This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
Show --html flag for make-rmg-checklist
[perl5.git] / pod / perldiag.pod
CommitLineData
a0d0e21e
LW
1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
a0d0e21e
LW
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
e476b1b5
GS
20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
4438c4b7
JH
34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
6df41af2
GS
38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
a0d0e21e
LW
44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
be771a83
GS
49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
de42a5a9 53=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
1109a392
MHM
59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
be771a83
GS
65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
6df41af2
GS
69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
be771a83
GS
76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
c2e66d9e
GS
79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
6df41af2
GS
88(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
d8225693
JM
92=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
93
94(W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
3303f755
FC
95bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
96(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
97like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
98assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
99clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
100really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 101
1ef43bca
JM
102=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
103
104(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
105asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
106named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 107the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
1ef43bca
JM
108function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
109and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
110
e850844c
FC
111=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
112
113=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 114
ccaaf480
FC
115(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo
116represents the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for
117element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write
118C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to
119the function named foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it
120returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
121
122In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
123to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
124C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length>
125followed by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what
126you want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/>
127to the unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to
128something that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by
129simply turning off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 130
bdac9d71 131=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
397d0f13
JM
132
133(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
a7f6e211
FC
134string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
135the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
397d0f13
JM
136write C<-foo()>.
137
79ef86ee 138=item Ambiguous use of 's//le...' resolved as 's// le...'; Rewrite as 's//el' if you meant 'use locale rules and evaluate rhs as an expression'. In Perl 5.18, it will be resolved the other way
94b03d7d
KW
139
140(W deprecated, ambiguous) You wrote a pattern match with substitution
79ef86ee 141immediately followed by "le". In Perl 5.16 and earlier, this is
94b03d7d
KW
142resolved as meaning to take the result of the substitution, and see if
143it is stringwise less-than-or-equal-to what follows in the expression.
144Having the "le" immediately following a pattern is deprecated behavior,
79ef86ee 145so in Perl 5.18, this expression will be resolved as meaning to do the
94b03d7d 146pattern match using the rules of the current locale, and evaluate the
79ef86ee
KW
147rhs as an expression when doing the substitution. In 5.14, and 5.16 if
148you want the latter interpretation, you can simply write "el" instead.
149But note that the C</l> modifier should not be used explicitly anyway;
150you should use C<use locale> instead. See L<perllocale>.
94b03d7d 151
6df41af2 152=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 153
be771a83
GS
154(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
155redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
156redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 157
6df41af2 158=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 159
be771a83
GS
160(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
161redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
162into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
163though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
164which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 165
6df41af2
GS
166 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
167 while (<STDIN>) {
168 print;
169 print OUT;
170 }
171 close OUT;
c9f97d15 172
6df41af2 173=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 174
496a33f5
SC
175(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
176transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 177one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 178a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
179hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
be771a83
GS
180you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
181alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 182
6df41af2 183=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 184
6df41af2 185(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 186
b0fdf69e 187=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 188
cc1c2e42
FC
189(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
190subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
a0d0e21e
LW
191
192 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 193 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 194 &do_something
a0d0e21e 195
8ea97a1e 196=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 197
06e52bfa
FC
198(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
199such as:
5f05dabc 200
201 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 202 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 203
8ea97a1e 204or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 205
6df41af2
GS
206 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
207 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 208
6df41af2 209=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 210
6df41af2 211(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
be771a83
GS
212name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
213error.
a0d0e21e 214
f86702cc 215=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 216
be771a83
GS
217(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
218that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
219will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 220
b4581f09
JH
221=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
222
a534ac11
FC
223(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
224system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
225take care of transforming data between external and internal
226representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
227point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
228didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
229result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 230
a0d0e21e
LW
231=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
232
75b44862
GS
233(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
234spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e
LW
235
236=item assertion botched: %s
237
21b5e840 238(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
a0d0e21e
LW
239
240=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
241
21b5e840 242(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 243
82122228
FC
244=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
245
7d345e3d
FC
246(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
247the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 248
a0d0e21e
LW
249=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
250
251(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
252must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
253know which context to supply to the right side.
254
96ebfdd7
RK
255=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
256
b92a77e8
FC
257(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily
258the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
111a855e
FC
259Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
260created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
96ebfdd7
RK
261thread. See L<threads>.
262
2393f1b9 263=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 264
49293501 265(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 266the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 267
81689caa
HS
268=item Attempt to bless into a reference
269
270(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 271the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
81689caa
HS
272supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
273
274 bless $self, $proto;
275
276when you intended
277
278 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
279
280If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
281of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
282example by:
283
284 bless $self, "$proto";
285
96ebfdd7
RK
286=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
287
288(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
289which is not in its key set.
290
291=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
292
293(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
294declared readonly from a restricted hash.
295
de42a5a9 296=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 297
f84fe999 298(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
be771a83
GS
299that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
300outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 301
12578ffb 302=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 303
f84fe999 304(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
be771a83
GS
305strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
306strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
307of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 308
a0d0e21e
LW
309=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
310
f84fe999 311(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
be771a83
GS
312free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
313SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
314free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
315try to free it.
a0d0e21e
LW
316
317=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
318
f84fe999 319(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e
LW
320
321=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
322
be771a83
GS
323(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
324see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
325earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
326This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
327that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
328mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
329corrupted.
a0d0e21e 330
dcdda58d
GS
331=item Attempt to join self
332
333(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
be771a83
GS
334impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
335to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 336
84902520
TB
337=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
338
be771a83
GS
339(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
340function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
341means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
342invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
343literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
344avoid this warning.
84902520 345
087b5369
RD
346=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
347
348(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
349compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
350unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
351L<perlvar/%INC>.
352
1b20cd17
NC
353=item Attempt to set length of freed array
354
355(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
356can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
357of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
358
359 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
360 $$r = 503
361
b7a902f4 362=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
363
be771a83
GS
364(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
365used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
366dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 367
c32124fe
NC
368=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
369
57dedab9
FC
370(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
371"locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
372obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
373will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
c32124fe 374
f1a3ce43
NC
375=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
376
57dedab9
FC
377(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
378the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
379The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
380will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
f1a3ce43 381
de42a5a9 382=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 383
be771a83
GS
384(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
385or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 386S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
a0d0e21e
LW
387S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
388
7a95317d
GS
389=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
390
496a33f5 391(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
7a95317d
GS
392substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
393most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
394
a0d0e21e
LW
395=item Bad filehandle: %s
396
be771a83
GS
397(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
398symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
399open(), or did it in another package.
a0d0e21e
LW
400
401=item Bad free() ignored
402
be771a83
GS
403(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
404been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 405setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 406
9ea8bc6d 407This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 408dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 409which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 410
aa689395 411=item Bad hash
412
413(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
414
6df41af2
GS
415=item Badly placed ()'s
416
417(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
418of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
419Perl yourself.
420
a0d0e21e
LW
421=item Bad name after %s::
422
be771a83
GS
423(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
424didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
425of quotes, so
a0d0e21e
LW
426
427 $var = 'myvar';
428 $sym = mypack::$var;
429
430is not the same as
431
432 $var = 'myvar';
433 $sym = "mypack::$var";
434
88e1f1a2
JV
435=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
436
437(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
438plugin API.
439
4ad56ec9
IZ
440=item Bad realloc() ignored
441
6903afa2
FC
442(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
443had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
444be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 445
a0d0e21e
LW
446=item Bad symbol for array
447
448(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
449wasn't a symbol table entry.
450
4df3f177
SP
451=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
452
453(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
454that wasn't a symbol table entry.
455
a0d0e21e
LW
456=item Bad symbol for filehandle
457
be771a83
GS
458(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
459that wasn't a symbol table entry.
a0d0e21e
LW
460
461=item Bad symbol for hash
462
463(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
464wasn't a symbol table entry.
465
34d09196
GS
466=item Bareword found in conditional
467
be771a83
GS
468(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
469conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
470of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
471
472 open FOO || die;
473
be771a83
GS
474It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
475a bareword:
34d09196
GS
476
477 use constant TYPO => 1;
478 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
479
480The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
481
6df41af2
GS
482=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
483
484(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
be771a83
GS
485subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
486symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
487
488=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
489
be771a83
GS
490(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
491compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
492you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 493
a0d0e21e
LW
494=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
495
be771a83
GS
496(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
497subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
498exited.
a0d0e21e 499
68dc0745 500=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
501
502(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
be771a83
GS
503implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
504occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
505be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
506depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 507
6df41af2
GS
508=item \1 better written as $1
509
be771a83
GS
510(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
511The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
512substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
513because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
514there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 515
252aa082
JH
516=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
517
e476b1b5 518(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
519(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
520L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 521
69282e91 522=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 523
be771a83
GS
524(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
525check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 526
c289d2f7
JH
527=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
528
529(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 530Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 531
f866a7cd
FC
532=item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
533
534=item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
535
536(W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
537C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
538itself in a future release.
539
c5a0f51a
JH
540=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
541
e476b1b5 542(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 543
4633a7c4
LW
544=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
545
be771a83 546(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
4dcecea4 547copiable.
4633a7c4 548
f675dbe5
CB
549=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
550
be771a83
GS
551(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
552iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
553which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 554
a0d0e21e
LW
555=item Callback called exit
556
4929bf7b 557(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
558exited by calling exit.
559
6df41af2 560=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 561
be771a83
GS
562(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
563parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
564that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
565early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
566subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
567checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
568function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
569the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 570
49704364 571=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
572
573(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
574compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
575attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
576See L<perlfunc/pack>.
577
49704364 578=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
579
580(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
581format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
582
5c1f4d79
NC
583=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
584
6903afa2
FC
585(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
586in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
587The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
588no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 589
4040665a 590=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
591
592(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 593be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 594
b5d97229
RGS
595=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
596
597(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
598either with open() or binmode().
599
96ebfdd7
RK
600=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
601
602(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
603integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
604to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
605
a0d0e21e
LW
606=item Can't bless non-reference value
607
608(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
609encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
610
dc57907a
RGS
611=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
612
0d863452 613(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
6903afa2 614a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
0d863452
RH
615
616=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 617
0d863452
RH
618(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
619
6df41af2
GS
620=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
621
622(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
623object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
624like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
625
626 $BADREF = undef;
627 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
628 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
629
a0d0e21e
LW
630=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
631
54310121 632(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
633ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
634didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
635object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
636
637=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
638
639(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
640object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
641defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
642Something like this will reproduce the error:
643
644 $BADREF = 42;
645 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
646 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
647
a0d0e21e
LW
648=item Can't chdir to %s
649
650(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
651that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
652
0545a864 653=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 654
be771a83
GS
655(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
656nosuid.
104d25b7 657
22e74366 658=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
659
660(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 661(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
662say things like:
663
664 *foo += 1;
665
666You CAN say
667
668 $foo = *foo;
669 $foo += 1;
670
671but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
672
0d863452 673=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 674
0d863452
RH
675(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
676or C<default> block.
677
a0d0e21e
LW
678=item Can't create pipe mailbox
679
be771a83
GS
680(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
681quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 682
eb64745e
GS
683=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
684
30c282f6
NC
685(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
686"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 687
fc7debfb
FC
688=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
689
690(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
691C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
692issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
693error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
694
6df41af2
GS
695=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
696
be771a83
GS
697(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
698a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 699
a0d0e21e
LW
700=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
701
be771a83
GS
702(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
703reason.
a0d0e21e 704
54310121 705=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 706
be771a83
GS
707(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
708reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
709C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 710
10f9c03d 711=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 712
e476b1b5 713(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
714characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
715inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 716
7253e4e3 717=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 718
6903afa2
FC
719(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
720want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The
721<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
722was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 723
a0d0e21e
LW
724=item Can't do waitpid with flags
725
be771a83
GS
726(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
727waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 728
a0d0e21e
LW
729=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
730
be771a83
GS
731(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
732point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
733line.
a0d0e21e 734
1109a392
MHM
735=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
736
737(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
738or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
739little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
740See L<perlfunc/pack>.
