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 (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
94 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
98 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
100 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
113 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
115 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
119 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
123 =item Args must match #! line
125 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
130 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
132 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
134 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
136 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
137 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
143 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
145 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
151 or a hash or array slice, such as:
153 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
154 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
156 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
158 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
159 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
162 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
164 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
165 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
166 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
168 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
170 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
171 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
172 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
173 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
174 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
175 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
177 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
179 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
180 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
182 =item assertion botched: %s
184 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
186 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
188 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
190 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
192 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
193 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
194 know which context to supply to the right side.
196 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
198 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
199 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
200 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
201 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
202 thread. See L<threads>.
204 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
206 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
207 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
209 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
211 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
212 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
213 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
219 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
221 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
222 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
225 bless $self, "$proto";
227 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
229 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
230 which is not in its key set.
232 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
234 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
235 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
237 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
239 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
240 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
241 outside any of those arenas.
243 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
245 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
246 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
247 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
248 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
250 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
252 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
253 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
254 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
255 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
258 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
260 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
262 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
264 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
265 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
266 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
267 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
268 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
269 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
272 =item Attempt to join self
274 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
275 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
276 to move the join() to some other thread.
278 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
280 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
281 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
282 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
283 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
284 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
287 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
289 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
290 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
291 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
294 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
296 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
297 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
298 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
300 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
303 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
305 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
306 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
307 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
309 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
311 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "locked"
312 attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
313 effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in the next major
316 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
318 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "unique"
319 attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
320 had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in the next major
323 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
325 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
326 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
327 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
328 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
330 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
332 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
333 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
334 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
336 =item Bad filehandle: %s
338 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
339 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
340 open(), or did it in another package.
342 =item Bad free() ignored
344 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
345 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
346 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
348 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
349 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
350 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
354 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
356 =item Badly placed ()'s
358 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
359 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
362 =item Bad name after %s::
364 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
365 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
374 $sym = "mypack::$var";
376 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
378 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
381 =item Bad realloc() ignored
383 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
384 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
385 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
387 =item Bad symbol for array
389 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
390 wasn't a symbol table entry.
392 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
394 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
395 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
398 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
400 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
401 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
403 =item Bad symbol for hash
405 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
406 wasn't a symbol table entry.
408 =item Bareword found in conditional
410 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
411 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
412 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
416 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
419 use constant TYPO => 1;
420 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
422 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
424 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
426 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
427 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
428 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
430 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
432 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
433 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
434 you need to predeclare a package?
436 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
438 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
439 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
442 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
444 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
445 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
446 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
447 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
448 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
450 =item \1 better written as $1
452 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
453 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
454 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
455 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
456 there are more than 9 backreferences.
458 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
460 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
461 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
462 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
464 =item bind() on closed socket %s
466 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
467 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
469 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
471 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
472 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
474 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
476 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
478 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
480 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
483 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
485 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
486 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
487 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
489 =item Callback called exit
491 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
492 exited by calling exit.
494 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
496 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
497 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
498 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
499 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
500 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
501 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
502 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
503 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
505 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
507 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
508 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
509 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
510 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
512 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
514 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
515 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
517 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
519 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
520 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
521 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
522 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
524 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
526 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
527 be directly assigned not.
529 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
531 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
532 either with open() or binmode().
534 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
536 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
537 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
538 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
540 =item Can't bless non-reference value
542 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
543 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
545 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
547 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
548 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
550 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
552 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
554 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
556 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
557 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
558 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
560 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
562 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
563 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
564 like this will reproduce the error:
567 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
568 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
570 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
572 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
573 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
574 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
575 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
577 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
579 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
580 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
581 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
582 Something like this will reproduce the error:
585 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
586 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
588 =item Can't chdir to %s
590 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
591 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
593 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
595 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
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 coerce %s to integer in %s
606 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
607 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
617 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
619 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
621 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
622 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
624 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
626 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
627 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
629 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
631 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
634 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
636 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
637 quotas or other plumbing problems.
639 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
641 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
642 class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
643 extended for other types of variables in future.
645 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
647 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
648 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
650 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
652 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
653 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
655 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
657 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
660 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
662 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
663 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
664 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
666 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
668 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
669 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
670 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
672 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
674 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
675 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
676 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
678 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
680 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
681 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
683 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
685 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
686 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
689 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
691 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
692 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
693 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
694 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
696 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
698 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
699 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
700 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
701 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
702 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
703 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
708 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
709 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
710 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
712 =item Can't execute %s
714 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
715 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
717 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
719 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
720 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
722 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
724 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
725 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
726 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
727 for a complete list of available properties.
729 =item Can't find label %s
731 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
732 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
734 =item Can't find %s on PATH
736 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
739 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
741 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
742 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
743 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
745 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
747 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
748 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
749 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
751 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
753 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
754 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
755 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
757 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
759 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
760 example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
761 Unicode property, see
762 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
763 for a complete list of available properties.
