3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (non-trappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that will be
20 called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
38 (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
40 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
62 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
63 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
64 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
66 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
68 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
73 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
75 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
80 or a hash slice, such as
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
85 =item %s did not return a true value
87 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
92 =item %s found where operator expected
94 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
99 =item %s had compilation errors.
101 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
103 =item %s has too many errors.
105 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
108 =item %s matches null string many times
110 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
113 =item %s never introduced
115 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116 before it could possibly have been used.
120 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
122 =item %s: Command not found.
124 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
125 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
128 =item %s: Expression syntax.
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
134 =item %s: Undefined variable.
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143 instead of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
146 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
148 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
149 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
151 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
153 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
154 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
156 =item 500 Server error
160 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
162 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
163 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
165 =item @ outside of string
167 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
168 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
170 =item accept() on closed fd
172 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
173 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
175 =item Allocation too large: %lx
177 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
179 =item Allocation too large
181 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
183 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
185 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
187 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
189 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
190 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
191 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
193 =item Args must match #! line
195 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
196 with match the arguments specified on the #! line.
198 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric
200 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
201 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
202 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
204 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
206 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
207 is now heavily deprecated.
209 =item assertion botched: %s
211 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
213 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
215 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
217 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
219 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
220 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
221 know which context to supply to the right side.
223 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
225 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
226 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
229 =item Attempt to free non-existent shared string
231 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
232 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
233 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
234 that can no longer be found in the table.
236 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
238 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
239 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
240 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
241 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
244 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
246 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
248 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
250 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
251 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
252 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
253 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
254 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
255 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
257 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
259 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
260 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
261 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
263 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
265 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
266 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
267 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
268 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
270 =item Bad associative array
272 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
274 =item Bad filehandle: %s
276 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
277 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
278 did it in another package.
280 =item Bad free() ignored
282 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
283 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
284 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
286 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
287 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
288 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
291 =item Bad name after %s::
293 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
294 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
303 $sym = "mypack::$var";
305 =item Bad symbol for array
307 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
308 wasn't a symbol table entry.
310 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
312 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
313 wasn't a symbol table entry.
315 =item Bad symbol for hash
317 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
318 wasn't a symbol table entry.
320 =item Badly placed ()'s
322 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
323 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
326 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
328 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
329 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
331 =item bind() on closed fd
333 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
334 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
336 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
338 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
340 =item Callback called exit
342 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
343 exited by calling exit.
345 =item Can't "last" outside a block
347 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
348 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
349 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
350 "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get the same
351 effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block
352 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
354 =item Can't "next" outside a block
356 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
357 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
358 count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
359 the same effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block
360 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
362 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
364 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
365 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
366 count as a "loopish" block. You can usually double the curlies to get
367 the same effect though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block
368 that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
370 =item Can't bless non-reference value
372 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
373 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
375 =item Can't break at that line
377 (S) A warning intended for while running within the debugger, indicating
378 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
381 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
383 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
384 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
385 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
387 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
389 (F) A method call must know what package it's supposed to run in. It
390 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
391 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
392 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
394 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
396 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
397 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
398 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
399 Something like this will reproduce the error:
402 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
403 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
405 =item Can't chdir to %s
407 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
408 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
410 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
412 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
413 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
423 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
425 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
427 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
428 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
430 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
432 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
433 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
435 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
437 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
438 or other plumbing problems.
440 =item Can't declare %s in my
442 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
443 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
445 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
447 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
449 =item Can't do in-place edit without backup
451 (F) You're on a system such as MSDOS that gets confused if you try reading
452 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say B<-i>C<.bak>, or some
455 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
457 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
459 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
461 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
462 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
464 =item Can't do setegid!
466 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
469 =item Can't do seteuid!
471 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
473 =item Can't do setuid
475 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
476 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
477 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
478 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
479 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
480 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
482 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
484 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
485 without flags is emulated.