741
a0d0e21e
LW
742=item Can't exec "%s": %s
743
d1be9408 744(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
745named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
746permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
747C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
748architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
749can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
750#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
751
752=item Can't exec %s
753
be771a83
GS
754(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
755that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
756need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
757
758=item Can't execute %s
759
be771a83
GS
760(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
761found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 762
6df41af2 763=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 764
be771a83
GS
765(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
766is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 767
56ca2fc0
JH
768=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
769
770(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
6903afa2 771could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
e1b711da
KW
772See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
773for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 774
6df41af2
GS
775=item Can't find label %s
776
be771a83
GS
777(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
778possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
779
780=item Can't find %s on PATH
781
be771a83
GS
782(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
783found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 784
6df41af2 785=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 786
be771a83
GS
787(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
788found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
789script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
790
791=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
792
be771a83
GS
793(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
794that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
795nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 796
fb73857a 797 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
798
97b3d10f 799If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
800included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
801may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
802a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
803L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 804
660a4616
TS
805=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
806
5f8ad6b6
FC
807(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
808property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
809letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
e1b711da 810L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
6903afa2 811for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
5f8ad6b6
FC
812mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by C<\\p>
813(just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
814until C<\E>).
660a4616 815
b3647a36 816=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 817
be771a83
GS
818(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
819pipeline.
a0d0e21e 820
b3647a36
SR
821=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
822
c973c02e 823(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
824after five seconds.
825
748a9306
LW
826=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
827
be771a83
GS
828(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
829between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
830Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
831the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
832account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
833the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 834the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
835the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
836if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
837because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
838appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
839and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
840routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
841shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
842only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 843
a0d0e21e
LW
844=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
845
be771a83
GS
846(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
847pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
848
849=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
850
748a9306
LW
851(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
852mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 853
6df41af2 854=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 855
be771a83
GS
856(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
857loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
858
859=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
860
be771a83
GS
861(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
862a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
863you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
864See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 865
9850bf21 866=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 867
9850bf21
RH
868(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
869comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
870as the reduce() function in List::Util).
871
c74ace89 872=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 873
be771a83 874(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 875"string" or block.
b150fb22 876
6df41af2
GS
877=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
878
be771a83
GS
879(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
880subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
881cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
882routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 883
0b5b802d
GS
884=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
885
be771a83
GS
886(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
887signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
888signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
889processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
890situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
891may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 892
e2c0f81f
DG
893=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
894
895(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
896attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
897process identifier.
898
6df41af2 899=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 900
6df41af2 901(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
902except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
903block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
904block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
905usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
906inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
907L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 908
2c7d6b9c
RGS
909=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
910
911(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
912package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
913
b8170e59
JB
914=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
915
6903afa2
FC
916(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
917This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
918that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
919to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
920dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
921that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
922dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 923
748a9306
LW
924=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
925
2ba9eb46 926(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
927lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
928want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
929the package name.
748a9306 930
6df41af2 931=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 932
6df41af2
GS
933(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
934handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 935pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 936that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 937
ea071790 938=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
939
940(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
941found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
942unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
943need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
944the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
945to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
946L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 947
6df41af2
GS
948=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
949
be771a83
GS
950(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
951autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
952are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
953the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 954
b8170e59
JB
955=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
956
957(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 958for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
959unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
960
a0d0e21e
LW
961=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
962
963(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
964functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 965method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
966
967=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
968
be771a83
GS
969(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
970doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 971
2f7da168
RK
972=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
973
974(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
975e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
976
f4ad53f4 977=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 978
be771a83
GS
979(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
980VMS.
3e3baf6d 981
a0d0e21e
LW
982=item Can't modify %s in %s
983
be771a83
GS
984(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
985to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 986
54310121 987=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
988
989(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
990a NULL.
991
6df41af2
GS
992=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
993
994(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 995such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 996
5f05dabc 997=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 998
5f05dabc 999(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1000buffer.
1001
6df41af2
GS
1002=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1003
1004(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1005there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1006count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1007grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1008though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1009once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1010
a0d0e21e
LW
1011=item Can't open %s: %s
1012
c47ff5f1 1013(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
1014filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1015switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
1016is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1017the command line.
a0d0e21e 1018
9a869a14
RGS
1019=item Can't open a reference
1020
1021(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1022using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1023
1024 open FH, '>', $ref;
1025
1026but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1027open is not supported.
1028
a0d0e21e
LW
1029=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1030
be771a83
GS
1031(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1032You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1033as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1034">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1035
748a9306
LW
1036=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1037
be771a83
GS
1038(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1039redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1040the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1041
1042=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1043
be771a83
GS
1044(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1045redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1046command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1047
1048=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1049
be771a83
GS
1050(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1051redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1052the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1053
1054=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1055
be771a83
GS
1056(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1057redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1058for stdout.
748a9306 1059
2b8ca739 1060=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1061
1062(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1063
fa3aa65a
JC
1064If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1065shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1066you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1067
6df41af2
GS
1068=item Can't read CRTL environ
1069
1070(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1071from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1072missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1073or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1074searched.
6df41af2 1075
6df41af2
GS
1076=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1077
1078(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1079there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1080count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1081or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1082though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1083loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1084
64977eb6 1085=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1086
be771a83
GS
1087(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1088file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1089the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1090
a0d0e21e
LW
1091=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1092
e476b1b5 1093(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1094probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1095
748a9306
LW
1096=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1097
be771a83
GS
1098(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1099to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1100
fe13d51d 1101=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1102
1fa582fa
FC
1103(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1104opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1105package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1106
cd06dffe
GS
1107=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1108
be771a83
GS
1109(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1110temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1111is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1112
96ebfdd7
RK
1113=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1114
1115(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1116there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1117
78f9721b
SM
1118=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1119
6903afa2
FC
1120(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1121subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1122think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1123write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1124Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1125
a0d0e21e
LW
1126=item Can't stat script "%s"
1127
be771a83
GS
1128(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1129open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1130
a0d0e21e
LW
1131=item Can't take log of %g
1132
fb73857a 1133(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1134negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1135standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1136negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1137
1138=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1139
1140(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1141negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1142with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1143
1144=item Can't undef active subroutine
1145
1146(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1147however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1148redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1149
c81225bc 1150=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1151
be771a83
GS
1152(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1153into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1154specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1155indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1156
1db89ea5
BS
1157=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1158
e27ad1f2 1159(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1160table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1161for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1162
96ebfdd7
RK
1163=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1164
1165(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1166be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1167
6df41af2
GS
1168=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1169
be771a83
GS
1170(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1171references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1172
90b75b61 1173=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1174
20561843 1175(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1176Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1177provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1178
1109a392
MHM
1179=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1180
1181(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1182byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1183allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1184
6df41af2
GS
1185=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1186
be771a83
GS
1187(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1188foreach.
6df41af2 1189
aab6a793 1190=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1191
be771a83
GS
1192(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1193is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1194(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1195have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1196weren't.
1197
6d3b25aa
RGS
1198=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1199
1200(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1201that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1202For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1203is inside a big-endian group.
1204
c07a80fd 1205=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1206
1207(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1208You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1209and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1210Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1211lexical variable.
1212
a0d0e21e
LW
1213=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1214
1215(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1216reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1217test the type of the reference, if need be.
1218
748a9306 1219=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1220
be771a83
GS
1221(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1222references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1223
748a9306
LW
1224=item Can't use subscript on %s
1225
1226(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1227subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1228didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1229
6df41af2
GS
1230=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1231
75b44862
GS
1232(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1233creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1234backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1235expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1236value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1237instead.
6df41af2 1238
810b8aa5
GS
1239=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1240
1241(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1242references can be weakened.
1243
fc7debfb
FC
1244=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1245
1246(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1247loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1248from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1249or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1250
5f05dabc 1251=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1252
be771a83
GS
1253(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1254with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1255Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1256
4a68bf9d 1257=item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
f9d13529 1258
1fa582fa 1259(F)(W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
79ef86ee 1260It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.18. In the
17a3df4c
KW
1261cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1262derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1263
1264Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
f9d13529 1265
f337b084 1266=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1267
1268(W pack) You said
1269
1270 pack("C", $x)
1271
1272where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1273only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1274and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1275
1276 pack("C", $x & 255)
1277
1278If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1279instead.
1280
f337b084
TH
1281=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1282
1283(W pack) You said
1284
1285 pack("U0W", $x)
1286
6903afa2
FC
1287where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1288expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1289as if you meant:
f337b084
TH
1290
1291 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1292
1293=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1294
1295(W pack) You said
1296
1297 pack("c", $x)
1298
1299where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1300is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1301and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1302
1303 pack("c", $x & 255);
1304
1305If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1306instead.
1307
f337b084
TH
1308=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1309
1310(W unpack) You tried something like
1311
1312 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1313
1a147d38 1314where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1315below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1316value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1317
1318 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1319
1320=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1321
1322(W pack) You tried something like
1323
1324 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1325
1a147d38 1326where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1327value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1328uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1329
1330 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1331
1332=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1333
1334(W unpack) You tried something like
1335
1336 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1337
1a147d38 1338where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1339value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1340uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1341
1342 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1343
f866a7cd
FC
1344=item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1345
1346(D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1347to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1348evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
79ef86ee 1349ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.18. Just use a
f866a7cd
FC
1350semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1351
1352=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1353
1354(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1355non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1356written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1357characters.
1358
96ebfdd7
RK
1359=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1360
1361(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1362
abc7ecad
SP
1363=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1364
1365(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1366a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1367
541ed3a9
FC
1368=item Closure prototype called
1369
1370(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1371handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1372This subroutine cannot be called.
1373
49704364
WL
1374=item Code missing after '/'
1375
6903afa2
FC
1376(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1377another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1378
0876b9a0
KW
1379=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1380
c634fdd3 1381=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed
9ae3ac1a 1382
1b64326b
FC
1383(W utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1384of U+10FFFF.
1385
1386Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1387to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1388but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1389it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1390but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
139132 bit word.
0876b9a0 1392
9ae3ac1a
KW
1393None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1394code point. For example,
1395
1396 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1397
1398will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1399
1400 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1401
1402will match.
1403
94b42e47
KW
1404This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1405
1406 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Fails.
1407 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also fails!
1408
1409and both these succeed:
1410
1411 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Succeeds.
1412 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also succeeds!
1413
6df41af2
GS
1414=item %s: Command not found
1415
be771a83
GS
1416(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1417Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1418
7a2e2cd6 1419=item Compilation failed in require
1420
1421(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1422Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1423encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1424
c3464db5
DD
1425=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1426
be771a83
GS
1427(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1428situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1429to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1430arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1431recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1432under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1433in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1434that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1435on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1436
38875929
DM
1437=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1438
6903afa2
FC
1439(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1440call cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked.
1441The cond_broadcast() function is used to wake up another thread
1442that is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1443sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1444is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1445variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1446thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
38875929 1447
38875929
DM
1448=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1449
6903afa2
FC
1450(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1451call cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The
1452cond_signal() function is used to wake up another thread that
1453is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1454sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1455is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1456variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1457thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
38875929 1458
69282e91 1459=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1460
be771a83
GS
1461(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1462to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1463L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1464
41ab332f 1465=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1466
be771a83
GS
1467(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1468an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1469specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
fbb93542 1470corresponding L<overload> pragma?.
6df41af2 1471
fc8cd66c
YO
1472=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1473
1a147d38 1474(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
fbb93542 1475the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape.
fc8cd66c 1476
779c5bc9
GS
1477=item Constant is not %s reference
1478
1479(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1480is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1481The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1482usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1483See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1484
4cee8e80
CS
1485=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1486
aeb94125
FC
1487(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1488been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1489for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1490
9607fc9c 1491=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1492
be771a83
GS
1493(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1494for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1495workarounds.
9607fc9c 1496
e7ea3e70
IZ
1497=item Copy method did not return a reference
1498
6903afa2 1499(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1500L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1501
4aaa4757
FC
1502=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1503
1504(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1505with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1506in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1507called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1508
1509 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1510 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1511
6798c92b
GS
1512=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1513
1514(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1515
a0d0e21e
LW
1516=item corrupted regexp pointers
1517
1518(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1519expression compiler gave it.