764 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
765 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
770 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
773 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
775 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
778 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
780 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
781 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
782 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
783 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
784 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
785 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
786 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
787 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
788 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
789 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
790 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
791 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
792 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
793 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
794 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
796 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
798 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
799 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
801 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
803 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
804 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
806 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
808 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
809 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
811 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
813 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
814 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
815 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
816 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
818 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
820 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
821 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
822 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
824 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
826 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
829 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
831 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
832 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
833 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
834 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
836 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
838 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
839 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
840 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
841 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
842 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
843 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
845 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
847 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
848 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
851 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
853 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
854 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
855 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
856 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
857 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
858 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
861 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
863 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
864 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
866 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
868 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
869 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
870 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
871 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
872 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
873 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
876 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
878 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
879 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
880 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
883 =item Can't localize through a reference
885 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
886 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
887 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
888 that $ref will still be a reference.
890 =item Can't locate %s
892 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
893 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
894 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
895 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
896 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
897 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
898 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
900 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
902 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
903 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
904 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
905 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
907 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
909 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
910 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
911 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
913 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
915 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
916 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
917 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
919 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
921 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
922 doesn't seem to exist.
924 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
926 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
927 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
929 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
931 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
934 =item Can't modify %s in %s
936 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
937 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
939 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
941 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
944 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
946 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
947 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
949 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
951 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
954 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
956 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
957 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
958 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
959 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
960 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
961 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
963 =item Can't open %s: %s
965 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
966 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
967 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
968 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
971 =item Can't open a reference
973 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
974 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
978 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
979 open is not supported.
981 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
983 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
984 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
985 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
986 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
988 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
990 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
991 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
992 the command line for writing.
994 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
996 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
997 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
998 command line for reading.
1000 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1002 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1003 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1004 the command line for writing.
1006 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1008 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1009 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1012 =item Can't open perl script%s
1014 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1016 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1017 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1018 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1020 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1022 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1023 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1024 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1025 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1028 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1030 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1031 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1032 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1033 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1034 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1035 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1037 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1039 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1040 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1041 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1043 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1045 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1046 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1048 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1050 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1051 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1053 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1055 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1056 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1057 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1059 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1061 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1062 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1065 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1067 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1068 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1070 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1072 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1073 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1074 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1075 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1078 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1080 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1081 open already. Bizarre.
1083 =item Can't take log of %g
1085 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1086 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1087 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1090 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1092 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1093 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1094 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1096 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1098 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1099 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1100 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1104 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1105 as the main Perl stack.
1107 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1109 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1110 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1111 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1112 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1114 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1116 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1117 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1118 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1120 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1122 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1123 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1125 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1127 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1128 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1130 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1132 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1133 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1134 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1136 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1138 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1139 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1140 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1142 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1144 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1147 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1149 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1150 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1151 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1152 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1155 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1157 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1158 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1159 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1160 is inside a big-endian group.
1162 =item Can't use keyword '%s' as a label
1164 (F) You attempted to use a reserved keyword, such as C<print> or C<BEGIN>,
1165 as a statement label. This is disallowed since Perl 5.11.0.
1167 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1169 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1170 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1171 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1172 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1175 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1177 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1178 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1179 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1181 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1183 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1184 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1186 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1188 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1189 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1190 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1192 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1194 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1195 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1196 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1197 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1198 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1201 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1203 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1204 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1205 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1206 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1208 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1210 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1211 references can be weakened.
1213 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1215 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1216 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1217 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1219 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1225 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1226 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1227 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1231 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1234 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1240 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1241 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1244 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1246 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1252 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1253 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1254 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1256 pack("c", $x & 255);
1258 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1261 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1263 (W unpack) You tried something like
1265 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1267 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1268 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1269 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1271 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1273 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1275 (W pack) You tried something like
1277 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1279 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1280 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1281 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1283 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1285 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1287 (W unpack) You tried something like
1289 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1291 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1292 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1293 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1295 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1297 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1299 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1301 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1303 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1304 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1306 =item Code missing after '/'
1308 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1309 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1311 =item %s: Command not found
1313 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1314 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1316 =item Compilation failed in require
1318 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1319 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1320 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1322 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1324 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1325 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1326 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1327 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1328 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1329 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1330 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1331 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1332 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1334 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1336 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1337 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1338 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1339 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1340 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1341 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1342 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1345 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1347 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1348 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1349 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1350 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1351 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1352 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1353 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1356 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1358 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1359 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1360 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1362 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1364 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1365 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1366 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1367 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1370 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1372 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1373 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1374 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1378 =item Constant is not %s reference
1380 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1381 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1382 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1383 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1384 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1386 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1388 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1389 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1390 commentary and workarounds.
1392 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1394 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1395 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1398 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1400 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1401 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1403 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1405 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1407 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1409 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1410 expression compiler gave it.
1412 =item corrupted regexp program
1414 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1417 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1419 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1421 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1423 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1424 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1427 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1429 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1430 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1431 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1432 which case it indicates something else.
1434 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1435 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1437 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1439 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1440 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1441 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1443 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1445 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1446 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1447 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1449 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1451 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1452 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1454 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1456 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1457 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1458 that triggers this error.
1460 =item Deprecated character(s) in \\N{...} starting at '%s'
1462 (D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1463 But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names are
1464 deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character and
1465 continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or
1468 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1470 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1471 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1472 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1473 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1474 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1475 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1476 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1478 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1482 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1484 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1485 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1487 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1489 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1491 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1492 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1493 to create a dangling reference.
