3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%(-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
38 (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement,
39 effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost
40 always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
56 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
59 =item % may only be used in unpack
61 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
62 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
63 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
65 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
67 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
68 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
69 C<'>-delimited regular expression.
71 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
73 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
74 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
75 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
77 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
79 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
84 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
86 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
91 or a hash slice, such as
93 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
94 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
96 =item %s did not return a true value
98 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
99 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
100 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
101 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
103 =item %s found where operator expected
105 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
106 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
107 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
108 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
110 =item %s had compilation errors
112 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
114 =item %s has too many errors
116 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
117 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
119 =item %s matches null string many times
121 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
122 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
124 =item %s never introduced
126 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
127 before it could possibly have been used.
131 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
133 =item %s: Command not found
135 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
136 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
139 =item %s: Expression syntax
141 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
142 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
145 =item %s: Undefined variable
147 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
148 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
153 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
154 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
157 =item (in cleanup) %s
159 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
160 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
161 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
162 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
163 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
166 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
167 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
169 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
171 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
172 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
173 the previous line just because you saw this message.
175 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
177 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
178 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
180 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
182 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
183 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
185 =item C<-p> destination: %s
187 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
188 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
189 redirected it with select().)
191 =item 500 Server error
195 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
197 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
198 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
200 =item @ outside of string
202 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
203 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
205 =item <> should be quotes
207 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
210 =item accept() on closed fd
212 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
213 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
215 =item Allocation too large: %lx
217 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
219 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
221 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and transliteration (tr///)
222 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
223 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
224 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
225 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
226 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
228 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
230 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
232 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
234 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
235 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
236 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
238 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
240 (W) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl keyword,
241 and you have used the name without qualification for calling one or the
242 other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the subroutine is
245 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
246 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
247 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
248 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
250 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
251 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
252 to be an object method (see L<attrs>).
254 =item Args must match #! line
256 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
257 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
258 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
259 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
261 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
263 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
264 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
265 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
267 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
269 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
270 is now heavily deprecated.
272 =item assertion botched: %s
274 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
276 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
278 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
280 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
282 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
283 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
284 know which context to supply to the right side.
286 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
288 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
289 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
292 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
294 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
295 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
296 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
297 that can no longer be found in the table.
299 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
301 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
302 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
303 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
304 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
307 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
309 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
311 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
313 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
314 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
315 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
316 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
317 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
318 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
320 =item Attempt to join self
322 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
323 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
324 need to move the join() to some other thread.
326 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
328 (W) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
329 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
330 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
331 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
332 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
335 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
337 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
338 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
339 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
341 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
343 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
344 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
345 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
346 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
348 =item Bad filehandle: %s
350 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
351 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
352 did it in another package.
354 =item Bad free() ignored
356 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
357 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
358 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
360 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
361 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
362 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
367 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
369 =item Bad index while coercing array into hash
371 (F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
372 pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
375 =item Bad name after %s::
377 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
378 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
387 $sym = "mypack::$var";
389 =item Bad symbol for array
391 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
392 wasn't a symbol table entry.
394 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
396 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
397 wasn't a symbol table entry.
399 =item Bad symbol for hash
401 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
402 wasn't a symbol table entry.
404 =item Badly placed ()'s
406 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
407 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
410 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
412 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
413 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
414 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
416 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
418 (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but
419 the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point.
420 Perhaps you need to predeclare a package?
422 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
424 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
425 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
427 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
429 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
430 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
431 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
432 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
433 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
435 =item bind() on closed fd
437 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
438 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
440 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
442 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
444 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
446 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
447 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
448 so it was truncated to the string shown.
450 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
452 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
453 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
454 so it was truncated to the string shown.
456 =item Callback called exit
458 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
459 exited by calling exit.
461 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
463 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
464 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
465 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
466 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
468 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
470 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a
471 foreach loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
473 =item Can't "last" outside a block
475 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
476 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
477 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
478 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
479 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
480 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
482 =item Can't "next" outside a block
484 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
485 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
486 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
487 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
488 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
490 =item Can't read CRTL environ
492 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
493 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
494 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
495 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
497 =item Can't read CRTL environ
499 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
500 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
501 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
502 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
504 =item Can't read CRTL environ
506 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
507 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
508 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
509 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
511 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
513 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
514 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
515 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
516 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
517 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
519 =item Can't bless non-reference value
521 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
522 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
524 =item Can't break at that line
526 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
527 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
530 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
532 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
533 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
534 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
536 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
538 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
539 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
540 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
541 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
543 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
545 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
546 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
547 a defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
548 Something like this will reproduce the error:
551 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
552 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
554 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
556 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
557 object reference or package name contains an undefined value.