1520
1521=item corrupted regexp program
1522
be771a83
GS
1523(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1524valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1525
de42a5a9 1526=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1527
1528(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1529
49704364
WL
1530=item Count after length/code in unpack
1531
1532(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1533you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1534L<perlfunc/pack>.
1535
a0d0e21e
LW
1536=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1537
be771a83
GS
1538(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1539100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1540infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1541which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1542
aad1d01f
NC
1543This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1544setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1545
f10b0346 1546=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1547
be771a83
GS
1548(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1549checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1550array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1551
f10b0346 1552=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1553
f0ec9725
KR
1554(D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1555discouraged since 5.004.
1556
1557Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1558becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1559weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1560These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1561
1562If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1563context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
16546e45
KR
1564
1565 if (%hash) {
1566 # not empty
1567 }
1568
f0ec9725
KR
1569If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1570variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1571a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1572it's loaded, etc.
1573
69794302 1574
bcb95744
FC
1575=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1576
6903afa2 1577(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1578most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1579of the C<....> part.
1580
1581The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1582discovered.
1583
62658f4d
PM
1584=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1585
1586(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1587there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1588
fc36a67e 1589=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1590
be771a83
GS
1591(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1592long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1593that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1594
4a68bf9d 1595=item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1596
1597(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
5fca8acb
FC
1598But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1599are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1600and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1601parentheses or colons.
cb233ae3 1602
6d3b25aa
RGS
1603=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1604
1605(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1606There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1607not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 1608conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
6d3b25aa 1609static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 1610relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 1611declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1612
6d3b25aa
RGS
1613 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1614
1615becomes
1616
1617 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1618
36fb85f3
RGS
1619Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1620have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1621
1622 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1623
500ab966
RGS
1624=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1625
1626(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
1627just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1628than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 1629
3cdd684c
TP
1630=item Did not produce a valid header
1631
1632See Server error.
1633
6df41af2
GS
1634=item %s did not return a true value
1635
1636(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1637it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1638traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1639do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1640
cc507455 1641=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1642
413ff9f6
FC
1643(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1644some such.
4633a7c4 1645
cc507455 1646=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1647
be771a83
GS
1648(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1649variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1650seems superfluous.
33633739 1651
cc507455 1652=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1653
be771a83
GS
1654(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1655@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1656carried away.
748a9306 1657
7e1af8bc 1658=item Died
5f05dabc 1659
1660(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 1661you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 1662
3cdd684c
TP
1663=item Document contains no data
1664
1665See Server error.
1666
62658f4d
PM
1667=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1668
1669(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1670define a C<$VERSION.>
1671
49704364
WL
1672=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1673
1674(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1675See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1676
a0d0e21e
LW
1677=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1678
1679(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1680
1681=item do_study: out of memory
1682
1683(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1684
6df41af2
GS
1685=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1686
56da5a46
RGS
1687(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1688"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1689name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1690because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1691"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1692something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1693subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1694"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1695
ac206dc8
RGS
1696=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1697
1698(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1699qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1700
84d78eb7
YO
1701=item dump is not supported
1702
1703(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1704
a0d0e21e
LW
1705=item Duplicate free() ignored
1706
be771a83
GS
1707(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1708already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1709
1109a392
MHM
1710=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1711
1712(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1713in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1714
4633a7c4
LW
1715=item elseif should be elsif
1716
56da5a46
RGS
1717(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1718ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1719"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1720unlikely to be what you want.
1721
ab13f0c7
JH
1722=item Empty %s
1723
af6f566e 1724(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
6903afa2 1725described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
af6f566e 1726a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1727
85ab1d1d 1728=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1729
85ab1d1d 1730(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1731effective uids or gids failed.
1732
c038024b
RGS
1733=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1734
1735(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1736aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 1737program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 1738
748a9306
LW
1739=item Error converting file specification %s
1740
5f05dabc 1741(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1742specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1743single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1744an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1745conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1746
e4d48cc9
GS
1747=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1748
be771a83
GS
1749(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1750expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1751is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1752
fc8f615e 1753=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
e4d48cc9 1754
be771a83
GS
1755(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1756C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
1757pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1758it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1759C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1760interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1761L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1762
6df41af2
GS
1763=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1764
be771a83
GS
1765(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1766assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1767pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1768
1a147d38
YO
1769=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1770
1771(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 1772any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38
YO
1773
1774The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1775discovered.
1776
fc36a67e 1777=item Excessively long <> operator
1778
1779(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1780Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1781filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1782variable and glob that.
1783
ed9aa3b7
SG
1784=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1785
af8bb25a 1786(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 1787OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 1788
fe13d51d 1789=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1790
1791(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1792
1793=item Exiting eval via %s
1794
be771a83
GS
1795(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1796goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1797
1798=item Exiting format via %s
1799
9a2ff54b 1800(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1801goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1802
0a753a76 1803=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1804
be771a83
GS
1805(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1806sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1807loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1808
a0d0e21e
LW
1809=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1810
be771a83
GS
1811(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1812as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1813
1814=item Exiting substitution via %s
1815
be771a83
GS
1816(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1817as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1818
7b8d334a
GS
1819=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1820
be771a83
GS
1821(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1822the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1823usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1824e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1825
6df41af2
GS
1826=item %s: Expression syntax
1827
be771a83
GS
1828(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1829Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1830
1831=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1832
3c10abe3
AG
1833(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1834CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1835queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1836
7253e4e3 1837=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1838
be771a83 1839(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1840character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1841in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1842"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1843problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1844
1b1ee2ef 1845=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1846
be771a83
GS
1847(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1848system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1849details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1850you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1851
1852=item fcntl is not implemented
1853
1854(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1855PDP-11 or something?
1856
22846ab4
AB
1857=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1858
1859(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1860is not possible.
1861
f337b084
TH
1862=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1863
1864(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
1865which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1866a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 1867C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 1868
af8c498a 1869=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1870
6c8d78fb
HS
1871(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1872it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1873"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1874write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1875
af8c498a 1876=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1877
6c8d78fb
HS
1878(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1879you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
1880with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1881read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1882is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1883output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1884
1885=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1886
1887(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 1888as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1889previously.
1890
1891=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1892
1893(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1894as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1895
1896=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1897
1898(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1899a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1900happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1901name.
a0d0e21e 1902
56e90b21
GS
1903=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1904
be771a83 1905(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1906some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1907filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1908same name?
56e90b21 1909
6df41af2
GS
1910=item Format not terminated
1911
1912(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1913to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1914
a0d0e21e
LW
1915=item Format %s redefined
1916
e476b1b5 1917(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1918
1919 {
271595cc 1920 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1921 eval "format NAME =...";
1922 }
1923
a0d0e21e
LW
1924=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1925
e476b1b5 1926(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1927
1928 if ($foo = 123)
1929
1930when you meant
1931
1932 if ($foo == 123)
1933
1934(or something like that).
1935
6df41af2
GS
1936=item %s found where operator expected
1937
56da5a46
RGS
1938(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1939If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1940operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1941operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1942
a0d0e21e
LW
1943=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1944
1945(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1946
1947=item gethostent not implemented
1948
1949(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1950because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1951on the Internet.
1952
69282e91 1953=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1954
be771a83
GS
1955(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1956socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1957
748a9306
LW
1958=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1959
1960(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1961C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1962
6df41af2
GS
1963=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1964
be771a83
GS
1965(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1966forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1967L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1968
1969=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1970
a4edf47d 1971(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1972that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1973declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1974which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1975
e476b1b5
GS
1976=item glob failed (%s)
1977
73c4e9dc
FC
1978(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
1979for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1980pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 1981nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
1982resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
1983is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
1984in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
1985if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
1986all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 1987think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1988C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1989
a0d0e21e
LW
1990=item Glob not terminated
1991
1992(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1993a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1994not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1995earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1996
bcd05b94 1997=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 1998
e9200be3 1999(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2000it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2001date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2002not-a-number value).
2003
bcd05b94 2004=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2005
e9200be3 2006(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2007it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2008
6df41af2 2009=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2010
6df41af2
GS
2011(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2012version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2013
2014=item goto must have label
2015
2016(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2017unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2018
49704364 2019=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 2020
bca4a986
FC
2021(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2022something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 2023
fe13d51d 2024=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2025
2026(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2027
a0d0e21e
LW
2028=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2029
be771a83
GS
2030(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2031to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2032created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
2033
2034=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2035
be771a83
GS
2036(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2037spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 2038
6df41af2
GS
2039=item %s has too many errors
2040
2041(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2042Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2043
e6897b1a
KW
2044=item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
2045
2046(D syntax)
2047
6903afa2
FC
2048You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following
2049a pattern without an intervening space. If you are trying to use
2050the C</le> flags on a substitution, use C</el> instead. Otherwise, add
2051white space between the pattern and following word to eliminate
2052the warning. As an example of the latter, the two constructs:
2053
e6897b1a
KW
2054
2055 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
2056 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
2057
6903afa2
FC
2058both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow
2059the first form in Perl 5.18. And,
e6897b1a
KW
2060
2061 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
2062
2063will be disallowed too.
2064
252aa082
JH
2065=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2066
e476b1b5 2067(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2068(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2069L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2070
8903cb82 2071=item Identifier too long
2072
2073(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2074about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2075names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2076of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2077
c3c41406 2078=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 2079
20561843 2080(W) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a zero-length
6903afa2
FC
2081sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class its
2082behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
2083been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2084
6df41af2 2085=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 2086
6df41af2 2087(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2088
6df41af2 2089=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2090
be771a83
GS
2091(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2092binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2093offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2094
6597eb22
FC
2095=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2096
2097(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2098Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2099
78d0fecf 2100=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
4fdae800 2101
d5898338 2102(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2103would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2104when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2105version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2106to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2107
d37a9538
ST
2108=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2109
197afce1 2110(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2111Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
d37a9538 2112
904d85c5
RGS
2113=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2114
2115(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2116you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2117
8e742a20
MHM
2118=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2119
6903afa2 2120(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2121
a0d0e21e
LW
2122=item Illegal division by zero
2123
be771a83
GS
2124(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2125your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2126meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2127
6df41af2
GS
2128=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2129
be771a83
GS
2130(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2131A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2132number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2133
a0d0e21e
LW
2134=item Illegal modulus zero
2135
be771a83
GS
2136(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2137numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2138
6df41af2 2139=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2140
6df41af2
GS
2141(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2142two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2143
2144=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2145
d1be9408 2146(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2147
399388f4 2148=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2149
d1be9408 2150(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2151Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2152
fe13d51d 2153=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2154
6df41af2 2155(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2156following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2157
6df41af2 2158=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2159
75b44862 2160(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2161internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2162delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2163
6df41af2 2164=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2165
be771a83
GS
2166(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2167name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2168didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2169ignored.
54310121 2170
6df41af2 2171=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2172
be771a83
GS
2173(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2174the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2175system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2176times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2177would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2178
be771a83
GS
2179Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2180also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2181
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2182=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2183
2184(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2185C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2186documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2187
979699d9
JH
2188=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2189
2190(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2191Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2192encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2193
1a147d38
YO
2194=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2195
2196(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2197text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2198either consume text or fail.
2199
2200The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2201discovered.
2202
6dbe9451
NC
2203=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2204
6903afa2
FC
2205(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2206initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2207C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2208context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2209supported in a future perl release.
6dbe9451 2210
a0d0e21e
LW
2211=item Insecure dependency in %s
2212
8b1a09fc 2213(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2214The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2215setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2216tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2217from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2218such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2219L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2220
2221=item Insecure directory in %s
2222
be771a83
GS
2223(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2224setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2225the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2226See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2227
62f468fc 2228=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2229
2230(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2231setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2232C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2233supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2234the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2235
0e9be77f
DM
2236=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2237
2238(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2239expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2240function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2241See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2242
b9ef414d
FC
2243=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2244
2245(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2246or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2247integers for your architecture.
2248
a7ae9550
GS
2249=item Integer overflow in %s number
2250
75b44862 2251(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2252either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2253your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2254On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2255representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
22560b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2257transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2258internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2259operations.
bbce6d69 2260
46314c13
JP
2261=item Integer overflow in version
2262
2263(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2264size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2265because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2266element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2267trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2268100/9.
2269
7253e4e3 2270=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2271
2272(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2273The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2274discovered.