1495 =item Did not produce a valid header
1499 =item %s did not return a true value
1501 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1502 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1503 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1504 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1506 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1508 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1511 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1513 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1514 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1517 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1519 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1520 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1525 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1526 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1528 =item Document contains no data
1532 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1534 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1535 define a C<$VERSION.>
1537 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1539 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1540 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1542 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1544 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1546 =item do_study: out of memory
1548 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1550 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1552 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1553 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1554 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1555 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1556 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1557 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1558 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1559 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1561 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1563 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1564 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1566 =item dump is not supported
1568 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1570 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1572 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1575 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1577 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1578 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1580 =item elseif should be elsif
1582 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1583 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1584 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1585 unlikely to be what you want.
1589 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1590 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1591 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1593 =item entering effective %s failed
1595 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1596 effective uids or gids failed.
1598 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1600 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1601 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1602 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1604 =item Error converting file specification %s
1606 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1607 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1608 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1609 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1610 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1612 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1614 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1615 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1616 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1618 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1620 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1621 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1622 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1623 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1624 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1625 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1627 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1629 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1630 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1631 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1633 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1635 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1636 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1638 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1641 =item Excessively long <> operator
1643 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1644 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1645 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1646 variable and glob that.
1648 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1650 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1652 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1654 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1656 =item Exiting eval via %s
1658 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1659 goto, or a loop control statement.
1661 =item Exiting format via %s
1663 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1664 goto, or a loop control statement.
1666 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1668 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1669 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1670 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1672 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1674 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1675 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1677 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1679 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1680 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1682 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1684 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1685 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1686 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1687 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1689 =item %s: Expression syntax
1691 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1692 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1694 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1696 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1697 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1698 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1700 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1702 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1703 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1704 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1705 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1706 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1708 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1710 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1711 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1712 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1713 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1715 =item fcntl is not implemented
1717 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1718 PDP-11 or something?
1720 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1722 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1725 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1727 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1728 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1729 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1732 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1734 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1735 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1736 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1737 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1739 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1741 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1742 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1743 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1744 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1745 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1746 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1748 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1750 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1751 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1754 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1756 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1757 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1759 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1761 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1762 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1763 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1766 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1768 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1769 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1770 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1773 =item Format not terminated
1775 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1776 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1778 =item Format %s redefined
1780 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1783 no warnings 'redefine';
1784 eval "format NAME =...";
1787 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1797 (or something like that).
1799 =item %s found where operator expected
1801 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1802 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1803 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1804 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1806 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1808 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1810 =item gethostent not implemented
1812 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1813 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1816 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1818 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1819 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1821 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1823 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1824 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1826 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1828 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1829 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1830 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1832 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1834 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1835 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1836 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1837 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1839 =item glob failed (%s)
1841 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1842 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1843 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1844 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1845 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1846 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1847 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1848 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1849 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1850 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1851 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1853 =item Glob not terminated
1855 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1856 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1857 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1858 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1860 =item gmtime(%.0f) too large
1862 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was larger than
1863 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1864 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1865 not-a-number value).
1867 =item gmtime(%.0f) too small
1869 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was smaller than
1870 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1871 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1872 not-a-number value).
1874 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1876 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1877 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1879 =item goto must have label
1881 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1882 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1884 =item ()-group starts with a count
1886 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1887 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1888 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1890 =item %s had compilation errors.
1892 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1894 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1896 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1897 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1898 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1900 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1902 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1903 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1905 =item %s has too many errors
1907 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1908 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1910 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1912 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1913 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1914 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1916 =item Identifier too long
1918 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1919 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1920 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1921 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1923 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
1925 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
1926 zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1927 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
1928 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1930 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1932 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1934 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1936 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1937 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1940 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1942 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1943 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1944 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1945 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1946 to your Perl administrator.
1948 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1950 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
1951 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1953 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1955 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1956 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1958 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1960 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1962 =item Illegal division by zero
1964 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1965 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1968 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1970 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1971 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1972 number stopped before the illegal character.
1974 =item Illegal modulus zero
1976 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1977 numbers don't take to this kindly.
1979 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1981 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1982 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1984 =item Illegal octal digit %s
1986 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1988 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1990 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
1991 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1993 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
1995 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1996 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
1998 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2000 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2001 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2002 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2004 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2006 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2007 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2008 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2011 =item (in cleanup) %s
2013 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2014 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2015 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2016 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2017 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2019 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2020 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2022 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2024 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2025 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2026 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2028 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2030 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2031 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2032 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2034 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2036 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2037 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2038 either consume text or fail.
2040 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2043 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2045 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2046 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2047 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2048 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2050 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2052 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2053 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2054 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2055 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2056 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2057 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2058 L<perlsec> for more information.
2060 =item Insecure directory in %s
2062 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2063 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2064 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2067 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2069 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2070 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2071 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2072 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2073 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2075 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2077 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2078 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2079 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2080 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2081 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2082 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2083 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2084 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2087 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2089 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2090 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2091 integers for your architecture.
2093 =item Integer overflow in version
2095 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2096 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2097 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2098 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2099 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2102 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2104 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2105 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2108 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2110 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2111 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2112 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2113 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2114 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2115 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2117 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2119 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2120 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2123 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2125 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2126 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2127 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2128 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2130 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2132 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2133 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2135 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2137 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2138 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2140 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2142 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2143 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2145 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2147 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2148 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2149 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2150 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2151 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2152 escape was discovered.
2154 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2156 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2157 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2158 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2160 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2162 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2163 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2164 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2165 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2166 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2168 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2170 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2171 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2173 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2175 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2176 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2177 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2180 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2182 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2183 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2184 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2185 list was terminated too soon.