558 Something like this will reproduce the error:
561 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
562 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
564 =item Can't chdir to %s
566 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
567 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
569 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
571 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
573 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
575 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
576 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
586 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
588 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
590 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
591 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
593 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
595 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
596 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
598 =item Can't coerce array into hash
600 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
601 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
602 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
604 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
606 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
607 or other plumbing problems.
609 =item Can't declare %s in my
611 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
612 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
614 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
616 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
618 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
620 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
621 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
624 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
626 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
628 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
630 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
631 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
633 =item Can't do setegid!
635 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
638 =item Can't do seteuid!
640 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
642 =item Can't do setuid
644 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
645 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
646 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
647 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
648 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
649 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
651 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
653 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
654 without flags is emulated.
656 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
658 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
659 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
661 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
663 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
664 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
666 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
668 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
669 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
670 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
671 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
672 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
673 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
677 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
678 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
679 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
681 =item Can't execute %s
683 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute found
684 in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
686 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
688 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
689 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The script
690 exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
692 =item Can't find %s on PATH
694 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
697 =item Can't find label %s
699 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
700 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
702 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
704 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
705 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
706 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
708 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
710 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
711 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good
712 programmer's editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
716 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
718 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
720 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
721 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
722 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
723 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
724 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
725 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
726 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
727 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
728 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
729 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
730 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
731 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
732 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
733 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
735 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
737 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
738 can't retrieve its name for later use.
740 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
742 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
743 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
745 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
747 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
748 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
749 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
752 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
754 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval "string".
755 (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you probably don't want to.)
757 =item Can't localize through a reference
759 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
760 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
761 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
762 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
764 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
766 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
767 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
768 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
771 =item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
773 (F) You said something like C<local $ar-E<gt>{'key'}>, where $ar is
774 a reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but
775 you can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array
776 element directly -- C<local $ar-E<gt>[$ar-E<gt>[0]{'key'}]>.
778 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
780 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows autoload,
781 but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes are a misprint
782 in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit> the file, say, by
783 doing C<make install>.
785 =item Can't locate %s
787 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
788 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
789 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
790 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra
791 library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or
792 maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>
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 Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
803 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
806 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
808 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
810 =item Can't modify %s in %s
812 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
813 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
815 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
817 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
820 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
822 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
825 =item Can't open %s: %s
827 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
828 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
829 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
830 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
833 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
835 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
836 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
837 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
838 and then read it in under a different file handle.
840 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
842 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
843 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
844 command line for writing.
846 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
848 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
849 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
851 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
853 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
854 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
857 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
859 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
860 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
862 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
864 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
866 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
868 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
869 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
870 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
871 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
873 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
875 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
876 you don't have write permission to the directory.
878 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
880 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
881 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
883 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
885 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
888 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
890 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
891 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
893 =item Can't stat script "%s"
895 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
896 it open already. Bizarre.
898 =item Can't swap uid and euid
900 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
903 =item Can't take log of %g
905 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
906 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
907 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for
908 the negative numbers.
910 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
912 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
913 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
914 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
916 =item Can't undef active subroutine
918 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
919 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
920 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
924 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
925 as the main Perl stack.
927 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
929 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
930 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
931 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
932 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
934 =item Can't upgrade to undef
936 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
937 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
938 code calling sv_upgrade.
940 =item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
942 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
943 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
944 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
946 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
948 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
949 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
950 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
951 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
954 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
956 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
957 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
958 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
960 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
962 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
964 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
966 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
967 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
968 test the type of the reference, if need be.
970 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
972 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
973 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
974 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
975 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
976 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
978 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
980 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
981 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
983 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
985 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
986 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
988 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
990 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
991 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
993 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
995 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
996 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
997 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
998 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1001 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1003 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1004 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1005 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1007 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1009 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1010 references can be weakened.
1012 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1014 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
1015 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1016 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1018 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
1020 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but
1021 there is no builtin with the name C<word>.
1023 =item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1025 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1026 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1027 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1029 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1031 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1033 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1035 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1036 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1037 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that the last two constructs
1038 are not currently implemented, they are placeholders for future extensions.