2275
748a9306
LW
2276=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2277
be771a83
GS
2278(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2279you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2280to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2281L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2282Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2283terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2284
7253e4e3 2285=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2286
7253e4e3
RK
2287(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2288<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2289discovered.
a0d0e21e 2290
6df41af2
GS
2291=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2292
75b44862 2293(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2294followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2295operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2296L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2297
09bef843
SB
2298=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2299
a4a4c9e2 2300(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
2301by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2302
2303=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2304
a4a4c9e2 2305(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 2306recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2307
c635e13b 2308=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2309
be771a83
GS
2310(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2311L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2312
9e08bc66
TS
2313=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2314
2315(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2316didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2317from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2318The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2319The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2320escape was discovered.
2321
8149aa9f
FC
2322=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2323
2324(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
2325number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
23260 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 2327
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2328=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2329
162a3e34
FC
2330(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2331where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2332the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2333a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 2334
7253e4e3 2335=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2336
2337(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2338greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2339C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2340up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2341problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2342
d1573ac7 2343=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2344
2345(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2346character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2347
09bef843
SB
2348=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2349
0120eecf 2350(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2351elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2352parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2353See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2354
b4581f09
JH
2355=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2356
2bfc5f71
FC
2357(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2358than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
2359If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2360list was terminated too soon.
2361
2c86d456
DG
2362=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2363
2364(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2365A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2366decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2367v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2368The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2369See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2370
49704364 2371=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2372
49704364
WL
2373(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2374See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 2375
49704364 2376(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2377silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2378
2c86d456
DG
2379=item Invalid version format (%s)
2380
2381(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2382A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2383decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
9da2b86b
FC
2384v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it must
2385have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional.
2386Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2c86d456
DG
2387component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2388dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
a6485a24 2389criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2c86d456 2390allowed version formats.
46314c13 2391
798ae1b7
DG
2392=item Invalid version object
2393
2394(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2395the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2396was blessed into the "version" class.
2397
a0d0e21e
LW
2398=item ioctl is not implemented
2399
2400(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2401strange for a machine that supports C.
2402
c289d2f7
JH
2403=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2404
2405(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 2406Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 2407
fe13d51d 2408=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2409
2410(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 2411you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
2412with 'useperlio'.
2413
80cbd5ad
JH
2414=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2415
2416(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 2417neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 2418
b4581f09
JH
2419=item $* is no longer supported
2420
a58ac25e 2421(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
6903afa2 2422perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
a58ac25e
FC
2423previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2424matching within a string.
4fd19576
B
2425
2426Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
6903afa2
FC
2427modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2428with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
570dedd4 2429then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2430
8ae1fe26
RGS
2431=item $# is no longer supported
2432
a58ac25e 2433(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
6903afa2 2434perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
a58ac25e 2435should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
8ae1fe26 2436
ccf3535a 2437=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 2438
6903afa2
FC
2439(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2440overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2441an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 2442
ccf3535a 2443=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 2444
04a80ee0
RGS
2445(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2446unaware of.
6ad11d81 2447
a0d0e21e
LW
2448=item junk on end of regexp
2449
2450(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2451
2452=item Label not found for "last %s"
2453
be771a83
GS
2454(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2455of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2456L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2457
2458=item Label not found for "next %s"
2459
2460(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2461that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2462L<perlfunc/last>.
2463
2464=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2465
2466(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2467that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2468L<perlfunc/last>.
2469
85ab1d1d 2470=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2471
85ab1d1d 2472(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2473effective uids or gids failed.
2474
49704364
WL
2475=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2476
d7f8936a 2477(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
2478length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2479an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 2480
e508c8a4
MH
2481=item length() used on %s
2482
0d46a4e7
FC
2483(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2484probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
2485
2486Array size can be obtained by doing:
2487
2488 scalar(@array);
2489
2490The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2491
2492 scalar(keys %hash);
2493
f0e67a1d
Z
2494=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2495
2496(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
6903afa2
FC
2497(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2498couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2499of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
2500it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
2501
2502=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2503
2504(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2505detectable way.
2506
69282e91 2507=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2508
be771a83
GS
2509(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2510to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2511L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2512
bcd05b94 2513=item localtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2514
e9200be3 2515(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
fc003d4b 2516than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
6903afa2 2517wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2518not-a-number value).
2519
bcd05b94 2520=item localtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2521
e9200be3 2522(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
fc003d4b 2523than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
e7a1a147 2524wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2525
58e23c8d 2526=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2527
2528(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 2529handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2530
b88df990
NC
2531=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2532
2533(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2534for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
6903afa2 2535hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
b88df990
NC
2536because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2537are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2538You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2539
2f7da168
RK
2540=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2541
2542(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2543by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2544instead on the filehandle.)
2545
bb3abb05
FC
2546=item lvalue attribute cannot be removed after the subroutine has been defined
2547
2548(W misc) The lvalue attribute on a Perl subroutine cannot be turned off
2549once the subroutine is defined.
2550
885ef6f5
GG
2551=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2552
bb3abb05
FC
2553(W misc) Making a Perl subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been
2554defined, whether by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute
2555or by using L<attributes.pm|attributes>, is not possible. To make the subroutine an
2556lvalue subroutine, add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put
2557the declaration before the definition.
885ef6f5 2558
2db62bbc 2559=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 2560
2db62bbc 2561(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2562are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2563
2564=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2565
2db62bbc 2566(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2567are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2568
6df41af2
GS
2569=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2570
2571(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2572
2573 prefix1;prefix2
2574
2575or
6df41af2
GS
2576 prefix1 prefix2
2577
be771a83
GS
2578with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2579a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2580appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2581"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2582
2f758a16
ST
2583=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2584
d37a9538
ST
2585(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2586syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2587obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2588when the function is called.
2f758a16 2589
ba210ebe
JH
2590=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2591
2575c402
JW
2592(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2593encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2594
2575c402
JW
2595One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2596you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
6903afa2 25978-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2575c402
JW
2598
2599If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2600sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2601set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2602message.
2603
2604See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2605
ff3f963a
KW
2606=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2607
2608(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2609
4a5d3a93
FC
2610=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2611
2612(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2613rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2614
f337b084
TH
2615=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2616
2617(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2618rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2619
2620=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2621
2622(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2623rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2624
4a5d3a93 2625=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 2626
4a5d3a93
FC
2627(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2628doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2629
2630=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2631
2632(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2633regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2634shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2635See L<perlre>.
f337b084 2636
de42a5a9 2637=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 2638
6903afa2 2639(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2640usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2641too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2642resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 2643safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 2644
25f58aea
PN
2645=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2646
2647(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2648interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2649"use" or "my".
2650
49704364 2651=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2652
2653(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2654checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2655See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2656
a0d0e21e
LW
2657=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2658
2659(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2660doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2661
3cdd684c
TP
2662=item Method %s not permitted
2663
2664See Server error.
2665
a0d0e21e
LW
2666=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2667
2668(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2669by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2670ended earlier on the current line.
2671
2672=item Misplaced _ in number
2673
d4ced10d
JH
2674(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2675separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2676
7baa4690
HS
2677=item Missing argument in %s
2678
2679(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2680supplied.
2681
9e81e6a1
RGS
2682=item Missing argument to -%c
2683
2684(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2685immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2686
ff3f963a 2687=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2688
4a2d328f 2689(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
2690double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2691(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2692This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2693follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 2694
f0a2b745
KW
2695=item Missing braces on \o{}
2696
2697(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2698
a0d0e21e
LW
2699=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2700
2701(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2702"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2703
06eaf0bc
GS
2704=item Missing command in piped open
2705
be771a83
GS
2706(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2707C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2708blank.
06eaf0bc 2709
961ce445
RGS
2710=item Missing control char name in \c
2711
2712(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2713character name.
2714
6df41af2
GS
2715=item Missing name in "my sub"
2716
be771a83
GS
2717(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2718they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2719
2720=item Missing $ on loop variable
2721
be771a83
GS
2722(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2723are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2724can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2725
cc507455 2726=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2727
56da5a46
RGS
2728(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2729"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2730
ab13f0c7
JH
2731=item Missing right brace on %s
2732
ff3f963a
KW
2733(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2734
4a68bf9d 2735=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 2736
d32207c9
FC
2737(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2738
2739The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2740meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
2741name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2742double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2743it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2744
2745Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2746in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2747for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2748
2749This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2750by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2751form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2752means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
27533; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2754C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2755
2756However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2757mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2758If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2759escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2760
d98d5fff 2761=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2762
be771a83
GS
2763(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2764ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2765were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2766
6df41af2
GS
2767=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2768
56da5a46
RGS
2769(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2770"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2771the previous line just because you saw this message.
2772
a0d0e21e
LW
2773=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2774
2775(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2776constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2777catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2778
2779 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2780 mod(2);
2781
2782Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2783
c5674021
PDF
2784Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2785is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2786
b7e4ecc1
FC
2787 $x = 1;
2788 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2789 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
2790 } # modify the 2
c5674021 2791
7a4340ed 2792=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2793
2794(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2795subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2796backwards.
2797
7a4340ed 2798=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2799
be771a83
GS
2800(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2801couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2802
2803=item Module name must be constant
2804
2805(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2806
be98fb35 2807=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2808
be98fb35
GS
2809(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2810you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2811about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2812
fe13d51d 2813=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 2814
6903afa2 2815(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
2816can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2817list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2818See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2819
a0d0e21e
LW
2820=item msg%s not implemented
2821
2822(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2823
2824=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2825
75b44862
GS
2826(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2827They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2828
49704364 2829=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2830
49704364
WL
2831(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2832follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2833See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2834
2835=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2836
be771a83
GS
2837(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2838that yet.
6df41af2 2839
fd1b7234 2840=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2841
be771a83
GS
2842(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2843sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2844local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2845
8149aa9f
FC
2846=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2847
2848(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2849If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2850again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2851provided for this purpose.
2852
2853NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2854%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2855the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2856will not trigger this warning.
2857
4a68bf9d 2858=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
ff3f963a 2859
c3c41406 2860(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
f4e361c7
FC
2861character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses
2862its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not
2863what you want.
c3c41406 2864
4a68bf9d 2865=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
c3c41406 2866
f4e361c7
FC
2867(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
2868sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
2869bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
7fae04b9 2870backslash in double-quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2871
2872 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2873 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2874 /$re/;
2875
b09c05e6 2876Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2877
2878 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2879 /$re/;
2880
2881The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2882components:
2883
2884 $re = '\N';
2885 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2886
2887It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2888doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2889
2890Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2891C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2892
2893 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2894 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2895
49704364
WL
2896=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2897
2898(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2899negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2900
a0d0e21e
LW
2901=item Negative length
2902
be771a83
GS
2903(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2904length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2905
ed9aa3b7
SG
2906=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2907
2908(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2909greater than or equal to zero.
2910
7253e4e3 2911=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2912
6903afa2
FC
2913(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
2914So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the
2915regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2916
7253e4e3 2917Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2918C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2919
6df41af2 2920=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2921
be771a83
GS
2922(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2923scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2924
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2925=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2926
2927(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2928real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2929See L<mro>.
2930
a0d0e21e
LW
2931=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2932
be771a83
GS
2933(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2934setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2935will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2936securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2937
a0d0e21e
LW
2938=item No comma allowed after %s
2939
6903afa2
FC
2940(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
2941not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
2942Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2943
6903afa2
FC
2944One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
2945a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2946importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
2947system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
2948use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
2949please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
2950explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
2951it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
2952still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
2953the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
2954constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 2955
748a9306
LW
2956=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2957
be771a83
GS
2958(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2959redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2960doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2961
a0d0e21e
LW
2962=item No DB::DB routine defined
2963
be771a83 2964(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 2965for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
2966module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2967statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2968
2969=item No dbm on this machine
2970
2971(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2972supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2973
ccafdc96 2974=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2975
ccafdc96
RGS
2976(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2977for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2978module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2979of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2980
c47ff5f1 2981=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2982
be771a83
GS
2983(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2984redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2985find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2986
49704364
WL
2987=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2988
2989(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 2990matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 2991
c47ff5f1 2992=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2993
be771a83
GS
2994(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2995redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2996name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2997
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2998=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2999
3000(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3001in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3002it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3003or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3004
6df41af2
GS
3005=item "no" not allowed in expression
3006
be771a83
GS
3007(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3008returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 3009
c47ff5f1 3010=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 3011
be771a83
GS
3012(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3013redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3014doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 3015
c47ff5f1 3016=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 3017
be771a83
GS
3018(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3019redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3020find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 3021
1ec3e8de
GS
3022=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3023
be771a83
GS
3024(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3025declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3026semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 3027
a0d0e21e
LW
3028=item No Perl script found in input
3029
3030(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3031with #! and containing the word "perl".
