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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).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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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
6df41af2 53=item Allocation too large: %lx
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
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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
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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
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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
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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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
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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
6df41af2 92=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 93
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94(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 97
6df41af2 98=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 99
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100(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 105
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106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
107 while (<STDIN>) {
108 print;
109 print OUT;
110 }
111 close OUT;
c9f97d15 112
6df41af2 113=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 114
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115(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
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117one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
121alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 122
6df41af2 123=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 124
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125(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 129
6df41af2 130=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 131
6df41af2 132(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 133
b0fdf69e 134=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 135
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136(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
137subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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138
139 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 140 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 141 &do_something
a0d0e21e 142
8ea97a1e 143=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 144
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145(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
146such as:
5f05dabc 147
148 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 149 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 150
8ea97a1e 151or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 152
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153 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
154 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 155
6df41af2 156=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 157
6df41af2 158(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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159name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160error.
a0d0e21e 161
f86702cc 162=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 163
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164(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
165that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
166will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 167
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168=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
169
170(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
171forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
172data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
173the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
174If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
175the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
176
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177=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
178
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179(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
180spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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181
182=item assertion botched: %s
183
184(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
185
186=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
187
188(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
189
190=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
191
192(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
193must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
194know which context to supply to the right side.
195
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196=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
197
4447dfc1 198(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
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199thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
200Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
201created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
202thread. See L<threads>.
203
2393f1b9 204=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 205
49293501 206(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 207the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 208
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209=item Attempt to bless into a reference
210
211(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
212the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
213supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
214
215 bless $self, $proto;
216
217when you intended
218
219 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
220
221If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
222of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
223example by:
224
225 bless $self, "$proto";
226
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227=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
228
229(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
230which is not in its key set.
231
232=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
233
234(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
235declared readonly from a restricted hash.
236
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237=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
238
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239(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
240that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
241outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 242
54310121 243=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 244
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245(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
246strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
247strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
248of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 249
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250=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
251
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252(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
253free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
254SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
255free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
256try to free it.
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257
258=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
259
e476b1b5 260(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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261
262=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
263
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264(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
265see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
266earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
267This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
268that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
269mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
270corrupted.
a0d0e21e 271
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272=item Attempt to join self
273
274(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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275impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
276to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 277
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278=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
279
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280(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
281function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
282means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
283invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
284literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
285avoid this warning.
84902520 286
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287=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
288
289(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
290compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
291unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
292L<perlvar/%INC>.
293
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294=item Attempt to set length of freed array
295
296(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
297can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
298of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
299
300 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
301 $$r = 503
302
b7a902f4 303=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
304
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305(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
306used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
307dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 308
dc26df50 309=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
a0d0e21e 310
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311(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
312or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 313S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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314S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
315
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316=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
317
496a33f5 318(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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319substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
320most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
321
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322=item Bad filehandle: %s
323
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324(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
325symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
326open(), or did it in another package.
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327
328=item Bad free() ignored
329
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330(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
331been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 332setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 333
9ea8bc6d 334This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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335dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
336which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 337
aa689395 338=item Bad hash
339
340(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
341
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342=item Badly placed ()'s
343
344(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
345of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
346Perl yourself.
347
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348=item Bad name after %s::
349
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350(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
351didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
352of quotes, so
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353
354 $var = 'myvar';
355 $sym = mypack::$var;
356
357is not the same as
358
359 $var = 'myvar';
360 $sym = "mypack::$var";
361
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362=item Bad realloc() ignored
363
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364(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
365never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
366by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 367
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368=item Bad symbol for array
369
370(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
371wasn't a symbol table entry.
372
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373=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
374
375(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
376that wasn't a symbol table entry.
377
378
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379=item Bad symbol for filehandle
380
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381(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
382that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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383
384=item Bad symbol for hash
385
386(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
387wasn't a symbol table entry.
388
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389=item Bareword found in conditional
390
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391(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
392conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
393of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
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394
395 open FOO || die;
396
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397It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
398a bareword:
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399
400 use constant TYPO => 1;
401 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
402
403The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
404
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405=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
406
407(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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408subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
409symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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410
411=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
412
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413(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
414compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
415you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 416
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417=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
418
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419(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
420subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
421exited.
a0d0e21e 422
68dc0745 423=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
424
425(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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426implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
427occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
428be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
429depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 430
6df41af2
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431=item \1 better written as $1
432
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433(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
434The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
435substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
436because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
437there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 438
252aa082
JH
439=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
440
e476b1b5 441(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
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JH
442(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
443L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 444
69282e91 445=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 446
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447(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
448check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 449
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450=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
451
452(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
453Check you control flow and number of arguments.
454
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JH
455=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
456
e476b1b5 457(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 458
4633a7c4
LW
459=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
460
be771a83 461(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 462copyable.
4633a7c4 463
f675dbe5
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464=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
465
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466(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
467iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
468which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 469
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470=item Callback called exit
471
4929bf7b 472(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
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473exited by calling exit.
474
6df41af2 475=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 476
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477(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
478parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
479that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
480early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
481subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
482checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
483function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
484the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 485
49704364 486=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
487
488(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
489compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
490attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
491See L<perlfunc/pack>.
492
49704364 493=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
494
495(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
496format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
497
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NC
498=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
499
500(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
501then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
502triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
503from that type of reference to a typeglob.
504
ba2fdce6
NC
505=item Cannot copy to %s in %s
506
507(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
508be directly assigned not.
509
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510=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
511
512(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
513integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
514to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
515
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516=item Can't bless non-reference value
517
518(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
519encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
520
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521=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
522
0d863452
RH
523(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
524a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
525
526=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 527
0d863452
RH
528(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
529
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530=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
531
532(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
533functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
534in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
535
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536=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
537
538(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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539object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
540like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
541
542 $BADREF = undef;
543 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
544 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
545
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LW
546=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
547
54310121 548(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
549ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
550didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
551object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
552
553=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
554
555(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
556object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
557defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
558Something like this will reproduce the error:
559
560 $BADREF = 42;
561 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
562 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
563
a0d0e21e
LW
564=item Can't chdir to %s
565
566(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
567that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
568
0545a864 569=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 570
be771a83
GS
571(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
572nosuid.
104d25b7 573
6df41af2
GS
574=item Can't coerce array into hash
575
576(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
577information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
578only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
579
a0d0e21e
LW
580=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
581
582(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 583(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
584say things like:
585
586 *foo += 1;
587
588You CAN say
589
590 $foo = *foo;
591 $foo += 1;
592
593but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
594
595=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
596
597(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 598(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
599
600=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
601
602(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 603(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 604
0d863452 605=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 606
0d863452
RH
607(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
608or C<default> block.
609
a0d0e21e
LW
610=item Can't create pipe mailbox
611
be771a83
GS
612(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
613quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 614
eb64745e 615=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 616
2f7e735d 617(F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
30c282f6 618class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
2f7e735d 619extended for other types of variables in future.
eb64745e
GS
620
621=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
622
30c282f6
NC
623(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
624"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 625
6df41af2
GS
626=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
627
be771a83
GS
628(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
629a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 630
a0d0e21e
LW
631=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
632
be771a83
GS
633(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
634reason.
a0d0e21e 635
54310121 636=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 637
be771a83
GS
638(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
639reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
640C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 641
10f9c03d 642=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 643
e476b1b5 644(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
645characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
646inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 647
7253e4e3 648=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 649
b45f050a 650(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 651regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 652regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e
LW
653
654=item Can't do setegid!
655
be771a83
GS
656(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
657suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
658
659=item Can't do seteuid!
660
661(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
662
663=item Can't do setuid
664
be771a83
GS
665(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
666setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
667sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
668the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
669file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
670sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
a0d0e21e
LW
671
672=item Can't do waitpid with flags
673
be771a83
GS
674(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
675waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 676
a0d0e21e
LW
677=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
678
be771a83
GS
679(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
680point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
681line.
a0d0e21e 682
1109a392
MHM
683=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
684
685(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
686or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
687little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
688See L<perlfunc/pack>.
689
a0d0e21e
LW
690=item Can't exec "%s": %s
691
d1be9408 692(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
693named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
694permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
695C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
696architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
697can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
698#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
699
700=item Can't exec %s
701
be771a83
GS
702(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
703that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
704need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
705
706=item Can't execute %s
707
be771a83
GS
708(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
709found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 710
6df41af2 711=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 712
be771a83
GS
713(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
714is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 715
56ca2fc0
JH
716=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
717
718(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
89d60977 719could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
56ca2fc0
JH
720(remember that the names of character properties consist only of
721alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
722
6df41af2
GS
723=item Can't find label %s
724
be771a83
GS
725(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
726possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
727
728=item Can't find %s on PATH
729
be771a83
GS
730(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
731found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 732
6df41af2 733=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 734
be771a83
GS
735(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
736found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
737script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
738
739=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
740
be771a83
GS
741(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
742that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
743nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 744
fb73857a 745 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
746
be771a83
GS
747If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
748unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
749editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 750
660a4616
TS
751=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
752
753(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
754example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
755Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
756If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
757by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
758possible C<\E>).