487 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
489 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
490 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
492 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
494 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
495 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
497 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
499 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
500 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
501 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
502 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
503 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
504 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
508 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
509 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
510 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
512 =item Can't execute %s
514 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
515 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
517 =item Can't find label %s
519 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
520 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
522 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
524 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
525 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
526 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
528 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
532 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
534 =item Unsupported function fork
536 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
538 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
539 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
540 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
542 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
544 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
545 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
546 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
547 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
548 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
549 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
550 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
551 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
552 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
553 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
554 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
555 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
556 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
557 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
559 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
561 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
562 can't retrieve its name for later use.
564 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
566 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
567 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
569 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
571 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
572 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
573 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
576 =item Can't localize a reference
578 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which is not allowed because
579 the compiler can't determine whether $ref will end up pointing to anything
580 with a symbol table entry, and a symbol table entry is necessary to
583 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
585 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
586 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
587 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
590 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
592 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
593 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set
594 the PERL5LIB environment variable to say where the extra library is,
595 or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
596 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
598 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
600 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
601 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
602 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
604 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
606 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
611 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
612 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
614 =item Can't modify %s in %s
616 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
617 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
619 =item Can't modify non-existent substring
621 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
624 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
626 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
629 =item Can't open %s: %s
631 (S) An inplace edit couldn't open the original file for the indicated reason.
632 Usually this is because you don't have read permission for the file.
634 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
636 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
637 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
638 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
639 and then read it in under a different file handle.
641 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
643 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
644 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
645 command line for writing.
647 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
649 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
650 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
652 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
654 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
655 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
658 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
660 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
661 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
663 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
665 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
667 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
669 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
670 you don't have write permission to the directory.
672 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
674 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
675 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
677 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
679 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
682 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
684 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
685 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
687 =item Can't stat script "%s"
689 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
690 it open already. Bizarre.
692 =item Can't swap uid and euid
694 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
697 =item Can't take log of %g
699 (F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
701 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
703 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
704 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
705 if you really want to do that.
707 =item Can't undef active subroutine
709 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
710 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
711 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
715 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
716 as the main Perl stack.
718 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
720 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
721 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
722 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
723 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
725 =item Can't upgrade to undef
727 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
728 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
729 code calling sv_upgrade.
731 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
733 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
734 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
735 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
736 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
739 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
741 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
743 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
745 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
746 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
747 test the type of the reference, if need be.
749 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
751 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
752 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
753 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
754 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
755 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
757 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
759 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
760 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
762 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
764 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
765 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
767 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
769 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
770 be a defined value. This helps to de-lurk some insidious errors.
772 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
774 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
775 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
776 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
777 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
780 =item Can't use subscript on %s
782 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
783 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
784 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
786 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
788 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
789 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
791 =item Can't x= to read-only value
793 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
794 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
795 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
797 =item Cannot open temporary file
799 (F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
800 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
802 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
804 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
805 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
806 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
808 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
810 (W) A novice will sometimes say
814 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
815 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
817 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
819 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
821 =item connect() on closed fd
823 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
824 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
826 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
828 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
829 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
832 =item Copy method did not return a reference
834 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
836 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
838 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
840 =item corrupted regexp pointers
842 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
843 expression compiler gave it.
845 =item corrupted regexp program
847 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
848 a valid magic number.
850 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
852 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
853 times than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
854 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
855 case it indicates something else.
857 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
859 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
861 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
863 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
864 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
868 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
869 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
871 =item Do you need to pre-declare %s?
873 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
874 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
875 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
876 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
877 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
878 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
879 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
880 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
883 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
885 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
887 =item do_study: out of memory
889 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
891 =item Duplicate free() ignored
893 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
896 =item elseif should be elsif
898 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
899 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
900 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
901 unlikely to be what you want.
903 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
905 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
906 The interpreter is immediately exited.
908 =item Error converting file specification %s
910 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
911 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
912 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
913 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
914 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
916 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
918 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
920 =item Exiting eval via %s
922 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
923 a goto, or a loop control statement.