3032
3033=item No setregid available
3034
3035(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3036your system.
3037
3038=item No setreuid available
3039
3040(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3041your system.
3042
6df41af2
GS
3043=item No %s specified for -%c
3044
3045(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
3046you haven't specified one.
f7af5ce1 3047
e75d1f10
RD
3048=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3049
b7e4ecc1
FC
3050(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3051variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3052The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3053L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 3054
2c692339
RGS
3055=item No such class %s
3056
dc7e5945
FC
3057(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3058declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2c692339 3059
3c20a832
SP
3060=item No such hook: %s
3061
dc7e5945
FC
3062(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3063Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 3064
6df41af2
GS
3065=item No such pipe open
3066
3067(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
3068close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3069earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 3070
a0d0e21e
LW
3071=item No such signal: SIG%s
3072
be771a83
GS
3073(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3074not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3075names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
3076
3077=item Not a CODE reference
3078
3079(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3080subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3081use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3082also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3083
3084=item Not a format reference
3085
3086(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
3087format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
3088
3089=item Not a GLOB reference
3090
be771a83
GS
3091(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3092symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3093something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3094kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3095
3096=item Not a HASH reference
3097
be771a83
GS
3098(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3099reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3100find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3101
6df41af2
GS
3102=item Not an ARRAY reference
3103
be771a83
GS
3104(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3105a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3106to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 3107
d4fc4415
FC
3108=item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3109
3110(F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3111another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3112or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3113
a0d0e21e
LW
3114=item Not a SCALAR reference
3115
be771a83
GS
3116(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3117a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3118to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3119
3120=item Not a subroutine reference
3121
3122(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3123subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3124use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3125also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3126
e7ea3e70 3127=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3128
3129(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3130doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3131
a0d0e21e
LW
3132=item Not enough arguments for %s
3133
3134(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3135
6df41af2
GS
3136=item Not enough format arguments
3137
be771a83
GS
3138(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3139supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3140
3141=item %s: not found
3142
be771a83
GS
3143(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3144of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3145yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3146
3147=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3148
6df41af2
GS
3149(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3150timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3151to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3152F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3153need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3154
f0a2b745
KW
3155=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3156
5493e060
FC
3157(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3158unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as
3159indicated.
f0a2b745 3160
4ef2275c
GA
3161=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3162
3163(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3164Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
6903afa2 3165select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4ef2275c 3166
a0d0e21e
LW
3167=item Null filename used
3168
be771a83
GS
3169(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3170machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 3171
6df41af2
GS
3172=item NULL OP IN RUN
3173
f84fe999 3174(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 3175pointer.
6df41af2 3176
55497cff 3177=item Null picture in formline
3178
3179(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3180specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3181supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3182
a0d0e21e
LW
3183=item Null realloc
3184
3185(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3186
3187=item NULL regexp argument
3188
5f05dabc 3189(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3190
3191=item NULL regexp parameter
3192
3193(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3194
fc36a67e 3195=item Number too long
3196
be771a83 3197(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3198about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3199versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3200the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3201"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3202
f0a2b745
KW
3203=item Number with no digits
3204
1043934d 3205(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 3206a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 3207the braces.
f0a2b745 3208
6df41af2
GS
3209=item Octal number in vector unsupported
3210
be771a83
GS
3211(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3212The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3213future version.
6df41af2 3214
252aa082
JH
3215=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3216
75b44862 3217(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3218(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3219L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 3220
6ad11d81
JH
3221=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3222
04a80ee0 3223(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 3224arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3225
b21befc1
MG
3226=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3227
3228(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3229which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3230
1930e939 3231=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3232
be771a83
GS
3233(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3234which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3235
bbce6d69 3236=item Offset outside string
3237
1fa582fa 3238(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 3239with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3240imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3241take place when going past the end of the string when either
3242C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3243for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3244with real files).
bbce6d69 3245
c289d2f7 3246=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3247
3248(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3249never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3250call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3251
96ebfdd7
RK
3252=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3253
3254(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3255that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3256
a0d0e21e
LW
3257=item oops: oopsAV
3258
e476b1b5 3259(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3260
3261=item oops: oopsHV
3262
e476b1b5 3263(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3264
abc718f2
RGS
3265=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3266
a4a4c9e2 3267(W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3268a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3269Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3270and is deprecated.
3271
3272=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3273
a4a4c9e2 3274(W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3275a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3276Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3277and is deprecated.
3278
a0288114 3279=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3280
be771a83
GS
3281(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3282handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3283of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 3284the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3285
5ff1373f 3286=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 3287
8457b38f 3288(W utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
73c4e9dc
FC
3289semantics on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do
3290is not defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3291
3292If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3293matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3294
3295If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3296C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 3297
5ff1373f 3298=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 3299
8457b38f 3300(W utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
73c4e9dc
FC
3301semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of
3302surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics
3303are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and they are to do
3304nothing for this operation. Because the use of surrogates can be
3305dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3306
3307If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3308matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3309
3310If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3311C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 3312
748a9306
LW
3313=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3314
be771a83
GS
3315(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3316was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3317use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3318example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3319"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3320
6df41af2
GS
3321=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3322
be771a83
GS
3323(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3324in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3325
a80b8354
GS
3326=item Out of memory!
3327
3328(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3329remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3330no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3331
19a52907
JH
3332At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3333process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3334C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3335the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3336and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3337
6d3b25aa
RGS
3338=item Out of memory during %s extend
3339
3340(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3341the largest possible memory allocation.
3342
6df41af2 3343=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 3344
6df41af2 3345(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
6903afa2 3346remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
3347the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3348possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 3349
1b979e0a 3350=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 3351
1fa582fa 3352(X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
be771a83
GS
3353insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3354request.
eff9c6e2
CS
3355
3356The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3357depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
3358However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3359emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
3360is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3361where the failed request happened.
55497cff 3362
1b979e0a
IZ
3363=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3364
3365(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
3366is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3367C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 3368
6df41af2
GS
3369=item Out of memory for yacc stack
3370
be771a83
GS
3371(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3372parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3373otherwise.
6df41af2 3374
28be1210
TH
3375=item '.' outside of string in pack
3376
3377(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3378position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3379
49704364 3380=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 3381
49704364 3382(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
3383the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3384
f337b084
TH
3385=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3386
3387(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6903afa2 3388the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
f337b084
TH
3389UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3390
7cb0cfe6
BM
3391=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3392
3393(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
6903afa2 3394but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
7cb0cfe6
BM
3395L<overload>.
3396
3397=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3398
3399(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
6903afa2 3400overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
7cb0cfe6 3401
6df41af2
GS
3402=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3403
be771a83
GS
3404(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3405package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3406some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3407mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 3408
96ebfdd7
RK
3409=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3410
3411(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3412signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3413
a0d0e21e
LW
3414=item page overflow
3415
be771a83
GS
3416(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3417page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 3418
6df41af2
GS
3419=item panic: %s
3420
3421(P) An internal error.
3422
c99a1475
NC
3423=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3424
3425(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3426an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3427platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3428enter this branch on this platform.
3429
a0d0e21e
LW
3430=item panic: ck_grep
3431
3432(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3433
3434=item panic: ck_split
3435
3436(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3437
3438=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3439
be771a83
GS
3440(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3441there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 3442
810b8aa5
GS
3443=item panic: del_backref
3444
3445(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3446reference.
3447
a0d0e21e
LW
3448=item panic: die %s
3449
3450(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3451it wasn't an eval context.
3452
a0d0e21e
LW
3453=item panic: do_subst
3454
be771a83
GS
3455(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3456data.
a0d0e21e 3457
2269b42e 3458=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 3459
2269b42e 3460(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 3461data.
a0d0e21e 3462
b7f7fd0b
NC
3463=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3464
10203f38 3465(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
3466failure was caught.
3467
c635e13b 3468=item panic: frexp
3469
3470(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3471
a0d0e21e
LW
3472=item panic: goto
3473
3474(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3475and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3476
b0d55c99
FC
3477=item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
3478
3479(P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
6903afa2
FC
3480repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
3481Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
3482the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
b0d55c99 3483
a0d0e21e
LW
3484=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3485
3486(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3487
3488=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3489
3490(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3491
e446cec8
IZ
3492=item panic: kid popen errno read
3493
3494(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3495
a0d0e21e
LW
3496=item panic: last
3497
3498(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3499it wasn't a block context.
3500
3501=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3502
be771a83
GS
3503(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3504scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
3505
3506=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3507
3508(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3509invalid enum on the top of it.
3510
810b8aa5
GS
3511=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3512
3513(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3514references to an object.
3515
6df41af2
GS
3516=item panic: malloc
3517
3518(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3519
27d5b266
JH
3520=item panic: memory wrap
3521
3522(P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3523
a0d0e21e
LW
3524=item panic: pad_alloc
3525
3526(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3527and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3528
3529=item panic: pad_free curpad
3530
3531(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3532and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3533
3534=item panic: pad_free po
3535
3536(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3537
3538=item panic: pad_reset curpad
3539
3540(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3541and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3542
3543=item panic: pad_sv po
3544
3545(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3546
3547=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3548
3549(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3550and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3551
3552=item panic: pad_swipe po
3553
3554(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3555
3556=item panic: pp_iter
3557
3558(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3559
96ebfdd7
RK
3560=item panic: pp_match%s
3561
3562(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3563data.
3564
2269b42e
JH
3565=item panic: pp_split
3566
3567(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3568
a0d0e21e
LW
3569=item panic: realloc
3570
3571(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3572
ccfb6d2e
FC
3573=item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
3574
3575(P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
3576reference count other than 1.
3577
a0d0e21e
LW
3578=item panic: restartop
3579
3580(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3581didn't supply the destination.
3582
3583=item panic: return
3584
3585(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3586then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3587
3588=item panic: scan_num
3589
3590(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3591
6c65d5f9
NC
3592=item panic: sv_chop %s
3593
3594(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3595scalar's string buffer.
3596
a0d0e21e
LW
3597=item panic: sv_insert
3598
3599(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3600was string.
3601
ad49ad39
NC
3602=item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
3603
3604(P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
3605In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab" is
3606shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
3607
a0d0e21e
LW
3608=item panic: top_env
3609
6224f72b 3610(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 3611
65bca31a
NC
3612=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3613
a1efa96e
FC
3614(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
3615permitted at run time.
65bca31a 3616
dea0fc0b
JH
3617=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3618
3619(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 3620to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 3621
e0ea5e2d
NC
3622=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3623
3624(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3625to even) byte length.
3626
2f7da168
RK
3627=item panic: yylex
3628
3629(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3630
28ac2b49
Z
3631=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3632
3633(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3634a detectable way.
3635
1a147d38
YO
3636=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3637
3638(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
6903afa2
FC
3639consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
3640the nesting limit is exceeded.
1a147d38
YO
3641
3642The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3643discovered.
3644
7b8d334a 3645=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 3646
e476b1b5 3647(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
3648
3649 my $foo, $bar = @_;
3650
3651when you meant
3652
3653 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3654
30c282f6 3655Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 3656
96ebfdd7
RK
3657=item C<-p> destination: %s
3658
3659(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3660command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3661redirected it with select().)
3662
3663=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3664
3665(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3666"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3667that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3668
801eb083 3669=item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%x; please use the perlbug utility to report
d50a4f90
KW
3670
3671(W regex, deprecated) You used a regular expression with
3672case-insensitive matching, and there is a bug in Perl in which the
3673built-in regular expression folding rules are not accurate. This may
3674lead to incorrect results. Please report this as a bug using the
3675"perlbug" utility. (This message is marked deprecated, so that it by
3676default will be turned-on.)