1040 =item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
1042 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
1043 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
1044 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1045 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1046 backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
1048 =item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1050 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
1051 beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions.
1052 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
1053 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
1054 backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
1056 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
1058 (W) A novice will sometimes say
1060 chmod 777, $filename
1062 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
1063 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
1065 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1067 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1069 =item Compilation failed in require
1071 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1072 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
1073 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1075 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1077 (W) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex situations
1078 where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited to 32766,
1079 or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1080 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1081 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1082 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather
1083 than in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular
1084 expression so that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlbook>
1085 for information on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1087 =item connect() on closed fd
1089 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1090 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
1092 =item Constant is not %s reference
1094 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1095 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1096 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1097 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1098 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1100 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1102 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1103 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1106 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1108 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
1109 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1112 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1114 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1116 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1118 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1120 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1122 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1123 expression compiler gave it.
1125 =item corrupted regexp program
1127 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
1128 a valid magic number.
1130 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1132 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
1133 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
1134 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
1135 case it indicates something else.
1137 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1139 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1140 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1141 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1143 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1145 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1146 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1147 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1149 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1151 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
1152 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
1153 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
1155 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
1157 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
1159 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
1161 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
1162 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
1166 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1167 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1169 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
1171 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1172 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1173 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1174 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1175 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
1176 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
1177 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
1178 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
1181 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1183 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1185 =item do_study: out of memory
1187 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1189 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1191 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
1194 =item elseif should be elsif
1196 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1197 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1198 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1199 unlikely to be what you want.
1201 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
1203 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
1204 The interpreter is immediately exited.
1206 =item entering effective %s failed
1208 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1209 effective uids or gids failed.
1211 =item Error converting file specification %s
1213 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1214 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1215 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
1216 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
1217 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1219 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1221 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular expression
1222 that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which is unsafe.
1223 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1225 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1227 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion,
1228 but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'> pragma is
1229 in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1231 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1233 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the C<(?{ ... })>
1234 zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the pattern contains
1235 interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it is not allowed.
1236 If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly building the pattern
1237 from an interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval().
1238 See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1240 =item Excessively long <> operator
1242 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1243 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1244 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1245 variable and glob that.
1247 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1249 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1251 =item Exiting eval via %s
1253 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
1254 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1256 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1258 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
1259 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
1260 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1262 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1264 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1265 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1267 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1269 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1270 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1272 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1274 (W) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1275 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1276 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target
1277 package, e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1279 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1281 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1282 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1283 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1284 the Perl source code is distressed.
1286 =item fcntl is not implemented
1288 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1289 PDP-11 or something?
1291 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1293 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1294 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1295 the FileHandle package.
1297 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1299 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1300 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1301 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1302 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1305 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1307 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1308 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1309 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1310 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1313 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1315 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1316 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1317 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1320 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1322 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1323 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1324 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1327 =item Format %s redefined
1329 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1333 eval "format NAME =...";
1336 =item Format not terminated
1338 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1339 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1341 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1351 (or something like that).
1353 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1355 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1357 =item gethostent not implemented
1359 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1360 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1363 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1365 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1366 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1368 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1370 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1371 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1373 =item Glob not terminated
1375 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1376 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1377 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1378 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1380 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1382 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1383 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1384 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1386 =item goto must have label
1388 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1389 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1391 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1393 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1394 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1395 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1397 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1399 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1400 is now heavily deprecated.
1402 =item Identifier too long
1404 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1405 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1406 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1407 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1409 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1411 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1412 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1413 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1415 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1417 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1418 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1419 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1422 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1424 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1425 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1426 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1428 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1429 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1430 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1431 properly converting the text file format.
1433 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1434 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1435 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1437 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1438 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1441 =item Illegal division by zero
1443 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1444 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1446 =item Illegal modulus zero
1448 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1449 don't take to this kindly.
1451 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1453 (F) You used a digit other than 0 and 1 in a binary number.
1455 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1457 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1459 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1461 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1462 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1464 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1466 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1467 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1469 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1471 (W) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or A - F in a
1472 hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal number stopped
1473 before the illegal character.
1475 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1477 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1478 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1480 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1482 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1483 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1484 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1485 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1486 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1487 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1488 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1490 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1492 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1493 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1494 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1495 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1496 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1497 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1498 for more information.