2187 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2189 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2190 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2191 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2194 =item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2196 (F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2197 that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2200 =item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2202 (F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2203 See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2205 =item ioctl is not implemented
2207 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2208 strange for a machine that supports C.
2210 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2212 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2213 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2215 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2217 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2218 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2221 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2223 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2224 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2226 =item $* is no longer supported
2228 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2229 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In previous versions of perl the use of
2230 C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line matching within a string.
2232 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2233 modifiers. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value then all regular
2234 expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2236 =item $# is no longer supported
2238 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2239 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2240 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2242 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2244 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2245 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2248 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2250 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2253 =item junk on end of regexp
2255 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2257 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2259 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2260 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2263 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2265 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2266 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2269 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2271 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2272 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2275 =item leaving effective %s failed
2277 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2278 effective uids or gids failed.
2280 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2282 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2283 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2284 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2286 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2288 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2289 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but
2290 tried to insert a character that couldn't be part of the current input.
2291 This is an inherent pitfall of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the
2292 reasons to avoid it. Where it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only
2293 plain ASCII is recommended.
2295 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2297 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2300 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2302 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2303 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2306 =item localtime(%.0f) too large
2308 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was larger
2309 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2310 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2311 not-a-number value).
2313 =item localtime(%.0f) too small
2315 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was smaller
2316 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2317 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2318 not-a-number value).
2320 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2322 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2323 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2325 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2327 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2328 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2329 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2330 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2331 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2332 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2334 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2336 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2337 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2338 instead on the filehandle.)
2340 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2342 (W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
2343 by declaring the subroutine with a lvalue attribute is not
2344 possible. To make the the subroutine a lvalue subroutine add the
2345 lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the the declaration before
2348 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2350 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2351 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2352 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2354 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2356 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2357 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2359 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2361 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2362 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2364 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2366 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2373 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2374 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2375 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2376 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2378 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2380 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2381 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2382 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2383 when the function is called.
2385 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2387 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2388 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2390 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2391 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2392 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2394 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2395 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2396 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2399 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2401 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2403 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2404 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2406 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2408 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2410 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2412 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2413 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2415 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2417 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2418 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2420 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2422 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2423 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2425 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%d) exceeded
2427 (F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2428 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2429 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2430 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2431 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2433 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2435 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2436 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2437 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2440 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2442 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2443 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2446 =item % may not be used in pack
2448 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2449 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2450 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2452 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2454 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2455 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2457 =item Method %s not permitted
2461 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2463 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2464 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2465 ended earlier on the current line.
2467 =item Misplaced _ in number
2469 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2470 separate two digits.
2472 =item Missing argument in %s
2474 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2477 =item Missing argument to -%c
2479 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2480 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2482 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2484 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2485 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2486 comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2487 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2490 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2492 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2493 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2495 =item Missing command in piped open
2497 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2498 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2501 =item Missing control char name in \c
2503 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2506 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2508 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2509 they have a name with which they can be found.
2511 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2513 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2514 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2515 can vary from one line to the next.
2517 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2519 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2520 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2522 =item Missing right brace on %s
2524 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2526 =item Missing right brace on \\N{} or unescaped left brace after \\N
2529 C<\N> has two meanings.
2531 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2532 in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
2533 Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2534 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2535 have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2537 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
2538 patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2539 C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2541 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
2542 left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
2543 the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2544 that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2545 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
2546 and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2548 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
2549 omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
2550 raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2551 the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2553 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2555 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2556 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2559 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2561 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2562 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2563 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2565 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2567 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2568 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2569 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2571 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2574 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2576 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2577 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2580 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2581 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2584 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2586 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2587 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2590 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2592 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2593 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2595 =item Module name must be constant
2597 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2599 =item Module name required with -%c option
2601 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2602 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2603 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2605 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
2607 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2608 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2609 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2610 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2612 =item msg%s not implemented
2614 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2616 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2618 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2619 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2621 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2623 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2624 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2625 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2627 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2629 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2632 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2634 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2635 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2636 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2638 =item \\N in a character class must be a named character: \\N{...}
2640 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2641 character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2642 specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2644 =item \\N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2646 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2647 was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
2648 such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
2650 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
2651 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
2654 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
2656 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2659 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2663 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2665 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2666 doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2668 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2669 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2671 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2674 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2676 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2677 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2678 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2679 provided for this purpose.
2681 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2682 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2683 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2684 will not trigger this warning.
2686 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \\N{U+...}
2688 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2689 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2690 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2692 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2694 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2695 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2697 =item Negative length
2699 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2700 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2702 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2704 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2705 greater than or equal to zero.
2707 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2709 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2710 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2711 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2713 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2714 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2716 =item %s never introduced
2718 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2719 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2721 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2723 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2724 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2727 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2729 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2730 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2731 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2732 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2734 =item No comma allowed after %s
2736 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2737 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2738 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2740 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2741 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2742 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2743 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2744 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2745 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2746 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2747 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2748 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2749 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2750 this error was triggered?