759
a0d0e21e
LW
760=item Can't fork
761
be771a83
GS
762(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
763pipeline.
a0d0e21e 764
748a9306
LW
765=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
766
be771a83
GS
767(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
768between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
769Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
770the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
771account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
772the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
773the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
774the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
775if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
776because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
777appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
778and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
779routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
780shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
781only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 782
a0d0e21e
LW
783=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
784
be771a83
GS
785(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
786pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
787
788=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
789
748a9306
LW
790(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
791mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 792
6df41af2 793=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 794
be771a83
GS
795(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
796loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
797
798=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
799
be771a83
GS
800(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
801a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
802you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
803See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 804
9850bf21 805=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 806
9850bf21
RH
807(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
808comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
809as the reduce() function in List::Util).
810
c74ace89 811=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 812
be771a83 813(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 814"string" or block.
b150fb22 815
6df41af2
GS
816=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
817
be771a83
GS
818(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
819subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
820cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
821routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 822
0b5b802d
GS
823=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
824
be771a83
GS
825(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
826signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
827signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
828processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
829situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
830may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 831
6df41af2 832=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 833
6df41af2 834(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
835except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
836block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
837block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
838usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
839inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
840L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 841
2c7d6b9c
RGS
842=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
843
844(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
845package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
846
b8170e59
JB
847=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
848
849(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
850may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
851incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
852between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
16d98ec5 853extension was built against an older version of the library that is
b8170e59
JB
854installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
855extensions.
856
748a9306
LW
857=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
858
2ba9eb46 859(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
30c282f6 860lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
748a9306
LW
861localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
862package name.
863
6df41af2 864=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 865
6df41af2
GS
866(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
867handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 868pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 869that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 870
ea071790 871=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
872
873(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
874found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
875unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
876need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
877the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
878to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
879L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 880
6df41af2
GS
881=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
882
be771a83
GS
883(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
884autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
885are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
886the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 887
b8170e59
JB
888=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
889
890(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
891for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
892unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
893
a0d0e21e
LW
894=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
895
896(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
897functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 898method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
899
900=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
901
be771a83
GS
902(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
903doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 904
2c7d6b9c
RGS
905=item Can't locate package %s for the parents of %s
906
907(W syntax) You did not define (or require/use) the first package,
908which is named as a (possibly indirect) parent of the second by
909C<@ISA> inheritance. Perl will treat this as if the undefined
910package had an empty C<@ISA>.
911
2f7da168
RK
912=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
913
914(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
915e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
916
3e3baf6d
TB
917=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
918
be771a83
GS
919(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
920VMS.
3e3baf6d 921
a0d0e21e
LW
922=item Can't modify %s in %s
923
be771a83
GS
924(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
925to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 926
54310121 927=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
928
929(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
930a NULL.
931
6df41af2
GS
932=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
933
934(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
935such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
936
5f05dabc 937=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 938
5f05dabc 939(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
940buffer.
941
6df41af2
GS
942=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
943
944(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
945there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
946count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
947grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
948though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
949once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 950
a0d0e21e
LW
951=item Can't open %s: %s
952
c47ff5f1 953(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
954filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
955switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
956is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
957the command line.
a0d0e21e 958
9a869a14
RGS
959=item Can't open a reference
960
961(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
962using the 3-arg open() syntax :
963
964 open FH, '>', $ref;
965
966but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
967open is not supported.
968
a0d0e21e
LW
969=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
970
be771a83
GS
971(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
972You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
973as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
974">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 975
748a9306
LW
976=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
977
be771a83
GS
978(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
979redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
980the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
981
982=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
983
be771a83
GS
984(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
985redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
986command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
987
988=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
989
be771a83
GS
990(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
991redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
992the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
993
994=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
995
be771a83
GS
996(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
997redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
998for stdout.
748a9306 999
2b8ca739 1000=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1001
1002(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1003
fa3aa65a
JC
1004If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1005shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1006you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1007
6df41af2
GS
1008=item Can't read CRTL environ
1009
1010(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1011from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1012missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1013or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1014searched.
6df41af2 1015
6df41af2
GS
1016=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1017
1018(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1019there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1020count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1021or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1022though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1023loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1024
64977eb6 1025=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1026
be771a83
GS
1027(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1028file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1029the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1030
a0d0e21e
LW
1031=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1032
e476b1b5 1033(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1034probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1035
748a9306
LW
1036=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1037
be771a83
GS
1038(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1039to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1040
6df41af2
GS
1041=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1042
be771a83
GS
1043(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1044to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1045method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1046
a0d0e21e
LW
1047=item Can't reswap uid and euid
1048
be771a83
GS
1049(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1050suidperl.
a0d0e21e 1051
cd06dffe
GS
1052=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1053
be771a83
GS
1054(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1055temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1056is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1057
96ebfdd7
RK
1058=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1059
1060(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1061there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1062
78f9721b
SM
1063=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1064
1065(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1066but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1067to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1068the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1069list context.
1070
a0d0e21e
LW
1071=item Can't stat script "%s"
1072
be771a83
GS
1073(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1074open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
1075
1076=item Can't swap uid and euid
1077
be771a83
GS
1078(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1079suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
1080
1081=item Can't take log of %g
1082
fb73857a 1083(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1084negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1085standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1086negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1087
1088=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1089
1090(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1091negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1092with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1093
1094=item Can't undef active subroutine
1095
1096(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1097however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1098redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1099
1100=item Can't unshift
1101
1102(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1103as the main Perl stack.
1104
c81225bc 1105=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1106
be771a83
GS
1107(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1108into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1109specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1110indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1111
1db89ea5
BS
1112=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1113
e27ad1f2 1114(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1115table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1116for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1117
96ebfdd7
RK
1118=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1119
1120(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1121be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1122
6df41af2
GS
1123=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1124
be771a83
GS
1125(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1126references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1127
90b75b61 1128=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1129
1130(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1131Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1132provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1133
1109a392
MHM
1134=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1135
1136(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1137byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1138allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1139
6df41af2
GS
1140=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1141
be771a83
GS
1142(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1143foreach.
6df41af2 1144
aab6a793 1145=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1146
be771a83
GS
1147(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1148is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1149(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1150have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1151weren't.
1152
6d3b25aa
RGS
1153=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1154
1155(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1156that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1157For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1158is inside a big-endian group.
1159
c07a80fd 1160=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1161
1162(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1163You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1164and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1165Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1166lexical variable.
1167
a0d0e21e
LW
1168=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1169
1170(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1171reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1172test the type of the reference, if need be.
1173
748a9306 1174=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1175
be771a83
GS
1176(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1177references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1178
748a9306
LW
1179=item Can't use subscript on %s
1180
1181(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1182subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1183didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1184
6df41af2
GS
1185=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1186
75b44862
GS
1187(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1188creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1189backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1190expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1191value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1192instead.
6df41af2 1193
0d863452 1194=item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
dc57907a 1195
0d863452
RH
1196(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1197loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1198from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1199or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1200
810b8aa5
GS
1201=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1202
1203(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1204references can be weakened.
1205
5f05dabc 1206=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1207
be771a83
GS
1208(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1209with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1210Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1211
f337b084 1212=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1213
1214(W pack) You said
1215
1216 pack("C", $x)
1217
1218where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1219only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1220and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1221
1222 pack("C", $x & 255)
1223
1224If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1225instead.
1226
f337b084
TH
1227=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1228
1229(W pack) You said
1230
1231 pack("U0W", $x)
1232
1233where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1234all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1235meant:
1236
1237 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1238
1239=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1240
1241(W pack) You said
1242
1243 pack("c", $x)
1244
1245where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1246is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1247and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1248
1249 pack("c", $x & 255);
1250
1251If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1252instead.
1253
f337b084
TH
1254=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1255
1256(W unpack) You tried something like
1257
1258 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1259
1a147d38 1260where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
f337b084
TH
1261below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1262modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1263
1264 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1265
1266=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1267
1268(W pack) You tried something like
1269
1270 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1271
1a147d38
YO
1272where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1273value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1274uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1275
1276 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1277
1278=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1279
1280(W unpack) You tried something like
1281
1282 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1283
1a147d38
YO
1284where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1285value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1286uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1287
1288 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1289
96ebfdd7
RK
1290=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1291
1292(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1293
abc7ecad
SP
1294=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1295
1296(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1297a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1298
49704364
WL
1299=item Code missing after '/'
1300
1301(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1302template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1303
6df41af2
GS
1304=item %s: Command not found
1305
be771a83
GS
1306(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1307Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1308
7a2e2cd6 1309=item Compilation failed in require
1310
1311(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1312Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1313encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1314
c3464db5
DD
1315=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1316
be771a83
GS
1317(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1318situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1319to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1320arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1321recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1322under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1323in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1324that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1325on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1326
38875929
DM
1327=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1328
1329(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1330cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1331function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1332cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1333has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1334first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1335after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1336lock.