3677
1109a392
MHM
3678=item Perl_my_%s() not available
3679
3680(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3681so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3682conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3683'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3684
6d3b25aa
RGS
3685=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3686
3687(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3688recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3689you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3690
6df41af2
GS
3691=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3692
3693(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 3694C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3695
96ebfdd7
RK
3696=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3697
3698See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3699
6df41af2
GS
3700=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3701
3702(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3703
3704 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3705 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3706 LC_ALL = "En_US",
3707 LANG = (unset)
3708 are supported and installed on your system.
3709 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3710
3711Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3712settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
3713This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3714system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3715locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3716dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4b07a369
FC
3717Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
3718fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
3719time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
0ea6b70f 3720L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 3721
bd3fa61c 3722=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 3723
be771a83
GS
3724(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3725process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3726fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 3727
49704364 3728=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
3729
3730(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3731
96ebfdd7
RK
3732=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3733
3734(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3735shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3736Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3737the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3738not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3739
3740=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3741
3742(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3743the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3744
49704364 3745=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3746
9a0b3859 3747(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
3748I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3749/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3750implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3751cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3752where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3753
49704364 3754=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3755
3756(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
3757beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3758If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3759expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3760backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3761about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3762
49704364 3763=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3764
7253e4e3
RK
3765(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3766with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3767need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3768character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3769and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3770problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3771
bbce6d69 3772=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3773
e476b1b5 3774(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 3775strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
3776literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3777parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3778
774d564b 3779You probably wrote something like this:
3780
54310121 3781 @list = qw(
774d564b 3782 a # a comment
bbce6d69 3783 b # another comment
774d564b 3784 );
bbce6d69 3785
3786when you should have written this:
3787
774d564b 3788 @list = qw(
54310121 3789 a
3790 b
774d564b 3791 );
3792
3793If you really want comments, build your list the
3794old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3795
3796 @list = (
3797 'a', # a comment
3798 'b', # another comment
3799 );
bbce6d69 3800
3801=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3802
be771a83
GS
3803(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3804commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3805different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3806frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3807
54310121 3808You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 3809
774d564b 3810 qw! a, b, c !;
3811
3812which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3813commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 3814
774d564b 3815 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 3816
a0d0e21e
LW
3817=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3818
3819(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3820Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3821end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3822Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3823
276b2a0c
RGS
3824=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3825
3826(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3827with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3828
3829 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3830
3831This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
6903afa2 3832higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
96a925ab
YST
3833really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3834parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
276b2a0c 3835
77772344
B
3836=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3837
3838(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3839The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 3840record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
3841followed by the word 'bar'.
3842
3843If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3844C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3845
3846If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3847followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3848C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3849
e5035638
FC
3850=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3851
ccf3535a 3852(W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
6903afa2 3853but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
e5035638
FC
3854literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3855to the array you apparently lost track of.
3856
a0d0e21e
LW
3857=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3858
e476b1b5 3859(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 3860
a0d0e21e
LW
3861 open FOO || die;
3862
3863is now misinterpreted as
3864
3865 open(FOO || die);
3866
be771a83
GS
3867because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3868list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3869parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3870of "||".
a0d0e21e 3871
3cdd684c
TP
3872=item Premature end of script headers
3873
3874See Server error.
3875
6df41af2
GS
3876=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3877
be771a83 3878(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3879before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 3880
9a7dcd9c 3881=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3882
be771a83 3883(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3884before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3885
6df41af2 3886=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 3887
6df41af2
GS
3888(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3889applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3890port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3891L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 3892in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 3893
327323c1
RGS
3894=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3895
197afce1 3896(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
327323c1
RGS
3897since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3898
3fe9a6f1 3899=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 3900
9a0b3859 3901(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 3902declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 3903
ed9aa3b7
SG
3904=item Prototype not terminated
3905
2a6fd447 3906(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
3907definition.
3908
f9eb106c
FC
3909=item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
3910
3911(W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
3912match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
3913use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
3914class, which should know about the locale's rules.
3915(See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
3916
3917Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
3918Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
3919subset.
3920
3921Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
3922locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
3923CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
3924"MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
3925meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
3926should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
3927positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
3928incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
3929is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
3930case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
3931change when upper cased.
3932
96ebfdd7
RK
3933=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3934
6903afa2
FC
3935(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
3936you meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3937about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 3938
49704364 3939=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3940
6903afa2
FC
3941(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
3942the {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3943about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 3944
49704364 3945=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3946
b45f050a
JF
3947(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3948it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3949quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3950"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3951C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 3952
7253e4e3
RK
3953The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3954discovered.
3955
89ea2908
GA
3956=item Range iterator outside integer range
3957
3958(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3959are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
3960One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3961by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 3962
3b7fbd4a
SP
3963=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3964
1a147d38 3965(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
3966a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3967
96ebfdd7
RK
3968=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3969
3970(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3971before now. Check your control flow.
3972
b5fe5ca2
SR
3973=item read() on closed filehandle %s
3974
3975(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3976
3977=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3978
3979(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3980
de42a5a9 3981=item Reallocation too large: %x
6df41af2
GS
3982
3983(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3984
4ad56ec9
IZ
3985=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3986
be771a83
GS
3987(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3988already been freed.
4ad56ec9 3989
a0d0e21e
LW
3990=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3991
be771a83
GS
3992(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3993the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
3994which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3995
3e0ccd42 3996=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 3997
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3998(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3999believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
4000crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 4001
12605ff9
FC
4002=item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
4003
2e0cfa16
FC
4004=item refcnt: fd %d%s
4005
12605ff9
FC
4006=item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
4007
2e0cfa16
FC
4008(P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
4009you see this message, something is very wrong.
4010
1930e939
TP
4011=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
4012
be771a83 4013(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
6903afa2
FC
4014with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
4015usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
4016to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
4017
4018 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
4019 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
4020 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
4021 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
4022
810b8aa5
GS
4023=item Reference is already weak
4024
e476b1b5 4025(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
4026Doing so has no effect.
4027
b72d83b2
RGS
4028=item Reference to invalid group 0
4029
6903afa2
FC
4030(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
4031to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
4032(normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4033backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
b72d83b2 4034
49704364 4035=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4036
4037(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
6903afa2 4038not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
bbaee129
FC
4039you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4040expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 4041
7253e4e3 4042The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 4043discovered.
9baa0206 4044
1a147d38
YO
4045=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4046
4047(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
9381611c 4048expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
6903afa2 4049such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
9381611c 4050spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
1a147d38
YO
4051
4052The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4053discovered.
4054
bcb95744 4055=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1a147d38 4056
bcb95744
FC
4057(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4058are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4059expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
1a147d38
YO
4060
4061The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4062discovered.
4063
a0d0e21e
LW
4064=item regexp memory corruption
4065
4066(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4067expression compiler gave it.
4068
ff3f26d2
KW
4069=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4070
3955e1a9
KW
4071=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4072
f6a766d5 4073(F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
ff3f26d2 4074of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
3955e1a9 4075
9442e3b8
KW
4076=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-"
4077
4078(F regexp) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning
4079on another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
4080expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4081the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4082
3955e1a9
KW
4083=item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4084
f6a766d5 4085(F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
3955e1a9
KW
4086mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4087supposed to be there.
4088
b45f050a 4089=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 4090
be771a83
GS
4091(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4092earlier.
a0d0e21e 4093
a1b95068
WL
4094=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
4095
d7f8936a 4096(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068 4097numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
6903afa2 4098terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
a1b95068 4099
b08e453b
RB
4100=item Replacement list is longer than search list
4101
4102(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
4103search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
4104are meaningless.
4105
a0d0e21e
LW
4106=item Reversed %s= operator
4107
be771a83 4108(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
964742a1 4109always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 4110
abc7ecad
SP
4111=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4112
4113(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
4114really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4115
96ebfdd7
RK
4116=item Scalars leaked: %d
4117
4118(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
4119not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
4120What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
4121especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
4122
a0d0e21e
LW
4123=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4124
be771a83
GS
4125(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4126single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4127value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4128behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4129argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4130and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4131if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 4132
748a9306 4133On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 4134element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
4135Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4136L<perlref>.
4137
a6006777 4138=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4139
75b44862 4140(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
4141element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4142(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4143like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4144argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4145and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4146if you're expecting only one subscript.
4147
4148On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4149as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4150not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 4151L<perlref>.
4152
a0d0e21e
LW
4153=item Search pattern not terminated
4154
4155(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4156construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4157Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4158
0cb1bcd7 4159Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd
JH
4160construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
4161in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4162misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4163
25c09cbf
SF
4164=item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
4165
4166(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
4167construct.
4168
4169The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
4170C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
6903afa2 4171parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
25c09cbf
SF
4172the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
4173
abc7ecad
SP
4174=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4175
4176(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4177really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4178
3257ea4f
FC
4179=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4180
4181(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4182filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4183
a0d0e21e
LW
4184=item select not implemented
4185
4186(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4187
ae21d580 4188=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 4189
ae21d580
JH
4190(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4191the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 4192
6df41af2 4193=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 4194
75b44862
GS
4195(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4196semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
4197
4198=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4199
be771a83
GS
4200(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4201scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 4202
6df41af2 4203=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 4204
6df41af2 4205(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 4206
69282e91 4207=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4208
be771a83 4209(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4210before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4211
7253e4e3 4212=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 4213
6903afa2
FC
4214(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
4215<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4216discovered. See L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 4217
49704364 4218=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4219
6903afa2
FC
4220(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
4221but has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
4222expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4223
49704364 4224=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4225
7253e4e3
RK
4226(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4227<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
fb85c044
KW
4228discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4229Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9442e3b8 4230redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
9de15fec 4231causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4232
4a68bf9d 4233=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1f1031fe
YO
4234
4235(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4236sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4237
49704364 4238=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
4239
4240(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
7253e4e3 4241parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
6903afa2 4242the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
7253e4e3 4243L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4244
96ebfdd7
RK
4245=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4246
6903afa2
FC
4247(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contain braces, they
4248must balance for Perl to detect the end of the clause properly.
4249The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4250problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 4251
d7201950 4252=item Z<>500 Server error
6df41af2
GS
4253
4254See Server error.
4255
a5f75d66
AD
4256=item Server error
4257
6903afa2
FC
4258(A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
4259when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
4260actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
4261frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
4262not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
4263headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 4264
4265B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4266
6903afa2
FC
4267You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
4268the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
4269user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
4270variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
4271in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
4272less. Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 4273
06a5f41f
JH
4274 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4275 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4276 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 4277
be94a901
GS
4278You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4279
a0d0e21e
LW
4280=item setegid() not implemented
4281
be771a83
GS
4282(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4283support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4284didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4285
4286=item seteuid() not implemented
4287
be771a83
GS
4288(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4289support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4290didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4291
81777298
GS
4292=item setpgrp can't take arguments
4293
be771a83
GS
4294(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4295arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4296group ID.
81777298 4297
a0d0e21e
LW
4298=item setrgid() not implemented
4299
be771a83
GS
4300(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4301support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4302didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4303
4304=item setruid() not implemented
4305
be771a83
GS
4306(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4307support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4308didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4309
6df41af2
GS
4310=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4311
be771a83
GS
4312(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4313forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
4314L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4315
a0d0e21e
LW
4316=item shm%s not implemented
4317
4318(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4319
984200d0
YST
4320=item !=~ should be !~
4321
4322(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4323interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4324operators: probably not what you intended.
4325
6df41af2
GS
4326=item <> should be quotes
4327
4328(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4329C<require 'file'>.
4330
4331=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4332
4333(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
4334as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4335result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4336probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 4337
69282e91 4338=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4339
75b44862
GS
4340(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4341superfluous.
a0d0e21e 4342
f86702cc 4343=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 4344
be771a83
GS
4345(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4346Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 4347
229c18ce
RGS
4348=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4349
4350(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4351overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4352the smart match.