925 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
927 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
928 a goto, or a loop control statement.
930 =item Exiting substitution via %s
932 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
933 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
935 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
937 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
938 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
939 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
940 the Perl source code is distressed.
942 =item fcntl is not implemented
944 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
947 =item Filehandle %s never opened
949 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
950 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
951 the FileHandle package.
953 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
955 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
956 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
957 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
958 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
961 =item Filehandle opened for only input
963 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
964 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
965 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
966 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
969 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
971 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
972 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
973 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
976 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
978 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
979 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
980 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
983 =item Format %s redefined
985 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
989 eval "format NAME =...";
992 =item Format not terminated
994 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
995 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
997 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1007 (or something like that).
1009 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1011 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1013 =item gethostent not implemented
1015 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1016 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1019 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1021 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1022 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1024 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1026 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1027 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1030 =item Glob not terminated
1032 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1033 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1034 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1035 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1037 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1039 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables must
1040 either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1041 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1043 =item goto must have label
1045 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1046 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1048 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1050 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1051 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1052 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1054 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1056 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1057 is now heavily deprecated.
1059 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1061 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1062 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1063 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1064 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1065 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce non-standard names,
1066 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1068 =item Illegal division by zero
1070 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1071 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1073 =item Illegal modulus zero
1075 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1076 don't take to this kindly.
1078 =item Illegal octal digit
1080 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1082 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1084 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1085 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1087 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1089 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1090 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1091 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1092 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1093 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1094 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1095 for more information.
1097 =item Insecure directory in %s
1099 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1100 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1105 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1106 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
1107 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1108 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1110 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1112 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1113 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1116 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1118 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1119 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1122 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1124 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1125 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1126 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1127 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1128 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1129 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1130 and execute the specified command.
1132 =item internal disaster in regexp
1134 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1136 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1138 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1140 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1142 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1143 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1145 =item ioctl is not implemented
1147 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1148 strange for a machine that supports C.
1150 =item junk on end of regexp
1152 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1154 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1156 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1157 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1158 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1160 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1162 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1163 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1166 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1168 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1169 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1172 =item listen() on closed fd
1174 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1175 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1177 =item Literal @%s now requires backslash
1179 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1180 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1181 first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1182 ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by putting a
1183 backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1184 within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply
1185 assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1187 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1189 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1190 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1192 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1194 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1195 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1196 ended earlier on the current line.
1198 =item Misplaced _ in number
1200 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1202 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1204 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1205 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1206 one line to the next.
1208 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1210 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1211 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1213 =item Missing operator before %s?
1215 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1216 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1218 =item Missing right bracket
1220 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1221 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1224 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1226 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1227 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1228 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1230 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1232 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1233 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1234 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1236 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1239 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1241 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1243 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1244 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1247 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1249 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1250 be created for some peculiar reason.
1252 =item Module name must be constant
1254 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1256 =item msg%s not implemented
1258 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1260 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1262 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1263 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1265 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1267 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you
1268 had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1269 again somehow to suppress the message (the C<use vars> pragma is
1270 provided for just this purpose).
1272 =item Negative length
1274 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1275 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1277 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1279 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1280 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1282 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1283 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1287 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1288 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1290 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1292 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1293 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1294 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1297 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1299 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1301 =item No comma allowed after %s
1303 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1304 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1305 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1307 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1309 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1310 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know whither you
1311 want to pipe the output from this command.
1313 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1315 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1316 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1317 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1318 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1319 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1322 =item No dbm on this machine
1324 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1325 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1327 =item No DBsub routine
1329 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1330 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1331 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1332 ordinary subroutine call.
1334 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1336 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1337 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1338 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1340 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1342 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1343 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1344 from which to read data for stdin.
1346 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1348 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1349 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1350 whither you wanted to redirect stdout.