1337
38875929
DM
1338=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1339
1340(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1341cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1342function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1343cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1344has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1345first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1346after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1347lock.
1348
69282e91 1349=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1350
be771a83
GS
1351(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1352to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1353L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1354
41ab332f 1355=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1356
be771a83
GS
1357(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1358an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1359specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1360corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1361L<overload>.
6df41af2 1362
fc8cd66c
YO
1363=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1364
1a147d38
YO
1365(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1366the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1367forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1368See L<charnames>.
1369
1370
779c5bc9
GS
1371=item Constant is not %s reference
1372
1373(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1374is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1375The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1376usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1377See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1378
4cee8e80
CS
1379=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1380
bb028877 1381(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
be771a83
GS
1382eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1383commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1384
9607fc9c 1385=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1386
be771a83
GS
1387(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1388for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1389workarounds.
9607fc9c 1390
e7ea3e70
IZ
1391=item Copy method did not return a reference
1392
64977eb6 1393(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1394L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1395
6798c92b
GS
1396=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1397
1398(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1399
a0d0e21e
LW
1400=item corrupted regexp pointers
1401
1402(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1403expression compiler gave it.
1404
1405=item corrupted regexp program
1406
be771a83
GS
1407(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1408valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1409
6df41af2
GS
1410=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1411
1412(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1413
49704364
WL
1414=item Count after length/code in unpack
1415
1416(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1417you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1418L<perlfunc/pack>.
1419
a0d0e21e
LW
1420=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1421
be771a83
GS
1422(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1423100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1424infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1425which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1426
f10b0346 1427=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1428
be771a83
GS
1429(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1430checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1431array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1432
f10b0346 1433=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1434
be771a83
GS
1435(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1436checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1437is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1438
62658f4d
PM
1439=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1440
1441(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1442there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1443
fc36a67e 1444=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1445
be771a83
GS
1446(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1447long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1448that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1449
6d3b25aa
RGS
1450=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1451
1452(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1453There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1454not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1455conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1456static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1457relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1458declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1459
6d3b25aa
RGS
1460 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1461
1462becomes
1463
1464 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1465
36fb85f3
RGS
1466Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1467have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1468
1469 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1470
500ab966
RGS
1471=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1472
1473(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1474just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1475to create a dangling reference.
1476
3cdd684c
TP
1477=item Did not produce a valid header
1478
1479See Server error.
1480
6df41af2
GS
1481=item %s did not return a true value
1482
1483(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1484it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1485traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1486do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1487
cc507455 1488=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1489
be771a83
GS
1490(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1491such.
4633a7c4 1492
cc507455 1493=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1494
be771a83
GS
1495(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1496variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1497seems superfluous.
33633739 1498
cc507455 1499=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1500
be771a83
GS
1501(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1502@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1503carried away.
748a9306 1504
7e1af8bc 1505=item Died
5f05dabc 1506
1507(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1508you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1509
3cdd684c
TP
1510=item Document contains no data
1511
1512See Server error.
1513
62658f4d
PM
1514=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1515
1516(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1517define a C<$VERSION.>
1518
49704364
WL
1519=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1520
1521(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1522See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1523
a0d0e21e
LW
1524=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1525
1526(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1527
1528=item do_study: out of memory
1529
1530(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1531
6df41af2
GS
1532=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1533
56da5a46
RGS
1534(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1535"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1536name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1537because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1538"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1539something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1540subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1541"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1542
ac206dc8
RGS
1543=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1544
1545(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1546qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1547
84d78eb7
YO
1548=item dump is not supported
1549
1550(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1551
a0d0e21e
LW
1552=item Duplicate free() ignored
1553
be771a83
GS
1554(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1555already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1556
1109a392
MHM
1557=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1558
1559(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1560in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1561
4633a7c4
LW
1562=item elseif should be elsif
1563
56da5a46
RGS
1564(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1565ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1566"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1567unlikely to be what you want.
1568
ab13f0c7
JH
1569=item Empty %s
1570
af6f566e
HS
1571(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1572described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1573a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1574
85ab1d1d 1575=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1576
85ab1d1d 1577(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1578effective uids or gids failed.
1579
c038024b
RGS
1580=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1581
1582(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1583aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1584program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1585
748a9306
LW
1586=item Error converting file specification %s
1587
5f05dabc 1588(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1589specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1590single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1591an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1592conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1593
e4d48cc9
GS
1594=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1595
be771a83
GS
1596(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1597expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1598is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1599
e4d48cc9
GS
1600=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1601
be771a83
GS
1602(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1603C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1604pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1605is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1606building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1607that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1608
6df41af2
GS
1609=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1610
be771a83
GS
1611(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1612assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1613pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1614
1a147d38
YO
1615=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1616
1617(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1618any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1619
1620The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1621discovered.
1622
fc36a67e 1623=item Excessively long <> operator
1624
1625(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1626Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1627filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1628variable and glob that.
1629
ed9aa3b7
SG
1630=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1631
1632(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1633
f86702cc 1634=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1635
1636(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1637
1638=item Exiting eval via %s
1639
be771a83
GS
1640(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1641goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1642
1643=item Exiting format via %s
1644
9a2ff54b 1645(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1646goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1647
0a753a76 1648=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1649
be771a83
GS
1650(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1651sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1652loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1653
a0d0e21e
LW
1654=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1655
be771a83
GS
1656(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1657as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1658
1659=item Exiting substitution via %s
1660
be771a83
GS
1661(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1662as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1663
7b8d334a
GS
1664=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1665
be771a83
GS
1666(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1667the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1668usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1669e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1670
6df41af2
GS
1671=item %s: Expression syntax
1672
be771a83
GS
1673(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1674Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1675
1676=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1677
3c10abe3
AG
1678(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1679CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1680queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1681
7253e4e3 1682=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1683
be771a83 1684(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1685character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1686in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1687"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1688problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1689
748a9306 1690=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1691
be771a83
GS
1692(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1693system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1694details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1695you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1696
1697=item fcntl is not implemented
1698
1699(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1700PDP-11 or something?
1701
22846ab4
AB
1702=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1703
1704(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1705is not possible.
1706
f337b084
TH
1707=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1708
1709(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1710which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1711a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1712C<u63> as format.
1713
af8c498a 1714=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1715
6c8d78fb
HS
1716(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1717it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1718"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1719write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1720
af8c498a 1721=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1722
6c8d78fb
HS
1723(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1724you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
be771a83
GS
1725with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1726intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
6c8d78fb
HS
1727Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1728(also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1729
1730=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1731
1732(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1733as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1734previously.
1735
1736=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1737
1738(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1739as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1740
1741=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1742
1743(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1744a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1745happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1746name.
a0d0e21e 1747
56e90b21
GS
1748=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1749
be771a83 1750(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1751some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1752filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1753same name?
56e90b21 1754
6df41af2
GS
1755=item Format not terminated
1756
1757(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1758to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1759
a0d0e21e
LW
1760=item Format %s redefined
1761
e476b1b5 1762(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1763
1764 {
271595cc 1765 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1766 eval "format NAME =...";
1767 }
1768
a0d0e21e
LW
1769=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1770
e476b1b5 1771(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1772
1773 if ($foo = 123)
1774
1775when you meant
1776
1777 if ($foo == 123)
1778
1779(or something like that).
1780
6df41af2
GS
1781=item %s found where operator expected
1782
56da5a46
RGS
1783(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1784If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1785operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1786operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1787
a0d0e21e
LW
1788=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1789
1790(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1791
1792=item gethostent not implemented
1793
1794(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1795because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1796on the Internet.