1500 =item Insecure directory in %s
1502 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1503 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1506 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1508 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1509 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1510 C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1511 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1512 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1514 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1516 (S) The literal hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1517 is too big for your architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest
1518 literal hex, octal or binary number representable without overflow
1519 is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or 0b11111111111111111111111111111111
1520 respectively. Note that Perl transparently promotes decimal literals
1521 to a floating point representation internally--subject to loss of
1522 precision errors in subsequent operations--so this limit usually
1523 doesn't apply to decimal literals.
1525 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1527 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1528 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1529 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1530 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count
1531 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1532 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1533 and execute the specified command.
1535 =item internal disaster in regexp
1537 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1539 =item glob failed (%s)
1541 (W) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1542 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1543 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a nonzero
1544 status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit resulted in a
1545 coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is broken. If so,
1546 you should change all of the csh-related variables in config.sh: If you
1547 have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were csh (e.g.
1548 C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all empty (except that
1549 C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will think csh is missing.
1550 In either case, after editing config.sh, run C<./Configure -S> and
1553 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1555 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1557 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1559 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1560 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1562 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1564 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1565 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1567 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1569 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1570 (W) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be silently
1573 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1575 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1576 (W) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be silently
1579 =item ioctl is not implemented
1581 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1582 strange for a machine that supports C.
1584 =item junk on end of regexp
1586 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1588 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1590 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1591 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1592 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1594 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1596 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1597 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1600 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1602 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1603 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1606 =item leaving effective %s failed
1608 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1609 effective uids or gids failed.
1611 =item listen() on closed fd
1613 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1614 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1616 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1618 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1619 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1621 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1623 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1624 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1625 ended earlier on the current line.
1627 =item Misplaced _ in number
1629 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1631 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1633 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1634 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1635 one line to the next.
1637 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1639 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1640 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1642 =item Missing command in piped open
1644 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1645 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1647 =item Missing operator before %s?
1649 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1650 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1652 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
1654 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than
1655 closing ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place
1656 you were last editing.
1658 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1660 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1661 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1662 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1664 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1667 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1669 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1671 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1672 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1675 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1677 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1678 be created for some peculiar reason.
1680 =item Module name must be constant
1682 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1684 =item msg%s not implemented
1686 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1688 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1690 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1691 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1693 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1695 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1696 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1697 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1698 provided for just this purpose.
1700 =item Negative length
1702 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1703 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1705 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1707 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1708 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1710 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1711 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1715 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1716 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1718 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1720 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1721 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1722 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1725 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1727 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1729 =item No comma allowed after %s
1731 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1732 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1733 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1735 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1736 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1737 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1738 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1739 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1740 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1741 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1742 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1743 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1744 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1745 this error was triggered?
1747 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1749 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1750 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1751 want to pipe the output from this command.
1753 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1755 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1756 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1757 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1758 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1759 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1762 =item No dbm on this machine
1764 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1765 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1767 =item No DBsub routine
1769 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1770 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1771 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1772 ordinary subroutine call.
1774 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1776 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1777 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1778 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1780 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1782 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1783 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1784 from which to read data for stdin.
1786 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1788 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1789 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1790 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1792 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1794 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1795 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1796 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1798 =item No Perl script found in input
1800 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1801 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1803 =item No setregid available
1805 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1808 =item No setreuid available
1810 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1813 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1815 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1818 =item No such array field
1820 (F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
1821 not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
1822 array indices for that to work.
1824 =item No such field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
1826 (F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type
1827 does not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in
1828 the %FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash
1829 is usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
1831 =item No such pipe open
1833 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1834 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1835 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1837 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1839 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1840 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1842 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1844 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
1845 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1846 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1847 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1850 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1852 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Per was unable to find the local
1853 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1854 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1855 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1858 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1860 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Per was unable to find the local
1861 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1862 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1863 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1866 =item Not a CODE reference
1868 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1869 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1870 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1871 See also L<perlref>.
1873 =item Not a format reference
1875 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1876 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1878 =item Not a GLOB reference
1880 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1881 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1882 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1883 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1885 =item Not a HASH reference
1887 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1888 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1889 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1891 =item Not a perl script
1893 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1894 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1897 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1899 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1900 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1901 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1903 =item Not a subroutine reference
1905 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1906 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1907 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1908 See also L<perlref>.