1352 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1354 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1355 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1356 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1358 =item No Perl script found in input
1360 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1361 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1363 =item No setregid available
1365 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1368 =item No setreuid available
1370 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1373 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1375 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1378 =item No such pipe open
1380 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1381 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1382 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1384 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1386 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1387 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1389 =item Not a CODE reference
1391 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1392 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1393 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1394 See also L<perlref>.
1396 =item Not a format reference
1398 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1399 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1401 =item Not a GLOB reference
1403 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1404 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1405 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1406 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1408 =item Not a HASH reference
1410 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1411 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1412 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1414 =item Not a perl script
1416 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1417 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1420 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1422 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1423 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1424 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1426 =item Not a subroutine reference
1428 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1429 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1430 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1431 See also L<perlref>.
1433 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1435 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1436 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1438 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1440 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1441 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1442 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1444 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1446 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1448 =item Not enough format arguments
1450 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1453 =item Null filename used
1455 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1456 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1458 =item Null picture in formline
1460 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1461 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1462 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1464 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1466 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1470 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1472 =item NULL regexp argument
1474 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1476 =item NULL regexp parameter
1478 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1480 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1482 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1483 because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1485 =item Offset outside string
1487 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1488 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1489 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1490 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1494 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1498 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1500 =item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
1502 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1503 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1504 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1505 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1506 true. See L<overload>.
1508 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1510 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1511 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1512 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1513 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1514 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1516 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1518 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1519 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1521 =item Out of memory!
1523 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1524 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1526 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1527 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1528 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1529 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1530 error is trappable I<once>.
1532 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1534 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1535 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1536 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1537 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1541 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1544 =item panic: ck_grep
1546 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1548 =item panic: ck_split
1550 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1552 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1554 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1555 are in the savestack.
1559 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1560 it wasn't an eval context.
1562 =item panic: do_match
1564 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1566 =item panic: do_split
1568 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1570 =item panic: do_subst
1572 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1574 =item panic: do_trans
1576 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1580 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1581 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1583 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1585 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1587 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1589 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1593 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1594 it wasn't a block context.
1596 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1598 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1600 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1602 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1603 invalid enum on the top of it.
1607 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1609 =item panic: mapstart
1611 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1613 =item panic: null array
1615 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1617 =item panic: pad_alloc
1619 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1620 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1622 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1624 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1625 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1627 =item panic: pad_free po
1629 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1631 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1633 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1634 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1636 =item panic: pad_sv po
1638 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1640 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1642 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1643 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1645 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1647 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1649 =item panic: pp_iter
1651 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1653 =item panic: realloc
1655 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1657 =item panic: restartop
1659 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1660 didn't supply the destination.
1664 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1665 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1667 =item panic: scan_num
1669 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1671 =item panic: sv_insert
1673 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1676 =item panic: top_env
1678 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1682 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1684 =item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
1686 (W) You said something like
1692 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1694 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1696 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1698 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1699 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1700 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1702 =item Permission denied
1704 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1706 =item pid %d not a child
1708 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1709 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1710 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1712 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1714 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1715 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1717 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1719 (W) You probably wrote something like this:
1725 when you should have written this:
1731 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1733 (W) You probably wrote something like this:
1737 when you should have written this:
1741 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1743 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1744 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1745 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1746 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1748 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1750 (S) The old irregular construct
1754 is now misinterpreted as
1758 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
1759 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
1760 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead of "||".
1762 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1764 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1765 Check your logic flow.
1767 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1769 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1770 Check your logic flow.
1772 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1774 (W) The compiler found a bare word where it expected a conditional,
1775 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1776 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1780 =item Prototype mismatch: (%s) vs (%s)
1782 (S) The subroutine being defined had a pre-declared (forward) declaration
1783 with a different function prototype.
1785 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
1787 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1788 Check your logic flow.
1790 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1792 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
1794 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1796 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1797 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1798 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1800 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1802 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1803 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1805 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1807 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1808 reference count of other than 1.