1797
69282e91 1798=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1799
be771a83
GS
1800(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1801socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1802
748a9306
LW
1803=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1804
1805(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1806C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1807
6df41af2
GS
1808=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1809
be771a83
GS
1810(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1811forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1812L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1813
1814=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1815
a4edf47d 1816(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1817that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1818declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1819which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1820
e476b1b5
GS
1821=item glob failed (%s)
1822
be771a83
GS
1823(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1824C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1825C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1826nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1827resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1828broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1829config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1830were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1831empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1832think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1833C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1834
a0d0e21e
LW
1835=item Glob not terminated
1836
1837(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1838a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1839not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1840earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1841
6df41af2 1842=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1843
6df41af2
GS
1844(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1845version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1846
1847=item goto must have label
1848
1849(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1850unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1851
49704364 1852=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 1853
49704364 1854(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
18529408 1855supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
49704364 1856 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 1857
6df41af2
GS
1858=item %s had compilation errors
1859
1860(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1861
a0d0e21e
LW
1862=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1863
be771a83
GS
1864(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1865to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1866created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1867
1868=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1869
be771a83
GS
1870(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1871spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1872
6df41af2
GS
1873=item %s has too many errors
1874
1875(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1876Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1877
252aa082
JH
1878=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1879
e476b1b5 1880(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1881(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1882L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1883
8903cb82 1884=item Identifier too long
1885
1886(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1887about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1888names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1889of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1890
fc8cd66c
YO
1891=item Ignoring %s in character class in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1892
38a44b82 1893(W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return multi-char
fc8cd66c 1894or zero length sequences. When such an escape is used in a character class
1a147d38 1895its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
1896been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1897
6df41af2 1898=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1899
6df41af2 1900(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1901
6df41af2 1902=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1903
be771a83
GS
1904(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1905binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1906offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1907
4fdae800 1908=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1909
d5898338 1910(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1911would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1912when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1913version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1914to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1915
d37a9538
ST
1916=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1917
420cdfc1 1918(W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
d37a9538
ST
1919characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1920
904d85c5
RGS
1921=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1922
1923(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1924you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1925
8e742a20
MHM
1926=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1927
1928(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1929
a0d0e21e
LW
1930=item Illegal division by zero
1931
be771a83
GS
1932(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1933your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1934meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1935
6df41af2
GS
1936=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1937
be771a83
GS
1938(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1939A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1940number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1941
a0d0e21e
LW
1942=item Illegal modulus zero
1943
be771a83
GS
1944(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1945numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1946
6df41af2 1947=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1948
6df41af2
GS
1949(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1950two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1951
1952=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 1953
d1be9408 1954(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 1955
399388f4 1956=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1957
d1be9408 1958(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 1959Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1960
6df41af2 1961=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1962
6df41af2 1963(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 1964following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 1965
6df41af2 1966=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1967
75b44862 1968(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1969internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1970delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1971
6df41af2 1972=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1973
be771a83
GS
1974(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1975name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1976didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1977ignored.
54310121 1978
6df41af2 1979=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1980
be771a83
GS
1981(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1982the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1983system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1984times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1985would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1986
be771a83
GS
1987Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1988also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1989
2c7d6b9c
RGS
1990=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
1991
1992(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
1993C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
1994documentation in L<mro> for more information.
1995
979699d9
JH
1996=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1997
1998(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1999Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2000encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2001
1a147d38
YO
2002=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2003
2004(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2005text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2006either consume text or fail.
2007
2008The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2009discovered.
2010
6dbe9451
NC
2011=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2012
2013(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2014of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2015C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2016as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2017
a0d0e21e
LW
2018=item Insecure dependency in %s
2019
8b1a09fc 2020(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2021The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2022setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2023tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2024from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2025such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2026L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2027
2028=item Insecure directory in %s
2029
be771a83
GS
2030(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2031setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2032the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2033See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2034
62f468fc 2035=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2036
2037(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2038setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2039C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2040supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2041the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2042
a7ae9550
GS
2043=item Integer overflow in %s number
2044
75b44862 2045(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2046either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2047your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2048On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2049representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
20500b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2051transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2052internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2053operations.
bbce6d69 2054
2fba7546
GA
2055=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2056
0be96356
AL
2057(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2058or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2fba7546
GA
2059integers for your architecture.
2060
46314c13
JP
2061=item Integer overflow in version
2062
2063(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2064size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2065because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2066element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2067trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2068100/9.
2069
7253e4e3 2070=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2071
2072(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2073The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2074discovered.
2075
748a9306
LW
2076=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2077
be771a83
GS
2078(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2079you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2080to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2081L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2082Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2083terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2084
7253e4e3 2085=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2086
7253e4e3
RK
2087(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2088<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2089discovered.
a0d0e21e 2090
6df41af2
GS
2091=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2092
75b44862 2093(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2094followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2095operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2096L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2097
09bef843
SB
2098=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2099
2100The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2101by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2102
2103=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2104
be771a83
GS
2105The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2106recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2107
c635e13b 2108=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2109
be771a83
GS
2110(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2111L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2112
9e08bc66
TS
2113=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2114
2115(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2116didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2117from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2118The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2119The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2120escape was discovered.
2121
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2122=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2123
2124(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2125or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2126(Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2127
7253e4e3 2128=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2129
2130(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2131greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2132C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2133up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2134problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2135
d1573ac7 2136=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2137
2138(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2139character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2140
09bef843
SB
2141=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2142
0120eecf 2143(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2144elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2145parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2146See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2147
b4581f09
JH
2148=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2149
2150(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2151colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2152If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2153list was terminated too soon.
2154
49704364 2155=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2156
49704364
WL
2157(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2158See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2159(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2160silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2161
46314c13
JP
2162=item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2163
2164(F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2165that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2166version formats.
2167
2168=item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2169
2170(F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2171See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2172
a0d0e21e
LW
2173=item ioctl is not implemented
2174
2175(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2176strange for a machine that supports C.
2177
c289d2f7
JH
2178=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2179
2180(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2181Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2182
363c40c4
SB
2183=item IO layers (like "%s") unavailable
2184
2185(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2186you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2187with 'useperlio'.
2188
80cbd5ad
JH
2189=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2190
2191(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2192neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2193
b4581f09
JH
2194=item $* is no longer supported
2195
fafcdf9e 2196(S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
b4581f09
JH
2197been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2198C<//m> and C<//s> regexp modifiers instead.
2199
8ae1fe26
RGS
2200=item $# is no longer supported
2201
fafcdf9e 2202(S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
8ae1fe26
RGS
2203been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2204printf/sprintf functions instead.
2205
6ad11d81
JH
2206=item `%s' is not a code reference
2207
04a80ee0
RGS
2208(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2209needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
2210to a subroutine.
2211
2212=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2213
04a80ee0
RGS
2214(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2215unaware of.
6ad11d81 2216
a0d0e21e
LW
2217=item junk on end of regexp
2218
2219(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2220
2221=item Label not found for "last %s"
2222
be771a83
GS
2223(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2224of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2225L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2226
2227=item Label not found for "next %s"
2228
2229(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2230that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2231L<perlfunc/last>.
2232
2233=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2234
2235(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2236that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2237L<perlfunc/last>.
2238
85ab1d1d 2239=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2240
85ab1d1d 2241(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2242effective uids or gids failed.
2243
49704364
WL
2244=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2245
d7f8936a 2246(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
49704364
WL
2247length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2248an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2249
69282e91 2250=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2251
be771a83
GS
2252(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2253to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2254L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2255
58e23c8d 2256=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2257
2258(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
58e23c8d 2259handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2260
b88df990
NC
2261=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2262
2263(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2264for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2265hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2266because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2267are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2268You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2269
2f7da168
RK
2270=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2271
2272(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2273by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2274instead on the filehandle.)
2275
96ebfdd7
RK
2276=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2277
2278(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2279values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2280L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2281
49704364
WL
2282=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2283
2284(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2285are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2286
2287=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2288
2289(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2290are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2291
6df41af2
GS
2292=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2293
2294(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2295
2296 prefix1;prefix2
2297
2298or
6df41af2
GS
2299 prefix1 prefix2
2300
be771a83
GS
2301with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2302a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2303appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2304"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2305
2f758a16
ST
2306=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2307
d37a9538
ST
2308(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2309syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2310obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2311when the function is called.
2f758a16 2312
ba210ebe
JH
2313=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2314
2575c402
JW
2315(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2316encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2317
2575c402
JW
2318One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2319you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
23208-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2321
2322If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2323sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2324set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2325message.
2326
2327See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2328
dea0fc0b
JH
2329=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2330
2331Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2332doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2333
f337b084
TH
2334=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2335
2336(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2337rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2338
2339=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2340
2341(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2342rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2343
2344=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2345
2346(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2347rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2348
2563cec5
IZ
2349=item Maximal count of pending signals (%s) exceeded
2350
2351(F) Perl aborted due to a too important number of signals pending. This
2352usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2353too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2354resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2355safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2356
49704364 2357=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2358
2359(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
7253e4e3
RK
2360regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2361shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2362See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2363
25f58aea
PN
2364=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2365
2366(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2367interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2368"use" or "my".
2369
49704364 2370=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2371
2372(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2373checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2374See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2375
a0d0e21e
LW
2376=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2377
2378(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2379doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2380
3cdd684c
TP
2381=item Method %s not permitted
2382
2383See Server error.
2384
a0d0e21e
LW
2385=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2386
2387(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2388by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2389ended earlier on the current line.
2390
2391=item Misplaced _ in number
2392
d4ced10d
JH
2393(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2394separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2395
9e81e6a1
RGS
2396=item Missing argument to -%c
2397
2398(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2399immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2400
4a2d328f 2401=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 2402
4a2d328f 2403(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
2404double-quotish context.
2405
a0d0e21e
LW
2406=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2407
2408(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2409"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2410
06eaf0bc
GS
2411=item Missing command in piped open
2412
be771a83
GS
2413(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2414C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2415blank.