2752 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2754 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2755 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2756 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2758 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2760 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2761 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2762 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2765 =item No dbm on this machine
2767 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2768 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2770 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2772 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2773 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2774 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2775 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2777 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2779 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2781 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2783 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2784 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2785 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2787 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2789 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2790 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2792 =item No input file after < on command line
2794 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2795 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2796 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2800 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2801 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2803 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2805 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2806 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2807 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2808 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2810 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2812 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2813 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2815 =item No output file after > on command line
2817 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2818 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2819 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2821 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2823 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2824 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2825 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2827 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2829 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2830 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2831 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2833 =item No Perl script found in input
2835 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2836 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2838 =item No setregid available
2840 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2843 =item No setreuid available
2845 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2848 =item No %s specified for -%c
2850 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2851 you haven't specified one.
2853 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2855 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2856 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2857 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2859 =item No such class %s
2861 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2862 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2864 =item No such hook: %s
2866 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2867 accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2869 =item No such pipe open
2871 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2872 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2873 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2875 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2877 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2878 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2879 names on your system.
2881 =item Not a CODE reference
2883 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2884 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2885 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2888 =item Not a format reference
2890 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2891 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2893 =item Not a GLOB reference
2895 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2896 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2897 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2898 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2900 =item Not a HASH reference
2902 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2903 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2904 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2906 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2908 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2909 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2910 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2912 =item Not a perl script
2914 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2915 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2918 =item Not a SCALAR reference
2920 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2921 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2922 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2924 =item Not a subroutine reference
2926 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2927 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2928 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2931 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2933 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2934 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2936 =item Not enough arguments for %s
2938 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2940 =item Not enough format arguments
2942 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2943 supplied. See L<perlform>.
2947 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2948 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2951 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2953 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2954 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2955 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2956 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2957 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2959 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
2961 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2962 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2963 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2965 =item Null filename used
2967 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2968 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2970 =item NULL OP IN RUN
2972 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2975 =item Null picture in formline
2977 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2978 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2979 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2983 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2985 =item NULL regexp argument
2987 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2989 =item NULL regexp parameter
2991 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2993 =item Number too long
2995 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2996 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2997 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2998 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3001 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
3003 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3004 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3007 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3009 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3010 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3011 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3013 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3015 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3017 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3018 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3020 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3022 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3023 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3025 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3027 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3028 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3030 =item Offset outside string
3032 (F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3033 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3034 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3035 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3036 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3037 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3040 =item %s() on unopened %s
3042 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3043 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3044 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3046 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3048 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3049 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3053 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3057 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3059 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3061 (W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3062 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3063 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3066 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3068 (W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3069 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3070 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3073 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3075 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3076 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3077 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3078 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3080 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3082 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3083 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3084 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3085 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3088 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3090 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3091 in the current lexical scope.
3093 =item Out of memory!
3095 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3096 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3097 no option but to exit immediately.
3099 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3100 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3101 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3102 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3103 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3105 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3107 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3108 the largest possible memory allocation.
3110 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3112 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3113 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3114 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3115 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3117 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3119 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3120 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3123 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3124 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3125 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3126 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3127 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3128 where the failed request happened.
3130 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3132 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3133 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3134 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3136 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3138 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3139 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3142 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3144 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3145 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3147 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3149 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3150 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3152 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3154 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3155 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3156 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3158 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3160 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3161 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3164 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3166 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3167 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3169 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3171 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3172 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3173 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3174 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3176 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3178 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3179 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3183 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3184 page. See L<perlform>.
3188 (P) An internal error.
3190 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3192 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3193 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3194 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3195 enter this branch on this platform.
3197 =item panic: ck_grep
3199 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3201 =item panic: ck_split
3203 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3205 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3207 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3208 there are in the savestack.
3210 =item panic: del_backref
3212 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3215 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3217 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3218 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3219 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3220 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3224 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3225 it wasn't an eval context.
3227 =item panic: do_subst
3229 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3232 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3234 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3237 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3239 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3244 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3248 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3249 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3251 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3253 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3254 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3255 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3256 adds a new object to the hash.
3258 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3260 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3262 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3264 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3266 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3268 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3272 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3273 it wasn't a block context.
3275 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3277 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3280 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3282 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3283 invalid enum on the top of it.
3285 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3287 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3288 references to an object.
3292 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3294 =item panic: memory wrap
3296 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3298 =item panic: pad_alloc
3300 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3301 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3303 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3305 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3306 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3308 =item panic: pad_free po
3310 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3312 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3314 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3315 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3317 =item panic: pad_sv po
3319 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3321 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3323 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3324 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3326 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3328 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3330 =item panic: pp_iter
3332 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3334 =item panic: pp_match%s
3336 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3339 =item panic: pp_split
3341 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3343 =item panic: realloc
3345 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3347 =item panic: restartop
3349 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3350 didn't supply the destination.
3354 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3355 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3357 =item panic: scan_num
3359 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3361 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3363 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3364 scalar's string buffer.
3366 =item panic: sv_insert
3368 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3371 =item panic: top_env
3373 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3375 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3377 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3380 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3382 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3383 to even) byte length.
3385 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3387 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3388 to even) byte length.
3392 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3394 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3396 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3397 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3398 nesting limit is exceeded.
3400 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3403 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3405 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3411 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3413 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3415 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3417 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3418 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3419 redirected it with select().)
