @ outside of string
2449 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2450 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2452 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2454 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2455 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2456 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2457 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2459 =item Package '%s' not found (did you use the incorrect case?)
2461 (W misc) You included a package file via C<use>, but the package name
2462 did not match the file name. It's possible that you misspelled the
2467 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2468 page. See L<perlform>.
2472 (P) An internal error.
2474 =item panic: ck_grep
2476 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2478 =item panic: ck_split
2480 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2482 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2484 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2485 there are in the savestack.
2487 =item panic: del_backref
2489 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2494 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2495 it wasn't an eval context.
2497 =item panic: pp_match
2499 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2502 =item panic: do_subst
2504 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2507 =item panic: do_trans_%s
2509 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2514 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2518 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2519 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2521 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2523 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2525 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2527 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2529 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2531 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2535 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2536 it wasn't a block context.
2538 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2540 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2543 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2545 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2546 invalid enum on the top of it.
2548 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2550 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2551 references to an object.
2555 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2557 =item panic: mapstart
2559 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2561 =item panic: null array
2563 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2565 =item panic: pad_alloc
2567 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2568 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2570 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2572 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2573 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2575 =item panic: pad_free po
2577 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2579 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2581 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2582 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2584 =item panic: pad_sv po
2586 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2588 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2590 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2591 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2593 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2595 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2597 =item panic: pp_iter
2599 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2601 =item panic: pp_split
2603 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2605 =item panic: realloc
2607 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2609 =item panic: restartop
2611 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2612 didn't supply the destination.
2616 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2617 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2619 =item panic: scan_num
2621 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2623 =item panic: sv_insert
2625 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2628 =item panic: top_env
2630 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2634 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2636 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2638 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2639 to even) byte length.
2641 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2643 (W parenthesis) You said something like
2649 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2651 Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2653 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2655 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2656 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2657 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2659 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2661 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2662 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2664 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2666 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2668 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2669 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2672 are supported and installed on your system.
2673 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2675 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2676 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2677 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2678 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2679 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2680 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2681 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2682 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2683 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2684 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2686 =item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2688 (S) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you forgot
2689 the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2690 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2691 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2692 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2693 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2695 =item perlio: invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2697 (S) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2698 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2699 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2700 list was terminated too soon.
2702 =item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2704 (S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2705 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2706 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2707 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2708 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2709 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2711 =item Permission denied
2713 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2715 =item pid %x not a child
2717 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2718 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2719 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2721 =item P must have an explicit size
2723 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
2725 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex;
2727 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2729 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2730 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
2731 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
2732 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
2733 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
2734 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2736 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2738 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2740 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2741 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
2742 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2743 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2744 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
2745 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2747 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2749 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2751 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2752 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
2753 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
2754 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
2755 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2756 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2758 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex;
2760 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2762 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
2763 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2766 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2768 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2769 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2771 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2773 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2774 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2775 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2776 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2778 You probably wrote something like this:
2785 when you should have written this:
2792 If you really want comments, build your list the
2793 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2797 'b', # another comment
2800 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2802 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2803 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2804 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2807 You probably wrote something like this:
2811 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2812 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2816 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2818 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2819 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2820 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2821 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2823 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
2825 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
2826 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
2827 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
2828 to the array you apparently lost track of.
2830 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2832 (W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2833 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2835 =item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2837 (D deprecated) You have written something like this:
2841 use attrs qw(locked);
2844 You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2850 The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2851 backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2853 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2855 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
2859 is now misinterpreted as
2863 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2864 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2865 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2868 =item Premature end of script headers
2872 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2874 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2875 before now. Check your control flow.
2877 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
2879 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2880 before now. Check your control flow.
2882 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2884 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2885 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2886 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2887 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2890 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2892 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2893 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2895 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex;
2897 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2899 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2900 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2901 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2903 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression;
2905 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2907 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2908 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2909 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2910 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2911 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2913 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2916 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2918 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2919 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2920 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2921 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2923 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2925 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2926 before now. Check your control flow.
2928 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2930 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2932 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2934 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2937 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2939 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2940 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2941 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2943 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2945 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2946 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2948 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2950 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2951 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2954 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2956 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2957 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2958 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2959 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2961 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2962 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2963 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2964 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2966 =item Reference is already weak
2968 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2969 Doing so has no effect.
2971 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2973 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2974 a reference count of other than 1.
2976 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex;
2978 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2980 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2981 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2982 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2983 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2985 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2988 =item regexp memory corruption
2990 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2991 expression compiler gave it.
2993 =item Regexp out of space
2995 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2998 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
3000 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3001 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3003 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
3005 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3006 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3008 =item Reversed %s= operator
3010 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3011 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3013 =item Runaway format
3015 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3016 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3017 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3018 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3019 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3021 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3023 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3024 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3025 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3026 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3027 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3028 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3029 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3031 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3032 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3033 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3036 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3038 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3039 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3040 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3041 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3042 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3043 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3044 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3046 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3047 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3048 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3051 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3053 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3054 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3055 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3056 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3058 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3060 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3061 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3063 =item Search pattern not terminated
3065 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3066 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3067 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3069 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3071 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3072 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3074 =item select not implemented
3076 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3078 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3080 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3081 the current implementation.