06eaf0bc 2416
961ce445
RGS
2417=item Missing control char name in \c
2418
2419(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2420character name.
2421
6df41af2
GS
2422=item Missing name in "my sub"
2423
be771a83
GS
2424(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2425they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2426
2427=item Missing $ on loop variable
2428
be771a83
GS
2429(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2430are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2431can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2432
cc507455 2433=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2434
56da5a46
RGS
2435(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2436"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2437
ab13f0c7
JH
2438=item Missing right brace on %s
2439
2440(F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2441
d98d5fff 2442=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2443
be771a83
GS
2444(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2445ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2446were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2447
6df41af2
GS
2448=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2449
56da5a46
RGS
2450(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2451"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2452the previous line just because you saw this message.
2453
a0d0e21e
LW
2454=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2455
2456(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2457constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2458catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2459
2460 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2461 mod(2);
2462
2463Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2464
c5674021
PDF
2465Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2466is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2467
2468 $x = 1;
2469 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2470 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2471 }
c5674021 2472
7a4340ed 2473=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2474
2475(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2476subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2477backwards.
2478
7a4340ed 2479=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2480
be771a83
GS
2481(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2482couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2483
2484=item Module name must be constant
2485
2486(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2487
be98fb35 2488=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2489
be98fb35
GS
2490(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2491you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2492about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2493
ed9aa3b7
SG
2494=item More than one argument to open
2495
2496(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2497can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2498list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2499See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2500
a0d0e21e
LW
2501=item msg%s not implemented
2502
2503(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2504
2505=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2506
75b44862
GS
2507(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2508They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2509
49704364 2510=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2511
49704364
WL
2512(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2513follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2514See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2515
2516=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2517
be771a83
GS
2518(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2519that yet.
6df41af2 2520
30c282f6 2521=item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2522
be771a83
GS
2523(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2524sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2525local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2526
8b1a09fc 2527=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2528
e476b1b5 2529(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
2530If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2531again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 2532provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e 2533
64b374f4
FD
2534NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2535%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2536the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2537will not trigger this warning.
2538
49704364
WL
2539=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2540
2541(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2542negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2543
a0d0e21e
LW
2544=item Negative length
2545
be771a83
GS
2546(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2547length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2548
ed9aa3b7
SG
2549=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2550
2551(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2552greater than or equal to zero.
2553
7253e4e3 2554=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2555
b45f050a 2556(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2557things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2558expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2559
7253e4e3 2560Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2561C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2562
6df41af2 2563=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2564
be771a83
GS
2565(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2566scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2567
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2568=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2569
2570(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2571real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2572See L<mro>.
2573
a0d0e21e
LW
2574=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2575
be771a83
GS
2576(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2577setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2578will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2579securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2580
a0d0e21e
LW
2581=item No comma allowed after %s
2582
2583(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2584allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2585Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2586
0a753a76 2587One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2588constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2589importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2590does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2591explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2592L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2593would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2594remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2595constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2596list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2597this error was triggered?
2598
748a9306
LW
2599=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2600
be771a83
GS
2601(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2602redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2603doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2604
a0d0e21e
LW
2605=item No DB::DB routine defined
2606
be771a83 2607(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
ccafdc96
RGS
2608for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2609module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2610statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2611
2612=item No dbm on this machine
2613
2614(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2615supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2616
ccafdc96 2617=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2618
ccafdc96
RGS
2619(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2620for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2621module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2622of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2623
96ebfdd7
RK
2624=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2625
2626(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2627
c47ff5f1 2628=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2629
be771a83
GS
2630(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2631redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2632find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2633
49704364
WL
2634=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2635
2636(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2637matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2638
c47ff5f1 2639=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2640
be771a83
GS
2641(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2642redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2643name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2644
6df41af2
GS
2645=item No #! line
2646
2647(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2648even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2649
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2650=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2651
2652(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2653in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2654it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2655or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2656
6df41af2
GS
2657=item "no" not allowed in expression
2658
be771a83
GS
2659(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2660returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2661
c47ff5f1 2662=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2663
be771a83
GS
2664(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2665redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2666doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2667
c47ff5f1 2668=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2669
be771a83
GS
2670(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2671redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2672find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2673
1ec3e8de
GS
2674=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2675
be771a83
GS
2676(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2677declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2678semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2679
a0d0e21e
LW
2680=item No Perl script found in input
2681
2682(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2683with #! and containing the word "perl".
2684
2685=item No setregid available
2686
2687(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2688your system.
2689
2690=item No setreuid available
2691
2692(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2693your system.
2694
6df41af2
GS
2695=item No %s specified for -%c
2696
2697(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2698you haven't specified one.
2699
e75d1f10
RD
2700=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2701
2702(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2703but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2704package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2705
2c692339
RGS
2706=item No such class %s
2707
30c282f6 2708(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2c692339
RGS
2709this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2710
6df41af2
GS
2711=item No such pipe open
2712
2713(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2714close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2715earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2716
a0d0e21e
LW
2717=item No such signal: SIG%s
2718
be771a83
GS
2719(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2720not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2721names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2722
2723=item Not a CODE reference
2724
2725(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2726subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2727use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2728also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2729
2730=item Not a format reference
2731
2732(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2733format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2734
2735=item Not a GLOB reference
2736
be771a83
GS
2737(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2738symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2739something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2740kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2741
2742=item Not a HASH reference
2743
be771a83
GS
2744(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2745reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2746find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2747
6df41af2
GS
2748=item Not an ARRAY reference
2749
be771a83
GS
2750(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2751a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2752to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2753
a0d0e21e
LW
2754=item Not a perl script
2755
2756(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2757even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2758mention perl.
2759
2760=item Not a SCALAR reference
2761
be771a83
GS
2762(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2763a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2764to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2765
2766=item Not a subroutine reference
2767
2768(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2769subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2770use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2771also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2772
e7ea3e70 2773=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2774
2775(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2776doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2777
a0d0e21e
LW
2778=item Not enough arguments for %s
2779
2780(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2781
6df41af2
GS
2782=item Not enough format arguments
2783
be771a83
GS
2784(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2785supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2786
2787=item %s: not found
2788
be771a83
GS
2789(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2790of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2791yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2792
2793=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2794
6df41af2
GS
2795(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2796timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2797to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2798F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2799need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 2800
4ef2275c
GA
2801=item Non-string passed as bitmask
2802
2803(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2804Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2805select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2806
a0d0e21e
LW
2807=item Null filename used
2808
be771a83
GS
2809(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2810machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2811
6df41af2
GS
2812=item NULL OP IN RUN
2813
be771a83
GS
2814(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2815pointer.
6df41af2 2816
55497cff 2817=item Null picture in formline
2818
2819(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2820specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2821supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2822
a0d0e21e
LW
2823=item Null realloc
2824
2825(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2826
2827=item NULL regexp argument
2828
5f05dabc 2829(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2830
2831=item NULL regexp parameter
2832
2833(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2834
fc36a67e 2835=item Number too long
2836
be771a83 2837(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 2838about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
2839versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2840the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2841"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2842
6df41af2
GS
2843=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2844
be771a83
GS
2845(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2846The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2847future version.
6df41af2 2848
252aa082
JH
2849=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2850
75b44862 2851(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2852(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2853L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2854
2855See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2856
6ad11d81
JH
2857=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2858
04a80ee0
RGS
2859(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2860arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 2861
b21befc1
MG
2862=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2863
2864(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2865which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2866
1930e939 2867=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2868
be771a83
GS
2869(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2870which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2871
bbce6d69 2872=item Offset outside string
2873
42bc49da
JH
2874(F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
2875with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
2876imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
2877take place when going past the end of the string when either
2878C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
2879for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
2880with real files).
bbce6d69 2881
c289d2f7 2882=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
2883
2884(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2885never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2886call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2887
96ebfdd7
RK
2888=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2889
2890(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2891that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2892
a0d0e21e
LW
2893=item oops: oopsAV
2894
e476b1b5 2895(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2896
2897=item oops: oopsHV
2898
e476b1b5 2899(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2900
abc718f2
RGS
2901=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
2902
2903(W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
2904a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
2905Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2906and is deprecated.
2907
2908=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
2909
2910(W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
2911a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
2912Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2913and is deprecated.
2914
a0288114 2915=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2916
be771a83
GS
2917(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2918handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2919of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2920C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2921
748a9306
LW
2922=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2923
be771a83
GS
2924(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2925was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2926use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2927example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2928"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2929
6df41af2
GS
2930=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2931
be771a83
GS
2932(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2933in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2934
a80b8354
GS
2935=item Out of memory!
2936
2937(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2938remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2939no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2940
19a52907
JH
2941At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2942process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2943C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2944the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2945and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2946
6d3b25aa
RGS
2947=item Out of memory during %s extend
2948
2949(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
2950the largest possible memory allocation.