1910 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1912 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1913 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1915 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1917 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1918 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1919 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1921 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1923 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1925 =item Not enough format arguments
1927 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1930 =item Null filename used
1932 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1933 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1935 =item Null picture in formline
1937 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1938 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1939 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1941 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1943 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1947 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1949 =item NULL regexp argument
1951 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1953 =item NULL regexp parameter
1955 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1957 =item Number too long
1959 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1960 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1961 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1962 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1964 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
1966 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash, which
1967 is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
1969 =item Offset outside string
1971 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1972 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1973 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1974 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1978 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1982 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1984 =item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
1986 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1987 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1988 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1989 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1990 true. See L<overload>.
1992 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1994 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1995 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1996 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1997 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1998 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
2000 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
2002 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
2003 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
2005 =item Out of memory during request for %s
2007 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2008 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
2010 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2011 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2012 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
2013 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
2014 error is trappable I<once>.
2016 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2018 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2019 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2020 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
2021 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2023 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2025 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2026 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g., C<$arr[time]>
2027 instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2031 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
2034 =item panic: ck_grep
2036 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2038 =item panic: ck_split
2040 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2042 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2044 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
2045 are in the savestack.
2047 =item panic: del_backref
2049 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2054 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2055 it wasn't an eval context.
2057 =item panic: do_match
2059 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2061 =item panic: do_split
2063 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2065 =item panic: do_subst
2067 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2069 =item panic: do_trans
2071 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
2075 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2079 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2080 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2082 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2084 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2086 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2088 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2090 =item panic: kid popen errno read
2092 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2096 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2097 it wasn't a block context.
2099 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2101 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
2103 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2105 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2106 invalid enum on the top of it.
2110 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2112 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2114 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2115 references to an object.
2117 =item panic: mapstart
2119 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2121 =item panic: null array
2123 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2125 =item panic: pad_alloc
2127 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2128 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2130 =item panic: pad_free curpad
2132 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2133 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2135 =item panic: pad_free po
2137 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2139 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
2141 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2142 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2144 =item panic: pad_sv po
2146 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2148 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2150 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2151 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2153 =item panic: pad_swipe po
2155 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2157 =item panic: pp_iter
2159 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2161 =item panic: realloc
2163 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2165 =item panic: restartop
2167 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2168 didn't supply the destination.
2172 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2173 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2175 =item panic: scan_num
2177 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2179 =item panic: sv_insert
2181 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2184 =item panic: top_env
2186 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2190 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2192 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2194 (W) You said something like
2200 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2202 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
2204 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
2206 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
2207 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
2208 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2210 =item Permission denied
2212 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2214 =item pid %x not a child
2216 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
2217 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
2218 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2220 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2222 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2223 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2225 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2227 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2228 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
2229 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2230 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2232 You probably wrote something like this:
2239 when you should have written this:
2246 If you really want comments, build your list the
2247 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2251 'b', # another comment
2254 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2256 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
2257 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
2258 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
2261 You probably wrote something like this:
2265 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2266 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2270 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2272 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2273 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2274 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2275 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2277 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2279 (S) The old irregular construct
2283 is now misinterpreted as
2287 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
2288 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
2289 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
2292 =item print on closed filehandle %s
2294 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
2295 Check your logic flow.
2297 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
2299 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2300 Check your logic flow.
2302 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
2304 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
2305 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
2306 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
2310 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2312 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
2313 or defined with a different function prototype.
2315 =item Range iterator outside integer range
2317 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2318 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2319 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string
2320 increment by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2322 =item Read on closed filehandle %s
2324 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
2325 Check your logic flow.
2327 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
2329 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2331 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2333 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
2334 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2335 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2337 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2339 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2340 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2342 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method '%s' in package '%s'
2344 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking a
2345 method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2347 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2349 (W) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list with
2350 an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
2351 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
2352 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2354 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2355 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2356 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2357 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2359 =item Reference is already weak
2361 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2362 Doing so has no effect.
2364 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2366 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
2367 reference count of other than 1.
2369 =item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2371 (F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier
2372 could match an empty string.
2374 =item regexp memory corruption
2376 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2377 expression compiler gave it.