3083 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3085 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3086 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3088 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3090 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3091 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3093 =item sem%s not implemented
3095 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3097 =item send() on closed socket %s
3099 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3100 before now. Check your control flow.
3102 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3104 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3105 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3108 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex;
3110 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3112 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3113 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3114 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3117 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex;
3119 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3121 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3122 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3123 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3125 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex;
3127 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3129 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3130 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3131 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3133 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex;
3135 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3137 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3138 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3139 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3142 =item 500 Server error
3148 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3149 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3150 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3151 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3152 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3153 produce a valid header".
3155 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3157 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3158 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3159 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3160 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3161 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3162 Please see the following for more information:
3164 http://www.cpan.org/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3165 http://www.cpan.org/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
3166 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3167 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3168 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
3170 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3172 =item setegid() not implemented
3174 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3175 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3178 =item seteuid() not implemented
3180 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3181 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3184 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
3186 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3187 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3190 =item setrgid() not implemented
3192 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3193 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3196 =item setruid() not implemented
3198 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3199 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3202 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3204 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3205 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3206 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3208 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3210 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3211 world, because the world might have written on it already.
3213 =item shm%s not implemented
3215 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3217 =item <> should be quotes
3219 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3222 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3224 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3225 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3226 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3227 probably not what you had in mind.
3229 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3231 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3234 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3236 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3237 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3239 =item sort is now a reserved word
3241 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3242 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3244 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3246 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3247 it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3248 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3250 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3252 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3253 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3257 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3258 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3259 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3261 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
3263 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3264 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3265 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3266 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3269 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3271 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3272 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3274 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3276 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3277 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3278 C<can> may break this.
3280 =item Subroutine %s redefined
3282 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3286 eval "sub name { ... }";
3289 =item Substitution loop
3291 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3292 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3293 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3294 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3296 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
3298 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3299 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3300 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3302 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
3304 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
3305 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3306 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3308 =item substr outside of string
3310 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3311 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3312 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3313 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3314 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3316 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3318 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3319 a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3321 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex;
3323 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3325 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3326 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3327 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3328 clustering parentheses:
3330 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3332 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3333 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3335 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex;
3337 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3339 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3340 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3341 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3343 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
3345 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3346 and effective uids or gids.
3350 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3352 A keyword is misspelled.
3353 A semicolon is missing.
3355 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3356 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3357 A closing quote is missing.
3359 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3360 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3361 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3362 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3363 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3364 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3365 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3366 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3367 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3370 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3372 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3373 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3376 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
3378 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
3379 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
3380 or "my $var" or "our $var".
3384 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3386 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3388 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3389 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3390 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3391 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3393 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3395 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3396 before now. Check your control flow.
3398 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3400 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3401 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3403 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
3405 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3406 was either never opened or has since been closed.
3408 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
3410 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3411 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3420 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3421 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3423 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3425 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3426 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3427 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3428 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3431 =item The %s function is unimplemented
3433 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3434 to the probings of Configure.
3436 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3438 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3439 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3440 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3443 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3445 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3447 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3448 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3449 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3450 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3451 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3452 target of the change to
3453 %ENV which produced the warning.
3455 =item times not implemented
3457 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3458 suspect you're not running on Unix.
3460 =item Too few args to syscall
3462 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3463 system call to call, silly dilly.
3465 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3467 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3468 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3469 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3470 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3473 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3474 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3475 editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3476 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3478 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3479 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3481 =item Too late for "-%s" option
3483 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3484 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3485 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3487 =item Too late to run %s block
3489 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3490 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3491 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3492 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3495 =item Too many args to syscall
3497 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3499 =item Too many arguments for %s
3501 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3507 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3508 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3510 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
3512 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3513 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3515 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3517 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3518 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3519 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3521 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3523 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3526 =item truncate not implemented
3528 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3529 Configure knows about.
3531 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3533 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3534 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3535 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3536 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3538 =item umask not implemented
3540 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3541 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3543 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3545 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3547 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3549 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3550 many execution contexts were entered and left.
3552 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3554 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3555 many values were temporarily localized.
3557 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3559 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3560 many blocks were entered and left.
3562 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3564 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3565 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3567 =item Undefined format "%s" called
3569 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3570 another package? See L<perlform>.
3572 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3574 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3575 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3577 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3579 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3580 since been undefined.
3582 =item Undefined subroutine called
3584 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3585 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3587 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
3589 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3590 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3592 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
3594 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3595 another package? See L<perlform>.
3597 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3599 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3600 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3603 =item %s: Undefined variable
3605 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3606 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3608 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3610 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3611 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3613 =item Unicode character %s is illegal
3615 (W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
3616 the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
3617 what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
3619 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
3621 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3624 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
3626 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
3628 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex;
3630 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3632 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
3633 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
3634 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
3635 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
3636 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
3639 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3640 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3642 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3644 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3645 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3646 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3648 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3650 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3651 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3652 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3653 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3655 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3657 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3658 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3659 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
3660 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3662 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3664 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3665 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3666 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3667 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3669 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
3671 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3672 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3673 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3674 you were last editing.