1810 =item regexp memory corruption
1812 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1813 expression compiler gave it.
1815 =item regexp out of space
1817 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1819 =item regexp too big
1821 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
1822 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1823 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
1824 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
1825 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
1827 =item Reversed %s= operator
1829 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
1830 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
1832 =item Runaway format
1834 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
1835 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
1836 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
1837 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
1838 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
1840 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
1842 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1843 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1844 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1845 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
1846 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1847 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1849 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
1850 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1851 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1854 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
1856 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
1857 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
1858 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
1859 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
1860 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
1861 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
1863 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
1864 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
1865 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
1868 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
1870 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script with its setuid
1871 or setgid bit not set. This doesn't make much sense.
1873 =item Search pattern not terminated
1875 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
1876 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
1878 =item seek() on unopened file
1880 (W) You tried to use the seek() function on a filehandle that was either
1881 never opened or has been closed since.
1883 =item select not implemented
1885 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
1887 =item sem%s not implemented
1889 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
1891 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
1893 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
1894 that had previously been marked as free.
1896 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
1898 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
1899 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
1901 =item Send on closed socket
1903 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
1904 Check your logic flow.
1906 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
1908 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
1909 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
1911 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
1913 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
1914 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
1916 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
1918 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
1923 Also known as "500 Server error". This is a CGI error, not a Perl
1924 error. You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible
1925 by the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not
1926 the user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
1927 variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
1928 in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
1930 =item setegid() not implemented
1932 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
1933 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1936 =item seteuid() not implemented
1938 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
1939 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1942 =item setrgid() not implemented
1944 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
1945 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1948 =item setruid() not implemented
1950 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
1951 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
1954 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
1956 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
1957 because the world might have written on it already.
1959 =item shm%s not implemented
1961 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
1963 =item shutdown() on closed fd
1965 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
1967 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined.
1969 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
1970 put it into the wrong package?
1972 =item sort is now a reserved word
1974 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
1975 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
1977 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
1979 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
1980 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
1981 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1983 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
1985 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
1986 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1990 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
1991 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
1992 See L<perlfunc/split>.
1994 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
1996 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
1997 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has been closed since.
1999 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2001 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2002 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2003 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2004 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2007 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2009 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2010 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2013 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2015 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2019 eval "sub name { ... }";
2022 =item Substitution loop
2024 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2025 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2026 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2027 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2029 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2031 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2032 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2034 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2036 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2037 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2039 =item substr outside of string
2041 (W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a string.
2042 That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the length of
2043 the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
2045 =item suidperl is no longer needed since...
2047 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2048 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2052 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2054 A keyword is misspelled.
2055 A semicolon is missing.
2057 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2058 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2059 A closing quote is missing.
2061 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2062 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2063 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2064 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2065 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2066 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2067 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2068 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2069 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2071 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2073 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2074 instead of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
2077 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2079 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
2080 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2082 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2084 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2085 Check your logic flow.
2087 =item tell() on unopened file
2089 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2090 never opened or has been closed since.
2092 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2094 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2095 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2097 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2099 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2100 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2109 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2110 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2112 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2114 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2115 to the probings of Configure.
2117 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
2119 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2120 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2121 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2122 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2125 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2127 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2128 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2129 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2131 =item times not implemented
2133 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2134 you're not running on Unix.
2136 =item Too few args to syscall
2138 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2139 system call to call, silly dilly.
2145 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2146 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
2149 =item Too many args to syscall
2151 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2153 =item Too many arguments for %s
2155 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2157 =item trailing \ in regexp
2159 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2162 =item Translation pattern not terminated
2164 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2167 =item Translation replacement not terminated
2169 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2172 =item truncate not implemented
2174 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2175 Configure knows about.
2177 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2179 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2180 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2181 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2182 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2184 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2186 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
2187 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2189 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2191 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2193 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2195 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2196 contexts were entered and left.