4353
a0d0e21e
LW
4354=item sort is now a reserved word
4355
4356(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4357But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4358
a0d0e21e
LW
4359=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4360
4361(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4362or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4363
f1c31c52
FC
4364=item Source filters apply only to byte streams
4365
4366(F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
4367source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
4368not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
4369C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
4370
8cbc2e3b
JH
4371=item splice() offset past end of array
4372
4373(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4374the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
6903afa2
FC
4375of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4376explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
8cbc2e3b
JH
4377L<perlfunc/splice>.
4378
a0d0e21e
LW
4379=item Split loop
4380
be771a83
GS
4381(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4382iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
6903afa2 4383happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 4384
a0d0e21e
LW
4385=item Statement unlikely to be reached
4386
be771a83
GS
4387(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4388die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4389unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4390instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4391a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 4392
fd1b7234
FC
4393=item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
4394
4395(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
4396sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
4397local() if you want to localize a package variable.
4398
9ddeeac9 4399=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 4400
355b1299
JH
4401(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4402was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 4403
fe13d51d 4404=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 4405
be771a83
GS
4406(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4407stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4408C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 4409
a0d0e21e
LW
4410=item Subroutine %s redefined
4411
e476b1b5 4412(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
4413
4414 {
271595cc 4415 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
4416 eval "sub name { ... }";
4417 }
4418
4419=item Substitution loop
4420
be771a83
GS
4421(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4422shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4423is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 4424L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
4425
4426=item Substitution pattern not terminated
4427
d1be9408 4428(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4429construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4430Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4431
4432=item Substitution replacement not terminated
4433
d1be9408 4434(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4435construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4436Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4437
4438=item substr outside of string
4439
8a9eb13d 4440(W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
be771a83
GS
4441a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4442length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4443substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4444assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 4445
bf1320bf
RGS
4446=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4447
9d277376 4448(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
bf1320bf
RGS
4449inferior to its current type.
4450
49704364 4451=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4452
4453(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4454branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4455contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4456clustering parentheses:
4457
4458 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4459
7253e4e3 4460The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
6903afa2 4461discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4462
49704364 4463=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 4464
39ef1de7
FC
4465(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is
4466a number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
6903afa2 4467expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4468
85ab1d1d
JH
4469=item switching effective %s is not implemented
4470
be771a83
GS
4471(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4472and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 4473
ae7df085 4474=item %s syntax OK
2f7da168
RK
4475
4476(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4477
a0d0e21e
LW
4478=item syntax error
4479
4480(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4481
4482 A keyword is misspelled.
4483 A semicolon is missing.
4484 A comma is missing.
4485 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4486 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4487 A closing quote is missing.
4488
4489Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4490error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4491The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4492it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 4493before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
4494Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4495the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4496C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
524e9188 4497if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
a0d0e21e 4498
ccf3535a 4499=item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
cb1a09d0 4500
be771a83
GS
4501(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4502of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4503yourself.
cb1a09d0 4504
25f58aea
PN
4505=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4506
4507(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4508a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4509or "my $var" or "our $var".
4510
b5fe5ca2
SR
4511=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4512
4513(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4514
4515=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4516
4517(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4518
6087ac44 4519=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 4520
6087ac44
JH
4521(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4522"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4523machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4524unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 4525
69282e91 4526=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4527
be771a83 4528(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4529before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4530
96ebfdd7
RK
4531=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4532
4533(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4534know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4535
fc36a67e 4536=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4537
be771a83
GS
4538(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4539for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 4540
abc7ecad
SP
4541=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4542
4543(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4544a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4545
c2771421
FC
4546=item tell() on unopened filehandle
4547
4548(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4549was either never opened or has since been closed.
4550
b82b06b8
FC
4551=item That use of $[ is unsupported
4552
4553(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4554as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4555
4556 $[ = 0;
4557 $[ = 1;
4558 ...
4559 local $[ = 0;
4560 local $[ = 1;
4561 ...
4562
4563This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4564from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[> and L<arybase>.
4565
f86702cc 4566=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
4567
4568(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4569probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 4570think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
4571will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4572will deny it.
4573
6df41af2
GS
4574=item The %s function is unimplemented
4575
a4a4c9e2 4576(F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
6df41af2
GS
4577to the probings of Configure.
4578
5e1c7ca2 4579=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 4580
be771a83
GS
4581(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4582linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4583past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4584instead.
a0d0e21e 4585
371fce9b
DM
4586=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4587
1108974d 4588(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 4589
437784d6 4590=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
4591
4592=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4593
75b44862 4594(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
4595element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4596wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4597need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4598F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4599target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
4600%ENV which produced the warning.
4601
6b3c7930
JH
4602=item thread failed to start: %s
4603
4447dfc1 4604(W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
6b3c7930 4605
a0d0e21e
LW
4606=item times not implemented
4607
be771a83
GS
4608(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4609suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 4610
6d3b25aa
RGS
4611=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4612
b7e4ecc1
FC
4613(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
4614the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
4615B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
4616Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
4617everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4618
4619If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
b7e4ecc1
FC
4620mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
4621fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
4622Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4623
4624If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 4625B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 4626
3a2263fe
RGS
4627=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4628
4629(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4630uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4631specified an illegal mapping.
4632See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4633
49704364
WL
4634=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4635
1a147d38 4636(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 4637
a0d0e21e
LW
4638=item Too few args to syscall
4639
4640(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4641system call to call, silly dilly.
4642
96ebfdd7
RK
4643=item Too late for "-%s" option
4644
4645(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
4646B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4647
6903afa2
FC
4648In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
4649are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4ba71d51 4650
6903afa2
FC
4651The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
4652well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
4653specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
4654it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
4655it to perl.
96ebfdd7 4656
ddda08b7
GS
4657=item Too late to run %s block
4658
4659(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4660when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
4661loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4662instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4663BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 4664
a0d0e21e
LW
4665=item Too many args to syscall
4666
5f05dabc 4667(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
4668
4669=item Too many arguments for %s
4670
4671(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4672
6df41af2
GS
4673=item Too many )'s
4674
49704364
WL
4675(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4676Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4677
8c40cb74
NC
4678=item Too many ('s
4679
be771a83
GS
4680(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4681Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4682
7253e4e3 4683=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4684
be771a83
GS
4685(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4686Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4687
2c268ad5 4688=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
4689
4690(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 4691or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4692C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4693
2c268ad5 4694=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 4695
6a36df5d
YST
4696(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4697y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 4698
96ebfdd7
RK
4699=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4700
4701(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
6903afa2 4702disallowed. See L<Safe>.
96ebfdd7 4703
a0d0e21e
LW
4704=item truncate not implemented
4705
4706(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4707Configure knows about.
4708
19c481f4
FC
4709=item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
4710
4711(F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
4712to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
4713ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
4714nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
4715
a0d0e21e
LW
4716=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4717
4718(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 4719certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4720%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
4721{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4722
7ac5715b 4723=item Type of argument to %s must be unblessed hashref or arrayref
cba5a3b0 4724
7ac5715b
FC
4725(F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with a scalar argument that
4726was not a reference to an unblessed hash or array.
cba5a3b0 4727
eec2d3df
GS
4728=item umask not implemented
4729
be771a83
GS
4730(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4731use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 4732
4633a7c4
LW
4733=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4734
4735(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4736
a0d0e21e
LW
4737=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4738
be771a83
GS
4739(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4740many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4741
4742=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4743
be771a83
GS
4744(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4745many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
4746
4747=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4748
be771a83
GS
4749(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4750many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4751
4752=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4753
be771a83
GS
4754(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4755many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
4756
4757=item Undefined format "%s" called
4758
4759(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4760another package? See L<perlform>.
4761
4762=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4763
be771a83
GS
4764(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4765Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4766
4767=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4768
be771a83
GS
4769(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4770since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
4771
4772=item Undefined subroutine called
4773
4774(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4775or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4776
4777=item Undefined subroutine in sort
4778
be771a83
GS
4779(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4780to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 4781
4633a7c4
LW
4782=item Undefined top format "%s" called
4783
4784(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4785another package? See L<perlform>.
4786
20408e3c
GS
4787=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4788
be771a83
GS
4789(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4790C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4791C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 4792
6df41af2
GS
4793=item %s: Undefined variable
4794
be771a83
GS
4795(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4796Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4797
a0d0e21e
LW
4798=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4799
4800(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4801representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4802
0876b9a0
KW
4803=item Unicode non-character U+%X is illegal for open interchange
4804
8457b38f 4805(W utf8, nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
6903afa2
FC
4806defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are
4807legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so, applications
4808shouldn't attempt to exchange them. If you know what you are doing
4809you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
b45f050a 4810
c794c51b
FC
4811=item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
4812
8457b38f 4813(W utf8, surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
c794c51b
FC
4814not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
4815U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
4816internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
4817available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
4818problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
4819came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 4820off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
c794c51b 4821
a0d0e21e
LW
4822=item Unknown BYTEORDER
4823
be771a83
GS
4824(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4825order.
a0d0e21e 4826
6170680b
IZ
4827=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4828
437784d6 4829(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 4830of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 4831C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 4832
b4581f09
JH
4833=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4834
4835(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4836system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4837internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4838are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4839explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4840value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4841
f675dbe5
CB
4842=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4843
4844(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4845iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4846data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4847subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 4848
2f7da168
RK
4849=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4850
a4a4c9e2 4851(W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
2f7da168 4852
bcd05b94 4853=item Unknown switch condition (?(%s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
96ebfdd7
RK
4854
4855(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6903afa2 4856is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5fecf430 4857
674f6ed9
FC
4858 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
4859 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
4860 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
4861 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
4862 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
4863 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
4864 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
4865 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
4866 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
96ebfdd7
RK
4867
4868The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4869discovered. See L<perlre>.
4870
a05d7ebb
JH
4871=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4872
a4a4c9e2 4873(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb
JH
4874of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4875
4876=item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4877
a4a4c9e2 4878(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb 4879of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 4880
e2e6a0f1
YO
4881=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4882
4883(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4884after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4885L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4886
c2771421
FC
4887=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4888
6903afa2 4889(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
c2771421
FC
4890category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4891
14ef4c80
FC
4892Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
4893module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
4894module first.
c2771421 4895
7253e4e3 4896=item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4897
6903afa2 4898(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 4899include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
6903afa2
FC
4900first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4901problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4902
7253e4e3 4903=item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
4904
4905(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
6903afa2
FC
4906expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
4907the matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4908about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4909
d98d5fff 4910=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 4911
be771a83
GS
4912(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4913ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4914general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4915you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 4916
a0d0e21e
LW
4917=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4918
be771a83
GS
4919(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4920reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4921somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4922subroutine.
a0d0e21e 4923
b1fc3636 4924=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
a0d0e21e 4925
54310121 4926(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
b1fc3636 4927in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
356c7adf 4928to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 4929
4a68bf9d 4930=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4931
be771a83
GS
4932(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4933recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 4934understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
2628b4e0
TS
4935The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4936escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4937
4a68bf9d 4938=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 4939
2628b4e0 4940(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
4941recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4942change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 4943
216bfc0a 4944=item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4945
be771a83 4946(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b7e4ecc1
FC
4947recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
4948this may change in a future version of Perl. The <-- HERE shows in
4949the regular expression about where the escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4950
a0d0e21e
LW
4951=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4952
be771a83
GS
4953(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4954recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4955on your system.
a0d0e21e 4956
90248788 4957=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 4958
be771a83
GS
4959(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4960think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4961bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
4962
4963=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4964
be771a83
GS
4965(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4966operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 4967PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4968
4969=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4970
4971(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4972
6df41af2
GS
4973=item Unsupported function %s
4974
4975(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4976At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4977
54310121 4978=item Unsupported function fork
4979
4980(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4981
be771a83 4982Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6903afa2 4983of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
be771a83 4984changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 4985
7aa207d6 4986=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
4987
4988(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 4989declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 4990
a0d0e21e
LW
4991=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4992
4993(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4994least that's what Configure thought.