3421 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3423 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3424 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3425 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3427 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3429 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3430 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3431 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3432 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3434 =item Perl_pmflag() is deprecated, and will be removed from the XS API
3436 (D deprecated) XS code called the C function C<Perl_pmflag>. This was part of
3437 Perl's listed public API for extending or embedding the perl interpreter. It has
3438 now been removed from the public API, and will be removed in a future release,
3439 hence XS code should be re-written not to use it.
3441 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3443 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3444 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3445 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3447 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3449 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3450 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3452 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3454 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3456 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3458 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3460 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3461 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3464 are supported and installed on your system.
3465 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3467 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3468 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3469 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3470 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3471 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3472 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3473 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3474 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3475 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3476 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3478 =item pid %x not a child
3480 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3481 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3482 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3484 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3486 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3488 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3490 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3491 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3492 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3493 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3494 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3496 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3498 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3499 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3501 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3503 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3504 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3505 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3506 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3507 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3508 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3510 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3512 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3513 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3514 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3515 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3516 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3517 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3519 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3521 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3522 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3523 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3524 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3525 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3526 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3528 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3530 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3531 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3532 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3533 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3535 You probably wrote something like this:
3542 when you should have written this:
3549 If you really want comments, build your list the
3550 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3554 'b', # another comment
3557 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3559 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3560 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3561 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3564 You probably wrote something like this:
3568 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3569 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3573 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3575 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3576 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3577 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3578 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3580 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3582 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3583 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3585 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3587 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3588 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3589 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3590 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3592 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3594 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3595 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3596 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3597 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3599 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3601 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3602 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3603 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3604 followed by the word 'bar'.
3606 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3607 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3609 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3610 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3611 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3613 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3615 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3619 is now misinterpreted as
3623 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3624 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3625 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3628 =item Premature end of script headers
3632 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3634 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3635 before now. Check your control flow.
3637 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3639 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3640 before now. Check your control flow.
3642 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3644 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3645 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3646 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3647 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3650 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3652 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3653 since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3655 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3657 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3658 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3660 =item Prototype not terminated
3662 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3665 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3667 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3668 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3669 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3671 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3673 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3674 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3675 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3677 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3679 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3680 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3681 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3682 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3683 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3685 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3688 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3690 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3691 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3692 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3693 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3695 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3697 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3698 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3700 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3702 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3703 before now. Check your control flow.
3705 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3707 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3709 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3711 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3713 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3715 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3717 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3719 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3722 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3724 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3725 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3726 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3728 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3730 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3731 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3732 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3734 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3736 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3737 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3740 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3742 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3743 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3744 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3745 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3747 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3748 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3749 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3750 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3752 =item Reference is already weak
3754 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3755 Doing so has no effect.
3757 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3759 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3760 a reference count of other than 1.
3762 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3764 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3765 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3766 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3767 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3769 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3771 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3772 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3773 wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3774 prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
3776 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3779 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3781 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3782 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3783 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3785 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3788 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3790 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3791 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3792 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3793 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3795 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3798 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3800 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3801 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3802 of the C<....> part.
3804 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3807 =item regexp memory corruption
3809 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3810 expression compiler gave it.
3812 =item Regexp out of space
3814 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3817 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3819 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3820 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3821 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3823 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
3825 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
3826 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
3829 =item Reversed %s= operator
3831 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3832 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3834 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3836 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3837 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3839 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3841 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3842 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3843 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3844 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3846 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3848 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3849 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3850 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3851 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3852 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3853 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3854 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3856 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3857 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3858 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3861 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3863 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3864 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3865 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3866 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3867 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3868 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3869 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3871 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3872 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3873 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3876 =item Search pattern not terminated
3878 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3879 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3880 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3882 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3883 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3884 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3885 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3887 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3889 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3892 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3893 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3894 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3895 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3897 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3899 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3900 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3902 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3904 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3905 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3907 =item select not implemented
3909 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3911 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3913 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3914 the current implementation.
3916 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
3918 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3919 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3921 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3923 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3924 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3926 =item sem%s not implemented
3928 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3930 =item send() on closed socket %s
3932 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3933 before now. Check your control flow.
3935 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3937 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3938 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3941 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3943 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3944 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3945 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3947 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3949 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3950 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3951 discovered. See L<perlre>.
3953 =item Sequence \\%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3955 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
3956 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
3958 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3960 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3961 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3962 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3965 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3967 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3968 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3969 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3972 =item 500 Server error
3978 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3979 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3980 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3981 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3982 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3983 produce a valid header".
3985 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3987 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3988 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3989 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3990 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3991 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3992 Please see the following for more information:
3994 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3995 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3996 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
3998 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4000 =item setegid() not implemented
4002 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4003 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4006 =item seteuid() not implemented
4008 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4009 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4012 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4014 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4015 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4018 =item setrgid() not implemented
4020 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4021 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4024 =item setruid() not implemented
4026 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4027 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4030 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4032 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4033 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4034 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4036 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
4038 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
4039 world, because the world might have written on it already.
4041 =item Setuid script not plain file
4043 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
4044 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
4046 =item shm%s not implemented
4048 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4050 =item !=~ should be !~
4052 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4053 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4054 operators: probably not what you intended.
4056 =item <> should be quotes
4058 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4061 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4063 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4064 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4065 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4066 probably not what you had in mind.