2198 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2200 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2201 values were temporarily localized.
2203 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2205 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2206 were entered and left.
2208 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2210 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2211 scalars were allocated and freed.
2213 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2215 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2216 another package? See L<perlform>.
2218 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2220 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2221 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2223 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2225 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2226 has since been undefined.
2228 =item Undefined subroutine called
2230 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2231 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2233 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2235 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2236 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2238 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2240 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2241 another package? See L<perlform>.
2243 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2245 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2246 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2248 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2250 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2252 =item unmatched () in regexp
2254 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2255 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2256 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2258 =item Unmatched right bracket
2260 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2261 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2262 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2265 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2267 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2268 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2271 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2273 (W) You used a bare word that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2274 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2275 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2277 =item Unrecognized character \%03o ignored
2279 (S) A garbage character was found in the input, and ignored, in case it's
2280 a weird control character on an EBCDIC machine, or some such.
2282 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2284 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2285 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2287 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2289 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2290 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2291 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2293 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2295 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2296 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2297 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chop>.
2299 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2301 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2303 =item Unsupported function %s
2305 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2306 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2308 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2310 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2311 least that's what Configure thought.
2313 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2315 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2316 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2317 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2318 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2320 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2322 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2323 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2325 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2327 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2328 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2329 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2330 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2332 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2334 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2335 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2337 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2339 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2340 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2343 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2345 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2346 wish to use a blank line as the terminator of the here-document.
2348 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2350 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2351 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2352 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2354 =item Use of uninitialized value
2356 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2357 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2358 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2360 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2362 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2363 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2364 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2365 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2366 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2367 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2371 when you meant to say
2373 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2375 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2376 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2381 when you should have said
2385 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2386 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2387 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2388 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2389 L<perlref> for more on this.
2391 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2393 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2394 valid when C<untie> was called.
2396 =item Value of %s construct can be "0"; test with defined()
2398 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), or
2399 C<readdir> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2400 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which
2401 is probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in
2402 conditional expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2404 =item Variable "%s" is not exported
2406 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2407 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2408 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2409 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2410 on the front of your variable.
2412 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2414 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2415 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2416 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2417 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2419 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2421 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2422 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2423 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2424 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2425 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2426 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2429 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2430 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2431 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2432 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2434 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2436 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2437 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2439 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2440 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2441 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2442 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2443 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2444 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2446 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2447 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2448 will I<never> share the given variable.
2450 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2451 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2452 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2453 they are automatically re-bound to the current values of such
2456 =item Variable syntax.
2458 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2459 of Perl. Check the E<lt>#!E<gt> line, or manually feed your script
2462 =item Warning: something's wrong
2464 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2465 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2467 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly.
2469 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2470 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
2472 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
2474 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2475 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2476 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2477 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2481 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2485 but in actual fact, you got
2489 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
2491 =item Write on closed filehandle
2493 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2494 Check your logic flow.
2496 =item X outside of string
2498 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2499 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2501 =item x outside of string
2503 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2504 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2506 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2508 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2510 =item Xsub called in sort
2512 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2514 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2516 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2517 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2518 Use a filename instead.
2520 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2522 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
2523 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2524 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2525 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2527 =item You need to quote "%s"
2529 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2530 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2531 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2532 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2534 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2536 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2537 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2538 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2540 =item \1 better written as $1
2542 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2543 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
2544 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2545 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2546 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2548 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
2550 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2551 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2552 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2554 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
2556 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2557 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2558 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2559 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2562 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2569 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem:
2571 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you use an obsolete version
2572 of perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2574 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2576 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2584 with non-empty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2585 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear
2586 if components are not found, or are too long. See L<perlos2/"PERLLIB_PREFIX">.
2588 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2590 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2591 C<sh>-shell in. See L<perlos2/"PERL_SH_DIR">.
2593 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2595 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2596 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2597 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2598 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See L<perlos2/"Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT">.