2379 =item regexp out of space
2381 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
2383 =item Reversed %s= operator
2385 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2386 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2388 =item Runaway format
2390 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2391 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2392 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2393 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2394 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2396 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2398 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2399 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2400 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2401 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2402 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2403 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2405 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2406 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2407 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2410 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2412 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2413 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2414 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2415 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2416 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2417 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2419 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2420 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2421 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2424 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2426 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2427 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2429 =item Search pattern not terminated
2431 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2432 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2433 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
2435 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2437 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2438 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2440 =item select not implemented
2442 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2444 =item sem%s not implemented
2446 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2448 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2450 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2451 that had previously been marked as free.
2453 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2455 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2456 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2458 =item Send on closed socket
2460 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2461 Check your logic flow.
2463 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2465 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2468 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2470 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2471 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2473 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2475 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2476 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2478 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2480 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2485 Also known as "500 Server error".
2487 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2489 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2490 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2491 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2492 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2493 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2494 for more information:
2496 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2497 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
2498 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2499 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2500 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2502 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2504 =item setegid() not implemented
2506 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2507 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2510 =item seteuid() not implemented
2512 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2513 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2516 =item setrgid() not implemented
2518 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2519 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2522 =item setruid() not implemented
2524 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2525 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2528 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2530 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2531 because the world might have written on it already.
2533 =item shm%s not implemented
2535 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2537 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2539 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2541 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2543 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2544 put it into the wrong package?
2546 =item sort is now a reserved word
2548 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2549 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2551 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2553 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2554 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2555 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2557 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2559 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2560 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2564 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2565 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2566 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2568 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2570 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2571 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2573 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2575 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2576 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2577 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2578 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2581 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
2583 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
2584 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
2585 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
2586 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
2587 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2589 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2591 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2592 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2595 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2597 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2601 eval "sub name { ... }";
2604 =item Substitution loop
2606 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2607 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2608 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2609 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2611 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2613 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2614 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2615 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2617 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2619 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2620 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2621 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
2623 =item substr outside of string
2625 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2626 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2627 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2628 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2629 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2631 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2633 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2634 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2636 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
2638 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
2639 real and effective uids or gids.
2643 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2645 A keyword is misspelled.
2646 A semicolon is missing.
2648 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2649 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2650 A closing quote is missing.
2652 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2653 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2654 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2655 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2656 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2657 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2658 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2659 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2660 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2662 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2664 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2665 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2668 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
2670 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
2671 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
2672 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
2673 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
2675 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2677 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2678 Check your logic flow.
2680 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2682 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2683 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2685 =item tell() on unopened file
2687 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2688 never opened or has since been closed.
2690 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2692 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2693 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2695 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2697 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2698 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2707 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2708 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2710 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2712 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2713 to the probings of Configure.
2715 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2717 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2718 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2719 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2720 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2723 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2725 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2726 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2727 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2729 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL eviron elements (%s)
2731 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2733 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2734 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2735 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2736 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2737 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2738 %ENV which produced the warning.
2740 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL eviron elements (%s)
2742 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2744 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2745 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2746 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2747 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2748 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2749 %ENV which produced the warning.
2751 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL eviron elements (%s)
2753 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
2755 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
2756 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
2757 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
2758 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
2759 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
2760 %ENV which produced the warning.
2762 =item times not implemented
2764 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2765 you're not running on Unix.
2767 =item Too few args to syscall
2769 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2770 system call to call, silly dilly.
2772 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2774 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2775 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2776 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2777 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2780 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2781 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2782 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2783 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2785 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2786 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2788 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2790 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2791 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2792 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2798 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2799 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2802 =item Too many args to syscall
2804 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2806 =item Too many arguments for %s
2808 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2810 =item trailing \ in regexp
2812 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2815 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
2817 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2818 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
2819 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
2821 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
2823 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2826 =item truncate not implemented
2828 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2829 Configure knows about.
2831 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2833 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2834 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2835 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2836 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2838 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2840 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
2841 literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2843 =item umask not implemented
2845 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried
2846 to use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
2848 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2850 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2852 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2854 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2855 contexts were entered and left.
2857 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2859 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2860 values were temporarily localized.
2862 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2864 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2865 were entered and left.
2867 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2869 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2870 scalars were allocated and freed.
2872 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2874 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2875 another package? See L<perlform>.
2877 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2879 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2880 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2882 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2884 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2885 has since been undefined.
2887 =item Undefined subroutine called
2889 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2890 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2892 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2894 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2895 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2897 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2899 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2900 another package? See L<perlform>.
2902 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
2904 (W) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la C<*foo = undef>.