3676 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3678 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3679 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3680 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3683 =item Unrecognized character %s
3685 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3686 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3687 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3689 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3691 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3692 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3693 understood literally.
3695 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex;
3697 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3699 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3700 recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3701 a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3702 literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3703 escape was discovered.
3705 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3707 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3710 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3712 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3713 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3716 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3718 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3719 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3720 bad switch on your behalf.)
3722 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3724 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3725 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3726 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3728 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3730 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3732 =item Unsupported function %s
3734 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3735 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3737 =item Unsupported function fork
3739 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3741 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3742 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3743 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3745 =item Unsupported script encoding
3747 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3748 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3750 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3752 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3753 least that's what Configure thought.
3755 =item Unterminated attribute list
3757 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3758 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3759 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3760 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3762 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3764 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3765 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3766 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3767 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3769 =item Unterminated compressed integer
3771 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3772 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3773 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3775 =item Unterminated <> operator
3777 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3778 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3779 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3780 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3782 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3784 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3785 still valid when C<untie> was called.
3787 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex;
3789 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3791 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
3792 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
3794 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
3798 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
3800 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3801 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3803 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex;
3805 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3807 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
3808 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
3810 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
3814 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
3816 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3817 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3819 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3821 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3822 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3823 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3824 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3825 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3826 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3831 when you meant to say
3833 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3835 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3836 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3841 when you should have said
3845 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3846 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3847 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3848 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3849 L<perlref> for more on this.
3851 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
3852 since they are often used in statements like
3854 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
3856 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
3859 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3861 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3863 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
3865 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
3869 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
3871 =item Useless use of %s with no values
3873 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
3874 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
3875 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
3876 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
3877 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
3878 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
3880 =item "use" not allowed in expression
3882 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3883 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3885 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3887 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3888 if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3890 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
3892 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
3893 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
3895 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
3897 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
3898 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
3899 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
3902 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
3903 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
3905 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3907 (D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3908 a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3909 of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3911 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3913 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3914 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3915 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3916 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3919 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3920 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3921 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3922 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3925 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3926 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3927 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3928 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3931 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3932 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3933 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3935 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
3937 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
3938 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
3939 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
3942 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3944 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3945 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3947 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3949 (D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3950 matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3951 to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3952 that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3954 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3956 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3957 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3958 old way has bad side effects.
3960 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3962 (D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3963 defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3965 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
3967 (W) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
3968 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
3969 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
3971 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
3972 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
3973 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
3974 operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
3976 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3978 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3979 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3980 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3981 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3982 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3983 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3985 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
3987 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3988 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3989 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3991 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3992 you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3993 program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3994 appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3995 usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3996 the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3999 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4001 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
4002 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4003 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
4004 be removed in a future version.
4006 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4008 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
4009 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4010 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
4011 removed in a future version.
4013 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4015 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4016 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
4017 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4018 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4019 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4020 character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4021 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4023 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
4025 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
4026 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4027 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4028 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4029 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4030 C<defined> operator.
4032 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4034 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4035 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4036 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
4039 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4041 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4042 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4043 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4044 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4045 front of your variable.
4047 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4049 (W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
4050 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4051 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4052 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4053 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4055 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
4057 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
4058 I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
4059 anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
4060 defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
4062 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
4064 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
4065 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
4066 you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
4067 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
4068 value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
4069 call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
4071 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
4072 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
4073 shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
4074 between interferes with this feature.
4076 =item Variable syntax
4078 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4079 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4082 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4084 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4085 lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
4087 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
4088 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4089 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4090 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4091 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4092 variable will no longer be shared.
4094 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
4095 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
4096 will I<never> share the given variable.
4098 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4099 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4100 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
4101 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4103 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex;
4105 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4107 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4108 known at compile time. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4109 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4111 =item Version number must be a constant number
4113 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4114 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4117 =item v-string in use/require is non-portable
4119 (W) The use of v-strings is non-portable to older, pre-5.6, Perls.
4120 If you want your scripts to be backward portable, use the floating
4121 point version number: for example, instead of C<use 5.6.1> say
4122 C<use 5.006_001>. This of course won't help: the older Perls
4123 won't suddenly start understanding newer features, but at least
4124 they will show a sensible error message indicating the required
4127 =item Warning: something's wrong
4129 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4130 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4132 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4134 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4135 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4138 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4140 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4141 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4142 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4143 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4147 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4151 but in actual fact, you got
4155 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4157 =item Wide character in %s
4159 (W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting one.
4161 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
4163 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4164 before now. Check your control flow.
4166 =item X outside of string
4168 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
4169 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4171 =item x outside of string
4173 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4174 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4176 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
4178 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4181 =item Xsub called in sort
4183 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4186 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
4188 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4189 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4190 Use a filename instead.
4192 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4194 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
4195 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
4196 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
4199 =item You need to quote "%s"
4201 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4202 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4203 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4204 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4205 what you want, put an & in front.)