2951
6df41af2 2952=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2953
6df41af2
GS
2954(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2955remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2956the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2957possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2958
1b979e0a 2959=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2960
be771a83
GS
2961(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2962insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2963request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2964
2965The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2966depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2967However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2968emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
2969is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2970where the failed request happened.
55497cff 2971
1b979e0a
IZ
2972=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2973
2974(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2975is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2976C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2977
6df41af2
GS
2978=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2979
be771a83
GS
2980(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2981parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2982otherwise.
6df41af2 2983
28be1210
TH
2984=item '.' outside of string in pack
2985
2986(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
2987position to before the start of the packed string being built.
2988
49704364 2989=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 2990
49704364 2991(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
2992the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2993
f337b084
TH
2994=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
2995
2996(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2997the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
2998UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2999
6df41af2
GS
3000=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3001
be771a83
GS
3002(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3003package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3004some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3005mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 3006
96ebfdd7
RK
3007=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3008
3009(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3010signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3011
a0d0e21e
LW
3012=item page overflow
3013
be771a83
GS
3014(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3015page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 3016
6df41af2
GS
3017=item panic: %s
3018
3019(P) An internal error.
3020
c99a1475
NC
3021=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3022
3023(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3024an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3025platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3026enter this branch on this platform.
3027
a0d0e21e
LW
3028=item panic: ck_grep
3029
3030(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3031
3032=item panic: ck_split
3033
3034(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3035
3036=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3037
be771a83
GS
3038(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3039there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 3040
810b8aa5
GS
3041=item panic: del_backref
3042
3043(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3044reference.
3045
7619c85e
RG
3046=item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3047
3048(P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3049last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3050an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3051a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3052
a0d0e21e
LW
3053=item panic: die %s
3054
3055(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3056it wasn't an eval context.
3057
a0d0e21e
LW
3058=item panic: do_subst
3059
be771a83
GS
3060(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3061data.
a0d0e21e 3062
2269b42e 3063=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 3064
2269b42e 3065(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 3066data.
a0d0e21e 3067
b7f7fd0b
NC
3068=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3069
10203f38 3070(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
3071failure was caught.
3072
c635e13b 3073=item panic: frexp
3074
3075(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3076
a0d0e21e
LW
3077=item panic: goto
3078
3079(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3080and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3081
23976bdd
NC
3082=item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3083
3084(P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3085but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3086contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3087adds a new object to the hash.
3088
a0d0e21e
LW
3089=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3090
3091(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3092
3093=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3094
3095(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3096
e446cec8
IZ
3097=item panic: kid popen errno read
3098
3099(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3100
a0d0e21e
LW
3101=item panic: last
3102
3103(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3104it wasn't a block context.
3105
3106=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3107
be771a83
GS
3108(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3109scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
3110
3111=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3112
3113(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3114invalid enum on the top of it.
3115
810b8aa5
GS
3116=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3117
3118(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3119references to an object.
3120
6df41af2
GS
3121=item panic: malloc
3122
3123(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3124
27d5b266
JH
3125=item panic: memory wrap
3126
3127(P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3128
a0d0e21e
LW
3129=item panic: pad_alloc
3130
3131(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3132and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3133
3134=item panic: pad_free curpad
3135
3136(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3137and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3138
3139=item panic: pad_free po
3140
3141(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3142
3143=item panic: pad_reset curpad
3144
3145(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3146and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3147
3148=item panic: pad_sv po
3149
3150(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3151
3152=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3153
3154(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3155and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3156
3157=item panic: pad_swipe po
3158
3159(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3160
3161=item panic: pp_iter
3162
3163(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3164
96ebfdd7
RK
3165=item panic: pp_match%s
3166
3167(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3168data.
3169
2269b42e
JH
3170=item panic: pp_split
3171
3172(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3173
a0d0e21e
LW
3174=item panic: realloc
3175
3176(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3177
3178=item panic: restartop
3179
3180(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3181didn't supply the destination.
3182
3183=item panic: return
3184
3185(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3186then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3187
3188=item panic: scan_num
3189
3190(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3191
3192=item panic: sv_insert
3193
3194(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3195was string.
3196
3197=item panic: top_env
3198
6224f72b 3199(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 3200
65bca31a
NC
3201=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3202
3203(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3204at run time.
3205
dea0fc0b
JH
3206=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3207
3208(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 3209to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 3210
2f7da168
RK
3211=item panic: yylex
3212
3213(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3214
1a147d38
YO
3215=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3216
3217(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3218consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3219nesting limit is exceeded.
3220
3221The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3222discovered.
3223
7b8d334a 3224=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 3225
e476b1b5 3226(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
3227
3228 my $foo, $bar = @_;
3229
3230when you meant
3231
3232 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3233
30c282f6 3234Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 3235
96ebfdd7
RK
3236=item C<-p> destination: %s
3237
3238(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3239command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3240redirected it with select().)
3241
3242=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3243
3244(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3245"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3246that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3247
1109a392
MHM
3248=item Perl_my_%s() not available
3249
3250(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3251so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3252conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3253'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3254
6d3b25aa
RGS
3255=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3256
3257(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3258recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3259you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3260
6df41af2
GS
3261=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3262
3263(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 3264C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3265
96ebfdd7
RK
3266=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3267
3268See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3269
6df41af2
GS
3270=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3271
3272(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3273
3274 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3275 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3276 LC_ALL = "En_US",
3277 LANG = (unset)
3278 are supported and installed on your system.
3279 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3280
3281Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3282settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
3283This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3284system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3285locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3286dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3287Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3288the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3289you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3290L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 3291
a0d0e21e
LW
3292=item Permission denied
3293
3294(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
3295
bd3fa61c 3296=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 3297
be771a83
GS
3298(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3299process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3300fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 3301
49704364 3302=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
3303
3304(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3305
96ebfdd7
RK
3306=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3307
3308(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3309shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3310Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3311the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3312not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3313
3314=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3315
3316(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3317the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3318
49704364 3319=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3320
9a0b3859 3321(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
3322I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3323/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3324implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3325cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3326where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3327
49704364 3328=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3329
3330(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
3331beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3332If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3333expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3334backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3335about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3336
49704364 3337=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3338
7253e4e3
RK
3339(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3340with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3341need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3342character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3343and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3344problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3345
bbce6d69 3346=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3347
e476b1b5 3348(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 3349strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
3350literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3351parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3352
774d564b 3353You probably wrote something like this:
3354
54310121 3355 @list = qw(
774d564b 3356 a # a comment
bbce6d69 3357 b # another comment
774d564b 3358 );
bbce6d69 3359
3360when you should have written this:
3361
774d564b 3362 @list = qw(
54310121 3363 a
3364 b
774d564b 3365 );
3366
3367If you really want comments, build your list the
3368old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3369
3370 @list = (
3371 'a', # a comment
3372 'b', # another comment
3373 );
bbce6d69 3374
3375=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3376
be771a83
GS
3377(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3378commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3379different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3380frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3381
54310121 3382You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 3383
774d564b 3384 qw! a, b, c !;
3385
3386which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3387commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 3388
774d564b 3389 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 3390
a0d0e21e
LW
3391=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3392
3393(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3394Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3395end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3396Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3397
276b2a0c
RGS
3398=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3399
3400(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3401with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3402
3403 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3404
3405This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3406higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
96a925ab
YST
3407really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3408parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
276b2a0c 3409
18623440
PS
3410=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3411
3412(W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
32b0a12e
AMS
3413but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3414literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3415to the array you apparently lost track of.
18623440 3416
8cd79558
GS
3417=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3418
a1063b2d 3419(D deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
3420
3421 sub doit
3422 {
3423 use attrs qw(locked);
3424 }
3425
3426You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3427
3428 sub doit : locked
3429 {
3430 ...
3431
3432The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3433backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3434
a0d0e21e
LW
3435=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3436
e476b1b5 3437(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 3438
a0d0e21e
LW
3439 open FOO || die;
3440
3441is now misinterpreted as
3442
3443 open(FOO || die);
3444
be771a83
GS
3445because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3446list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3447parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3448of "||".
a0d0e21e 3449
3cdd684c
TP
3450=item Premature end of script headers
3451
3452See Server error.
3453
6df41af2
GS
3454=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3455
be771a83 3456(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3457before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 3458
9a7dcd9c 3459=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3460
be771a83 3461(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3462before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3463
6df41af2 3464=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 3465
6df41af2
GS
3466(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3467applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3468port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3469L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 3470in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 3471
327323c1
RGS
3472=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3473
3474(W syntax) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3475since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3476
3fe9a6f1 3477=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 3478
9a0b3859 3479(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 3480declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 3481
ed9aa3b7
SG
3482=item Prototype not terminated
3483
2a6fd447 3484(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
3485definition.