4068 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4070 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4073 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4075 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4076 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4078 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4080 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4081 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4084 =item sort is now a reserved word
4086 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4087 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4089 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4091 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4092 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4094 =item splice() offset past end of array
4096 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4097 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4098 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4099 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4104 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4105 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4106 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4108 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4110 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4111 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4112 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4113 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4116 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4118 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4119 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4121 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4123 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4124 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4125 C<can> may break this.
4127 =item Subroutine %s redefined
4129 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
4132 no warnings 'redefine';
4133 eval "sub name { ... }";
4136 =item Substitution loop
4138 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4139 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4140 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
4141 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
4143 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
4145 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4146 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4147 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4149 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
4151 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4152 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4153 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4155 =item substr outside of string
4157 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4158 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4159 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4160 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4161 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
4163 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4165 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4166 inferior to its current type.
4168 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4170 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4171 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4172 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4173 clustering parentheses:
4175 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4177 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4178 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4180 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4182 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4183 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4184 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4186 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4188 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4189 and effective uids or gids.
4193 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4197 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4199 A keyword is misspelled.
4200 A semicolon is missing.
4202 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4203 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4204 A closing quote is missing.
4206 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4207 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4208 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4209 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4210 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4211 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4212 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4213 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4214 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4217 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4219 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4220 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4223 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4225 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4226 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4227 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4229 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4231 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4233 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4235 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4237 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4239 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4240 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4241 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4242 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4244 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4246 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4247 before now. Check your control flow.
4249 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4251 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4252 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4254 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4256 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4257 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4259 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4261 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4262 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4264 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4266 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4267 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4269 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4271 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4272 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4281 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4282 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4284 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4286 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4287 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4288 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4289 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4292 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4294 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4295 to the probings of Configure.
4297 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4299 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4300 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4301 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4304 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4306 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4308 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4310 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4312 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4313 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4314 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4315 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4316 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4317 target of the change to
4318 %ENV which produced the warning.
4320 =item thread failed to start: %s
4322 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4324 =item times not implemented
4326 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4327 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4329 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4331 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4332 B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4333 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4334 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4337 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4338 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4339 editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4340 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
4342 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4343 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
4345 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4347 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4348 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4349 specified an illegal mapping.
4350 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4352 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4354 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4356 =item Too few args to syscall
4358 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4359 system call to call, silly dilly.
4361 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4363 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4364 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4366 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4367 not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4369 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4370 (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4371 this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4372 script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
4374 =item Too late to run %s block
4376 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4377 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4378 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4379 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4382 =item Too many args to syscall
4384 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4386 =item Too many arguments for %s
4388 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4392 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4393 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4397 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4398 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4400 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4402 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4403 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4405 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4407 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4408 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4409 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4411 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4413 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4414 y/// or y[][] construct.
4416 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4418 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4419 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4421 =item truncate not implemented
4423 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4424 Configure knows about.
4426 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4428 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4429 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4430 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4431 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4433 =item umask not implemented
4435 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4436 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4438 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4440 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4442 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4444 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4445 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4447 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4449 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4450 many values were temporarily localized.
4452 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4454 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4455 many blocks were entered and left.
4457 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4459 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4460 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4462 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4464 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4465 another package? See L<perlform>.
4467 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4469 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4470 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4472 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4474 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4475 since been undefined.
4477 =item Undefined subroutine called
4479 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4480 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4482 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4484 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4485 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4487 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4489 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4490 another package? See L<perlform>.
4492 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4494 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4495 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4498 =item %s: Undefined variable
4500 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4501 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4503 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4505 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4506 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4508 =item Unicode non-character %s is illegal for interchange
4510 (W utf8) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are defined by the
4511 Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4512 reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
4513 them. In some cases, this message is also given if you use a codepoint that
4514 isn't in Unicode--that is it is above the legal maximum of U+10FFFF. These
4515 aren't legal at all in Unicode, so they are illegal for interchange, but can be
4516 used internally in a Perl program. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4517 off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4519 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4521 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4524 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4526 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4527 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4528 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4530 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4532 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4533 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4534 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4535 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4536 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4537 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4539 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4541 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4542 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4543 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4544 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4546 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4548 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4550 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4552 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4553 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4554 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4555 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4556 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4559 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4560 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4562 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4564 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4565 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4567 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4569 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4570 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4572 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4574 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4575 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4577 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4578 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4580 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4582 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4583 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4584 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4588 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4590 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4591 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4592 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4593 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4595 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4597 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4598 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4599 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4600 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4602 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4604 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4605 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4606 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4607 you were last editing.
4609 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4611 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4612 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4613 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4616 =item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
4618 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4619 in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4620 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4622 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4624 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4625 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4626 understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
4627 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4628 escape was discovered.
4630 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4632 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4633 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4634 change in a future version of Perl.
4636 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4638 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4639 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4640 change in a future version of Perl.
4641 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4642 escape was discovered.
4644 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4646 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4647 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4650 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4652 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4653 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4654 bad switch on your behalf.)
4656 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4658 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4659 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4660 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4662 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4664 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4666 =item Unsupported function %s
4668 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4669 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4671 =item Unsupported function fork
4673 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4675 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4676 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4677 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4679 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4681 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4682 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4684 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4686 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4687 least that's what Configure thought.