4995
6df41af2 4996=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 4997
be771a83
GS
4998(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4999start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
5000block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
5001attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 5002
09bef843
SB
5003=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
5004
be771a83
GS
5005(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
5006an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
5007character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
5008character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
5009
f1991046
GS
5010=item Unterminated compressed integer
5011
5012(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
5013compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
5014See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5015
2bf803e2
YO
5016=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5017
5018(F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
5019a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 5020
6df41af2 5021=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 5022
6df41af2 5023(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
5024a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
5025not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
5026earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 5027
905fe053
FC
5028=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5029
5030(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 5031the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053
FC
5032
5033=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5034
5035(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 5036the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 5037
6df41af2 5038=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 5039
be771a83
GS
5040(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
5041still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 5042
8e11cd2b
JC
5043=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
5044
5045(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
5046See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
5047
5048=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
5049
5050(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
5051See L<Win32> for more information.
5052
89474f50
FC
5053=item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
5054
5055(W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
5056
5057 if ($[ > 5.006) {
5058 ...
5059 }
5060
5061You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
5062arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
5063
8fe85e3f
FC
5064=item Useless assignment to a temporary
5065
5066(W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
5067the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
5068be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
5069
96ebfdd7 5070=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 5071
96ebfdd7
RK
5072(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
5073meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 5074
96ebfdd7 5075 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5076
5077must be written as
5078
96ebfdd7 5079 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5080
5081The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
6903afa2 5082where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 5083
b4581f09
JH
5084=item Useless localization of %s
5085
6903afa2
FC
5086(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
5087but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
b4581f09
JH
5088some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
5089
96ebfdd7 5090=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 5091
96ebfdd7
RK
5092(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
5093meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 5094
96ebfdd7 5095 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5096
5097must be written as
5098
96ebfdd7 5099 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5100
5101The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
6903afa2 5102where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 5103
b08e453b
RB
5104=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
5105
5106(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6903afa2 5107same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
b08e453b
RB
5108about the /d modifier.
5109
6df41af2 5110=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 5111
75b44862 5112(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
5113nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
5114value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
5115often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
5116to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
5117get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
5118said
a0d0e21e 5119
6df41af2 5120 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 5121
6df41af2
GS
5122when you meant to say
5123
5124 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
5125
5126Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
5127reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
5128example, if you say
5129
5130 $array = (1,2);
5131
5132when you should have said
5133
5134 $array = [1,2];
5135
5136The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
5137while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
5138a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
5139throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
5140L<perlref> for more on this.
5141
65191a1e
BS
5142This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
5143since they are often used in statements like
5144
4358a253 5145 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
5146
5147String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
5148about.
5149
6df41af2
GS
5150=item Useless use of "re" pragma
5151
6903afa2 5152(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6df41af2 5153
a801c63c
RGS
5154=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
5155
5156(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
5157
5158 my $x = sort @y;
5159
5160This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
5161
de4864e4
JH
5162=item Useless use of %s with no values
5163
f87c3213 5164(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6903afa2
FC
5165apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
5166usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
de4864e4 5167possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6903afa2 5168if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
de4864e4
JH
5169you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
5170
6df41af2
GS
5171=item "use" not allowed in expression
5172
be771a83
GS
5173(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
5174returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 5175
36b2db7e
FC
5176=item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
5177
5178(D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
6903afa2 5179is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
36b2db7e 5180
c47ff5f1 5181=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 5182
8ab8f082 5183(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
83ce3e12
RGS
5184form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
5185
5186=item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
5187
8ab8f082 5188(D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
83ce3e12 5189separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4633a7c4 5190
96ebfdd7
RK
5191=item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
5192
5193(D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
5194$ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
5195behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
5196will simply fail.
5197
5198Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
5199blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
5200
64e578a2
MJD
5201=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
5202
5203(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
5204modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
5205
4ac733c9
MJD
5206=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
5207
5208(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
5209use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
5210used. (This may change in the future.)
5211
2dc78664 5212=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
036e1e65 5213
2dc78664
NC
5214(F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
5215C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
5216This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
5217error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
5218
5219If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
5220a space before the C<=>.
036e1e65 5221
b6c83531 5222=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 5223
b6c83531
JH
5224(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
5225This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
5226
5227 @a = (3,4);
5228 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
5229
5230You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
5231For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
5232reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
5233middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
5234
39b99f21 5235=item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
5236
5237(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
5238to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
5239
96ebfdd7 5240=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 5241
96ebfdd7
RK
5242(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
5243operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
5244repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 5245
0b98bec9
RGS
5246=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
5247
5248(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
5249scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
5250
dc848c6f 5251=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
5252
1da25648
FC
5253(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD>
5254subroutines are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy)
5255even when the subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain
5256functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or
5257C<< $obj->bar() >>).
dc848c6f 5258
be771a83
GS
5259This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
5260methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
5261code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
5262currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
5263C<AUTOLOAD>s.
dc848c6f 5264
5265The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
be771a83
GS
5266non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
5267to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
5268named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
5269startup.
dc848c6f 5270
be771a83
GS
5271In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
5272you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 5273C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
fb73857a 5274
6df41af2
GS
5275=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
5276
5277(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
5278only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
5279
6df41af2
GS
5280=item Use of %s is deprecated
5281
75b44862 5282(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
be771a83
GS
5283generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
5284old way has bad side effects.
6df41af2 5285
5a7abfcc
FC
5286=item Use of -l on filehandle %s
5287
5288(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
5289it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
5290The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
5291
7c7df812
FC
5292=item Use of %s on a handle without * is deprecated
5293
5294(D deprecated) You used C<tie>, C<tied> or C<untie> on a scalar but that
5295scalar happens to hold a typeglob, which means its filehandle will
5296be tied. If you mean to tie a handle, use an explicit * as in
5297C<tie *$handle>.
5298
5299This is a long-standing bug that will be removed in Perl 5.16, as
5300there is currently no way to tie the scalar itself when it holds
5301a typeglob, and no way to untie a scalar that has had a typeglob
5302assigned to it.
5303
905fe053
FC
5304=item Use of ?PATTERN? without explicit operator is deprecated
5305
5306(D deprecated) You have written something like C<?\w?>, for a regular
5307expression that matches only once. Starting this term directly with
5308the question mark delimiter is now deprecated, so that the question mark
5309will be available for use in new operators in the future. Write C<m?\w?>
5310instead, explicitly using the C<m> operator: the question mark delimiter
5311still invokes match-once behaviour.
5312
ea25a9b2
Z
5313=item Use of qw(...) as parentheses is deprecated
5314
5315(D deprecated) You have something like C<foreach $x qw(a b c) {...}>,
5316using a C<qw(...)> list literal where a parenthesised expression is
5317expected. Historically the parser fooled itself into thinking that
5318C<qw(...)> literals were always enclosed in parentheses, and as a result
5319you could sometimes omit parentheses around them. (You could never do
5320the C<foreach qw(a b c) {...}> that you might have expected, though.)
5321The parser no longer lies to itself in this way. Wrap the list literal
5322in parentheses, like C<foreach $x (qw(a b c)) {...}>.
5323
1f1cc344 5324=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 5325
77b96956 5326(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
5327isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
5328to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 5329
64977eb6 5330If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344 5331C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
54e0f05c 5332however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
c69ca1d4 5333operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 5334
85b81015
LW
5335=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
5336
be771a83
GS
5337(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
5338versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
5339explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
5340use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
5341suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
5342a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
85b81015 5343
bbd7eb8a
RD
5344=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5345
159f47d9 5346(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
5347arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5348but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5349arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5350
cc95b072 5351=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 5352
be771a83
GS
5353(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5354defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5355To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 5356
6903afa2
FC
5357To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
5358the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
5359it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
5360undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
5361anid the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
5362literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
5363optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
5364C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
5365your program.
e5be4a53 5366
a1063b2d
RH
5367=item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5368
496a33f5 5369(D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1b1f1335 5370C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
6903afa2
FC
5371used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now
5372deprecated, and will be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d
RH
5373
5374=item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5375
496a33f5 5376(D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1b1f1335 5377C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
6903afa2
FC
5378allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated,
5379and will be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d 5380
ff3f963a
KW
5381=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5382
5383(W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5384Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5385expression pattern bracketed character class.
5386
c794c51b
FC
5387=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
5388
5389(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
5390currently reserved for future use, as the exact behaviour has not
6903afa2 5391been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
c794c51b 5392modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
0876b9a0 5393
949cf498
KW
5394=item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
5395
8457b38f 5396(W utf8, surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
949cf498
KW
5397not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
5398U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
5399internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
5400available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
5401problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
5402came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 5403off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9466bab6 5404
68dc0745 5405=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 5406
75b44862 5407(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
5408C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5409can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5410false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5411constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5412C<defined> operator.
a6006777 5413
f675dbe5
CB
5414=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5415
be771a83
GS
5416(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5417%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5418longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
54191024 characters.
f675dbe5 5420
b5c19bd7 5421=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 5422
b5c19bd7
DM
5423(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5424attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6903afa2 5425This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
5426declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5427(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6903afa2 5428subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 5429
b5c19bd7 5430 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 5431
b5c19bd7 5432At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6903afa2 5433since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
b5c19bd7
DM
5434the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5435now been created and is live:
be771a83 5436
b5c19bd7
DM
5437 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5438
5439The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5440gone out of scope, for example,
5441
5442 sub f {
5443 my $a;
5444 sub { eval '$a' }
5445 }
5446 f()->();
5447
5448Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5449executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 5450
b4581f09
JH
5451=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5452
413ff9f6
FC
5453(W misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
5454that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
5455something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5456that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5457front of your variable.
5458
58e23c8d 5459=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
5460
5461(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
58e23c8d 5462known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
b4581f09
JH
5463
5464=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5465
b9cc85ad
FC
5466(W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
5467current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
5468previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
5469that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
5470or until all closure referents to it are destroyed.
b4581f09 5471
6df41af2
GS
5472=item Variable syntax
5473
5474(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5475of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5476Perl yourself.
5477
44a8e56a 5478=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5479
be771a83 5480(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 5481lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 5482
b5c19bd7 5483When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
5484the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5485call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5486outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5487longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5488variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 5489
44a8e56a 5490This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5491anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 5492reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 5493are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 5494
e2e6a0f1
YO
5495=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5496
6903afa2
FC
5497(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
5498argument or check that you are using the right verb.
e2e6a0f1
YO
5499
5500=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5501
6903afa2 5502(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
e2e6a0f1
YO
5503argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5504
084610c0
GS
5505=item Version number must be a constant number
5506
5507(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5508its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5509the version number.
5510
808ee47e
SP
5511=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5512
32e998fd
RGS
5513(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5514are being ignored.
808ee47e 5515
7e1af8bc 5516=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 5517
5518(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 5519you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 5520
f86702cc 5521=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 5522
be771a83
GS
5523(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5524the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5525space.
a0d0e21e 5526
5f05dabc 5527=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 5528
be771a83
GS
5529(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5530looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5531term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5532function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
5533
5534 rand + 5;
5535
5536you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5537
5538 rand() + 5;
5539
5540but in actual fact, you got
5541
5542 rand(+5);
5543
5f05dabc 5544So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 5545
4b3603a4
JH
5546=item Wide character in %s
5547
c8f79457 5548(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
5549one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5550way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5551output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5552warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5553cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5554filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 5555
49704364
WL
5556=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5557
5558(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
5559C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
7bef7cf6 5560determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains any
49704364
WL
5561of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5562
9a7dcd9c 5563=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5564
be771a83 5565(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5566before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5567
9ae3ac1a 5568=item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
b4581f09 5569
a4a4c9e2 5570(F) When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
b4581f09
JH
5571into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5572this encoding, for example
5573
5574 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5575
5576if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5577
49704364 5578=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 5579
49704364
WL
5580(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5581the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 5582
49704364 5583=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
5584
5585(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5586the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5587
a0d0e21e
LW
5588=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5589
5f05dabc 5590(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 5591sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 5592about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 5593your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
5594
5595=item You need to quote "%s"
5596
be771a83
GS
5597(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5598Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5599which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5600assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5601what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 5602
6cfd5ea7
JH
5603=item Your random numbers are not that random
5604
5605(F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5606not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5607Something Very Wrong.
5608
a0d0e21e
LW
5609=back
5610
00eb3f2b
RGS
5611=head1 SEE ALSO
5612
ed3f9c4f 5613L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>, L<diagnostics>.
00eb3f2b 5614
56e90b21 5615=cut