3486
96ebfdd7
RK
3487=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3488
3489(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3490meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3491where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3492
49704364 3493=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3494
b45f050a 3495(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
7253e4e3 3496{min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 3497the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 3498
49704364 3499=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3500
b45f050a
JF
3501(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3502it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3503quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3504"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3505C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 3506
7253e4e3
RK
3507The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3508discovered.
3509
89ea2908
GA
3510=item Range iterator outside integer range
3511
3512(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3513are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
3514One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3515by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 3516
3b7fbd4a
SP
3517=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3518
1a147d38 3519(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
3520a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3521
96ebfdd7
RK
3522=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3523
3524(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3525before now. Check your control flow.
3526
b5fe5ca2
SR
3527=item read() on closed filehandle %s
3528
3529(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3530
3531=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3532
3533(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3534
6df41af2
GS
3535=item Reallocation too large: %lx
3536
3537(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3538
4ad56ec9
IZ
3539=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3540
be771a83
GS
3541(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3542already been freed.
4ad56ec9 3543
a0d0e21e
LW
3544=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3545
be771a83
GS
3546(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3547the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
3548which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3549
3e0ccd42 3550=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 3551
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3552(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3553believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3554crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 3555
7a4340ed 3556=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 3557
be771a83
GS
3558(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3559a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3560hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 3561
1930e939
TP
3562=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3563
be771a83
GS
3564(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3565with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3566means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3567parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
3568
3569 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3570 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3571 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3572 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3573
810b8aa5
GS
3574=item Reference is already weak
3575
e476b1b5 3576(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
3577Doing so has no effect.
3578
a0d0e21e
LW
3579=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3580
be771a83
GS
3581(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3582a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 3583
b72d83b2
RGS
3584=item Reference to invalid group 0
3585
3586(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3587capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
353c6505 3588backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
b72d83b2
RGS
3589backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3590
49704364 3591=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3592
3593(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3594not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3595wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3596prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
9baa0206 3597
7253e4e3 3598The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 3599discovered.
9baa0206 3600
c74340f9
YO
3601=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3602
2bf803e2 3603(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
c74340f9 3604not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
2bf803e2 3605where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
c74340f9
YO
3606
3607The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3608discovered.
3609
1a147d38
YO
3610=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3611
3612(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3613expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3614as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3615correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3616
3617The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3618discovered.
3619
3620=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3621
3622(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3623most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3624of the C<....> part.
3625
3626The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3627discovered.
3628
a0d0e21e
LW
3629=item regexp memory corruption
3630
3631(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3632expression compiler gave it.
3633
b45f050a 3634=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 3635
be771a83
GS
3636(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3637earlier.
a0d0e21e 3638
a1b95068
WL
3639=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3640
d7f8936a 3641(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068
WL
3642numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3643terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3644
a0d0e21e
LW
3645=item Reversed %s= operator
3646
be771a83
GS
3647(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3648always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 3649
abc7ecad
SP
3650=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3651
3652(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3653really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3654
a0d0e21e
LW
3655=item Runaway format
3656
3657(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3658produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3659199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3660themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3661shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3662
96ebfdd7
RK
3663=item Scalars leaked: %d
3664
3665(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3666not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3667What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3668especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3669
a0d0e21e
LW
3670=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3671
be771a83
GS
3672(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3673single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3674value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3675behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3676argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3677and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3678if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 3679
748a9306 3680On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 3681element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
3682Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3683L<perlref>.
3684
a6006777 3685=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3686
75b44862 3687(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
3688element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3689(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3690like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3691argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3692and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3693if you're expecting only one subscript.
3694
3695On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3696as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3697not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 3698L<perlref>.
3699
a0d0e21e
LW
3700=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3701
54310121 3702(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3703or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e
LW
3704
3705=item Search pattern not terminated
3706
3707(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3708construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3709Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3710
0cb1bcd7 3711Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd
JH
3712construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3713in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3714misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3715
25c09cbf
SF
3716=item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3717
3718(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3719construct.
3720
3721The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3722C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3723parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3724the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3725
9ddeeac9 3726=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3727
be771a83
GS
3728(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3729filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3730
abc7ecad
SP
3731=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3732
3733(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3734really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3735
a0d0e21e
LW
3736=item select not implemented
3737
3738(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3739
ae21d580 3740=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 3741
ae21d580
JH
3742(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3743the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 3744
6df41af2 3745=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 3746
75b44862
GS
3747(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3748semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
3749
3750=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3751
be771a83
GS
3752(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3753scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 3754
6df41af2 3755=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 3756
6df41af2 3757(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 3758
69282e91 3759=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3760
be771a83 3761(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3762before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3763
7253e4e3 3764=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 3765
7253e4e3 3766(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
b45f050a 3767shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 3768L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 3769
49704364 3770=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3771
b45f050a 3772(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
7253e4e3 3773has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
3774where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3775
49704364 3776=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3777
7253e4e3
RK
3778(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3779<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3780discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3781
1f1031fe
YO
3782=item Sequence \\%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3783
3784(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
3785sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
3786
49704364 3787=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3788
3789(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
7253e4e3
RK
3790parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3791the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3792L<perlre>.
6df41af2 3793
96ebfdd7
RK
3794=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3795
3796(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3797for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3798the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3799L<perlre>.
3800
6df41af2
GS
3801=item 500 Server error
3802
3803See Server error.
3804
a5f75d66
AD
3805=item Server error
3806
3cdd684c 3807This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
3808to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3809varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3810are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3811contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3812produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 3813
3814B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3815
be771a83
GS
3816You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3817user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3818account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3819(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3820location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3821Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 3822
06a5f41f
JH
3823 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3824 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3825 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 3826
be94a901
GS
3827You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3828
a0d0e21e
LW
3829=item setegid() not implemented
3830
be771a83
GS
3831(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3832support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3833didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3834
3835=item seteuid() not implemented
3836
be771a83
GS
3837(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3838support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3839didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3840
81777298
GS
3841=item setpgrp can't take arguments
3842
be771a83
GS
3843(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3844arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3845group ID.
81777298 3846
a0d0e21e
LW
3847=item setrgid() not implemented
3848
be771a83
GS
3849(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3850support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3851didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3852
3853=item setruid() not implemented
3854
be771a83
GS
3855(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3856support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3857didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3858
6df41af2
GS
3859=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3860
be771a83
GS
3861(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3862forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
3863L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3864
a0d0e21e
LW
3865=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3866
be771a83
GS
3867(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3868world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e 3869
d504a7a1
RGS
3870=item Setuid script not plain file
3871
3872(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
3873but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
3874
a0d0e21e
LW
3875=item shm%s not implemented
3876
3877(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3878
984200d0
YST
3879=item !=~ should be !~
3880
3881(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
3882interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
3883operators: probably not what you intended.
3884
6df41af2
GS
3885=item <> should be quotes
3886
3887(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3888C<require 'file'>.
3889
3890=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3891
3892(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
3893as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3894result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3895probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 3896
69282e91 3897=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3898
75b44862
GS
3899(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3900superfluous.
a0d0e21e 3901
f86702cc 3902=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 3903
be771a83
GS
3904(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3905Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e
LW
3906
3907=item sort is now a reserved word
3908
3909(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3910But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3911
3912=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3913
3914(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
c47ff5f1 3915it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e
LW
3916See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3917
3918=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3919
3920(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3921or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3922
8cbc2e3b
JH
3923=item splice() offset past end of array
3924
3925(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3926the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3927of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3928explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3929L<perlfunc/splice>.
3930
a0d0e21e
LW
3931=item Split loop
3932
be771a83
GS
3933(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3934iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3935happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 3936
a0d0e21e
LW
3937=item Statement unlikely to be reached
3938
be771a83
GS
3939(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3940die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3941unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3942instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3943a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 3944
9ddeeac9 3945=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 3946
355b1299
JH
3947(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3948was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 3949
f46d83d8 3950=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s"
e7ea3e70 3951
be771a83
GS
3952(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3953stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3954C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 3955
a0d0e21e
LW
3956=item Subroutine %s redefined
3957
e476b1b5 3958(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
3959
3960 {
271595cc 3961 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
3962 eval "sub name { ... }";
3963 }
3964
3965=item Substitution loop
3966
be771a83
GS
3967(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3968shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3969is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 3970L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
3971
3972=item Substitution pattern not terminated
3973
d1be9408 3974(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 3975construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3976Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3977
3978=item Substitution replacement not terminated
3979
d1be9408 3980(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 3981construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3982Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3983
3984=item substr outside of string
3985
be771a83
GS
3986(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3987a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3988length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3989substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3990assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 3991
f86702cc 3992=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
a0d0e21e 3993
be771a83
GS
3994(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3995a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
a0d0e21e 3996
bf1320bf
RGS
3997=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
3998
3999(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4000inferior to its current type.
4001
49704364 4002=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4003
4004(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4005branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4006contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4007clustering parentheses:
4008
4009 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4010
7253e4e3 4011The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
4012discovered. See L<perlre>.