4689 =item Unterminated attribute list
4691 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4692 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4693 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4694 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4696 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4698 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4699 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4700 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4701 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4703 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4705 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4706 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4707 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4709 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4711 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4712 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4714 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4716 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4717 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4719 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4721 (F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4722 a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
4724 =item Unterminated <> operator
4726 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4727 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4728 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4729 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4731 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4733 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4734 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4736 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4738 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4739 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4741 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4743 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4744 See L<Win32> for more information.
4746 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4748 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4749 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4751 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4755 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4757 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4758 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4760 =item Useless localization of %s
4762 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4763 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4764 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4766 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4768 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4769 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4771 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4775 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4777 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4778 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4780 =item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
4782 (W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
4783 same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
4784 about the /d modifier.
4786 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4788 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4789 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4790 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4791 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4792 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4793 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4798 when you meant to say
4800 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4802 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4803 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4808 when you should have said
4812 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4813 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4814 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4815 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4816 L<perlref> for more on this.
4818 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4819 since they are often used in statements like
4821 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
4823 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4826 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4828 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4830 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4832 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4836 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4838 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4840 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4841 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4842 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4843 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4844 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4845 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4847 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4849 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4850 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4852 =item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
4854 (D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
4855 is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
4857 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4859 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
4860 form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4862 =item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
4864 (D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
4865 separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4867 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4869 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4870 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4871 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4874 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4875 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4877 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4879 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4880 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4882 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4884 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4885 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4886 used. (This may change in the future.)
4888 =item Use of freed value in iteration
4890 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4891 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
4894 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4896 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4897 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4898 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4899 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4901 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4903 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4904 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4906 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
4908 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4909 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4910 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
4912 =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
4914 (D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
4915 scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
4917 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4919 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4920 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4921 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4922 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4925 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4926 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4927 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4928 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4931 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
4932 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4933 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4934 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4937 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4938 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
4939 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
4941 =item Use of octal value above 377 is deprecated
4943 (D deprecated, W regexp) There is a constant in the regular expression whose
4944 value is interpeted by Perl as octal and larger than 377 (255 decimal, 0xFF
4945 hex). Perl may take this to mean different things depending on the rest of
4946 the regular expression. If you meant such an octal value, convert it to
4947 hexadecimal and use C<\xHH> or C<\x{HH}> instead. If you meant to have
4948 part of it mean a backreference, use C<\g> for that. See L<perlre>.
4950 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4952 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4953 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4955 =item Use of %s is deprecated
4957 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
4958 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4959 old way has bad side effects.
4961 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4963 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4964 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4965 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4967 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4969 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4970 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4971 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4974 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
4976 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
4977 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4978 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
4980 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
4981 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4982 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4983 operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
4985 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4987 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4988 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4989 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4990 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4991 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4992 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
4994 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4996 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
4997 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4998 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4999 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5001 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
5003 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5004 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5005 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
5007 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
5008 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
5009 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
5010 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
5011 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
5012 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
5013 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
5014 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
5016 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5018 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
5019 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
5020 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
5021 be removed in a future version.
5023 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5025 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
5026 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
5027 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
5028 removed in a future version.
5030 =item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5032 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5033 Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5034 expression pattern bracketed character class.
5036 =item Using just the first characters returned by \N{}
5038 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of characters. There is a finite
5039 limit as to the number of characters that can be used, which this sequence
5040 exceeded. In the message, the characters in the sequence are separated by
5041 dots, and each is shown by its ordinal in hex. Anything to the left of the
5042 C<HERE> was retained; anything to the right was discarded.
5044 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
5046 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of a UTF-16 surrogate by
5047 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
5048 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
5049 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
5050 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
5051 character. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn off
5052 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
5054 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
5056 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
5057 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5058 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5059 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5060 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5061 C<defined> operator.
5063 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5065 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5066 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5067 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
5070 =item Variable "%s" is not available
5072 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5073 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
5074 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
5075 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5076 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
5077 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
5079 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
5081 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
5082 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
5083 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5084 now been created and is live:
5086 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5088 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5089 gone out of scope, for example,
5097 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5098 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
5100 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5102 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
5103 you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
5104 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5105 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5106 front of your variable.
5108 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
5110 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
5111 known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
5113 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5115 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
5116 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
5117 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
5118 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
5119 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
5121 =item Variable syntax
5123 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5124 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5127 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5129 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
5130 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
5132 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
5133 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5134 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5135 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5136 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5137 variable will no longer be shared.
5139 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5140 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5141 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
5142 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
5144 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5146 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
5147 or check that you are using the right verb.
5149 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5151 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
5152 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5154 =item Version number must be a constant number
5156 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5157 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5160 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5162 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5165 =item Warning: something's wrong
5167 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
5168 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5170 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
5172 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5173 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5176 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
5178 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5179 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5180 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5181 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
5185 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5189 but in actual fact, you got
5193 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
5195 =item Wide character in %s
5197 (S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
5198 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5199 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5200 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5201 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5202 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5203 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
5205 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5207 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
5208 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
5209 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
5210 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5212 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
5214 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
5215 before now. Check your control flow.
5217 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5219 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5220 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5221 this encoding, for example
5223 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5225 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5227 =item 'X' outside of string
5229 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5230 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5232 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
5234 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5235 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5237 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5239 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
5240 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
5241 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
5244 =item You need to quote "%s"
5246 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5247 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5248 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5249 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5250 what you want, put an & in front.)
5252 =item Your random numbers are not that random
5254 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5255 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5256 Something Very Wrong.
5262 L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.