2905 This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean C<undef *foo>.
2907 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2909 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2910 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2912 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2914 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2916 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
2918 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
2919 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
2920 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
2921 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
2923 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
2925 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
2926 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
2927 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
2928 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
2930 =item unmatched () in regexp
2932 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2933 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2934 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2936 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
2938 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than
2939 opening ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket.
2940 As a general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the
2941 place you were last editing.
2943 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2945 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2946 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2949 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2951 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2952 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2953 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2955 =item Unrecognized character %s
2957 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2958 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2959 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
2961 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
2963 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
2966 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2968 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2969 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2971 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
2973 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2974 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2975 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2977 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2979 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2980 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2981 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
2983 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2985 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2987 =item Unsupported function fork
2989 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2991 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2992 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2993 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2995 =item Unsupported function %s
2997 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2998 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3000 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3002 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3003 least that's what Configure thought.
3005 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
3007 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3008 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
3009 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
3010 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3012 =item Use of $# is deprecated
3014 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
3015 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3017 =item Use of $* is deprecated
3019 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
3020 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
3021 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
3022 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3024 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3026 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3027 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3029 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
3031 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
3032 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3034 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3036 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
3037 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
3038 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3040 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3042 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
3043 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
3044 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
3045 as methods (e.g. C<Foo-E<gt>bar()> or C<$obj-E<gt>bar()>).
3047 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
3048 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
3049 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
3050 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
3051 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3053 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3054 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
3055 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
3056 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
3058 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);> you
3059 should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3060 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3062 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3064 (D) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future versions of perl
3065 may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either explicitly quoting
3066 the word in a manner appropriate for its context of use, or using a
3067 different name altogether. The warning can be suppressed for subroutine
3068 names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using a package qualifier,
3069 e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3071 =item Use of %s is deprecated
3073 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
3074 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
3077 =item Use of uninitialized value
3079 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
3080 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
3081 warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3083 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
3085 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3087 =item Useless use of %s in void context
3089 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
3090 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
3091 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
3092 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
3093 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
3094 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
3098 when you meant to say
3100 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3102 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3103 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3108 when you should have said
3112 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3113 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3114 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3115 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3116 L<perlref> for more on this.
3118 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3120 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
3121 valid when C<untie> was called.
3123 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3125 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
3126 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
3127 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
3128 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
3129 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
3131 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3133 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3134 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3135 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3138 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3140 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
3141 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
3142 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
3145 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3147 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
3148 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3149 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
3150 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
3151 on the front of your variable.
3153 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3155 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
3156 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
3157 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
3158 the outermost subroutine. For example:
3160 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3162 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3163 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
3164 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3165 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
3166 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
3167 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
3170 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
3171 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
3172 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
3173 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
3175 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
3177 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
3178 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
3180 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
3181 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
3182 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
3183 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
3184 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
3185 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
3187 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
3188 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
3189 will I<never> share the given variable.
3191 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
3192 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
3193 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
3194 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
3197 =item Variable syntax
3199 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
3200 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
3203 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3205 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3207 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3208 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3211 are supported and installed on your system.
3212 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3214 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3215 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3216 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
3217 administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
3218 not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
3219 is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the
3220 script will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you
3221 will get the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really
3222 fix the problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3224 =item Warning: something's wrong
3226 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
3227 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
3229 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
3231 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
3232 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
3234 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
3236 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
3237 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
3238 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
3239 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
3243 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
3247 but in actual fact, you got
3251 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
3253 =item Write on closed filehandle %s
3255 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
3256 Check your logic flow.
3258 =item X outside of string
3260 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
3261 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3263 =item x outside of string
3265 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
3266 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3268 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
3270 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3272 =item Xsub called in sort
3274 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
3276 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
3278 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
3279 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
3280 Use a filename instead.
3282 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
3284 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
3285 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
3286 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
3287 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
3289 =item You need to quote "%s"
3291 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
3292 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
3293 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
3294 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
3296 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
3298 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
3299 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
3300 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
3302 =item \1 better written as $1
3304 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
3305 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
3306 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
3307 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
3308 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
3310 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
3312 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3313 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
3314 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
3316 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
3318 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
3319 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
3320 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
3321 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
3324 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
3331 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
3333 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
3334 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
3336 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3338 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3346 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
3347 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
3348 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3349 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
3351 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3353 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3354 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
3356 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3358 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3359 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3360 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3361 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"