4013
49704364 4014=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4015
4016(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
7253e4e3 4017number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
b45f050a
JF
4018about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4019
85ab1d1d
JH
4020=item switching effective %s is not implemented
4021
be771a83
GS
4022(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4023and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 4024
2f7da168
RK
4025=item %s syntax
4026
4027(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4028
a0d0e21e
LW
4029=item syntax error
4030
4031(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4032
4033 A keyword is misspelled.
4034 A semicolon is missing.
4035 A comma is missing.
4036 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4037 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4038 A closing quote is missing.
4039
4040Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4041error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4042The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4043it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 4044before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
4045Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4046the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4047C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
be771a83
GS
4048if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4049questions>.
a0d0e21e 4050
cb1a09d0
AD
4051=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4052
be771a83
GS
4053(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4054of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4055yourself.
cb1a09d0 4056
25f58aea
PN
4057=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4058
4059(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4060a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4061or "my $var" or "our $var".
4062
b5fe5ca2
SR
4063=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4064
4065(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4066
4067=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4068
4069(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4070
6087ac44 4071=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 4072
6087ac44
JH
4073(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4074"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4075machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4076unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 4077
69282e91 4078=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4079
be771a83 4080(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4081before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4082
96ebfdd7
RK
4083=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4084
4085(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4086know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4087
fc36a67e 4088=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4089
be771a83
GS
4090(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4091for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 4092
9ddeeac9 4093=item tell() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 4094
be771a83
GS
4095(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4096was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 4097
abc7ecad
SP
4098=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4099
4100(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4101a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4102
a0d0e21e
LW
4103=item That use of $[ is unsupported
4104
be771a83
GS
4105(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4106as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e
LW
4107
4108 $[ = 0;
4109 $[ = 1;
4110 ...
4111 local $[ = 0;
4112 local $[ = 1;
4113 ...
4114
be771a83
GS
4115This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4116from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
a0d0e21e 4117
f86702cc 4118=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
4119
4120(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4121probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 4122think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
4123will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4124will deny it.
4125
6df41af2
GS
4126=item The %s function is unimplemented
4127
4128The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4129to the probings of Configure.
4130
5e1c7ca2 4131=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 4132
be771a83
GS
4133(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4134linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4135past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4136instead.
a0d0e21e 4137
371fce9b
DM
4138=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4139
1108974d 4140(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 4141
437784d6 4142=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
4143
4144=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4145
75b44862 4146(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
4147element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4148wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4149need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4150F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4151target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
4152%ENV which produced the warning.
4153
6b3c7930
JH
4154=item thread failed to start: %s
4155
4447dfc1 4156(W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
6b3c7930 4157
a0d0e21e
LW
4158=item times not implemented
4159
be771a83
GS
4160(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4161suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 4162
6d3b25aa
RGS
4163=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4164
4165(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4166B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4167This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4168script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4169So Perl gives up.
4170
4171If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4172mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4173editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
4174argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
4175
4176If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4177B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
4178
3a2263fe
RGS
4179=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4180
4181(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4182uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4183specified an illegal mapping.
4184See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4185
49704364
WL
4186=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4187
1a147d38 4188(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 4189
a0d0e21e
LW
4190=item Too few args to syscall
4191
4192(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4193system call to call, silly dilly.
4194
96ebfdd7
RK
4195=item Too late for "-%s" option
4196
4197(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3ffe3ee4 4198B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option. This is an error because those options
96ebfdd7
RK
4199are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4200
ddda08b7
GS
4201=item Too late to run %s block
4202
4203(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4204when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
4205loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4206instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4207BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 4208
a0d0e21e
LW
4209=item Too many args to syscall
4210
5f05dabc 4211(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
4212
4213=item Too many arguments for %s
4214
4215(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4216
6df41af2
GS
4217=item Too many )'s
4218
49704364
WL
4219(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4220Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4221
8c40cb74
NC
4222=item Too many ('s
4223
be771a83
GS
4224(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4225Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4226
7253e4e3 4227=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4228
be771a83
GS
4229(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4230Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4231
2c268ad5 4232=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
4233
4234(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 4235or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4236C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4237
2c268ad5 4238=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 4239
6a36df5d
YST
4240(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4241y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 4242
96ebfdd7
RK
4243=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4244
4245(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4246disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4247
a0d0e21e
LW
4248=item truncate not implemented
4249
4250(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4251Configure knows about.
4252
4253=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4254
4255(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 4256certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4257%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
4258{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4259
eec2d3df
GS
4260=item umask not implemented
4261
be771a83
GS
4262(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4263use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 4264
4633a7c4
LW
4265=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4266
4267(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4268
a0d0e21e
LW
4269=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4270
be771a83
GS
4271(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4272many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4273
4274=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4275
be771a83
GS
4276(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4277many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
4278
4279=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4280
be771a83
GS
4281(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4282many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4283
4284=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4285
be771a83
GS
4286(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4287many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
4288
4289=item Undefined format "%s" called
4290
4291(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4292another package? See L<perlform>.
4293
4294=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4295
be771a83
GS
4296(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4297Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4298
4299=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4300
be771a83
GS
4301(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4302since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
4303
4304=item Undefined subroutine called
4305
4306(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4307or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4308
4309=item Undefined subroutine in sort
4310
be771a83
GS
4311(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4312to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 4313
4633a7c4
LW
4314=item Undefined top format "%s" called
4315
4316(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4317another package? See L<perlform>.
4318
20408e3c
GS
4319=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4320
be771a83
GS
4321(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4322C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4323C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 4324
6df41af2
GS
4325=item %s: Undefined variable
4326
be771a83
GS
4327(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4328Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4329
a0d0e21e
LW
4330=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4331
4332(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4333representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4334
3d401ffb
JH
4335=item Unicode character %s is illegal
4336
507b9800
JH
4337(W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
4338the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
4339what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
b45f050a 4340
a0d0e21e
LW
4341=item Unknown BYTEORDER
4342
be771a83
GS
4343(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4344order.
a0d0e21e 4345
6170680b
IZ
4346=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4347
437784d6 4348(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 4349of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 4350C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 4351
b4581f09
JH
4352=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4353
4354(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4355system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4356internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4357are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4358explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4359value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4360
f675dbe5
CB
4361=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4362
4363(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4364iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4365data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4366subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 4367
2f7da168
RK
4368=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4369
4370You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4371
96ebfdd7
RK
4372=item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4373
4374(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4375is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4376is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4377condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4378condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4379matched).
4380
4381The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4382discovered. See L<perlre>.
4383
a05d7ebb
JH
4384=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4385
4386You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4387of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4388
4389=item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4390
4391You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4392of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 4393
3d1a39c8
RGS
4394=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4395
4396(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4397category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4398
4399Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4400(e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
e2e6a0f1
YO
4401
4402=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4403
4404(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4405after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4406L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4407
3d1a39c8
RGS
4408first.
4409
7253e4e3 4410=item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4411
380a0633 4412(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 4413include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
7253e4e3
RK
4414first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4415was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4416
7253e4e3 4417=item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
4418
4419(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
7253e4e3
RK
4420expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4421matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4422where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4423
d98d5fff 4424=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 4425
be771a83
GS
4426(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4427ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4428general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4429you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 4430
a0d0e21e
LW
4431=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4432
be771a83
GS
4433(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4434reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4435somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4436subroutine.
a0d0e21e 4437
356c7adf 4438=item Unrecognized character %s in column %d
a0d0e21e 4439
54310121 4440(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
356c7adf
CJ
4441in your Perl script (or eval) at the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4442to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 4443
2628b4e0 4444=item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4445
be771a83
GS
4446(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4447recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4448understood literally.
2628b4e0
TS
4449The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4450escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4451
2f7da168
RK
4452=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4453
2628b4e0
TS
4454(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4455recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
2f7da168 4456
49704364 4457=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4458
be771a83 4459(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
2628b4e0
TS
4460recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
4461The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
7253e4e3 4462escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4463
a0d0e21e
LW
4464=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4465
be771a83
GS
4466(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4467recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4468on your system.
a0d0e21e 4469
90248788 4470=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 4471
be771a83
GS
4472(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4473think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4474bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
4475
4476=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4477
be771a83
GS
4478(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4479operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 4480PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4481
4482=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4483
4484(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4485
6df41af2
GS
4486=item Unsupported function %s
4487
4488(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4489At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4490
54310121 4491=item Unsupported function fork
4492
4493(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4494
be771a83
GS
4495Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4496of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4497changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 4498
7aa207d6 4499=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
4500
4501(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 4502declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 4503
a0d0e21e
LW
4504=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4505
4506(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4507least that's what Configure thought.
4508
6df41af2 4509=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 4510
be771a83
GS
4511(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4512start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4513block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4514attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 4515
09bef843
SB
4516=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4517
be771a83
GS
4518(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4519an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
4520character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4521character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4522
f1991046
GS
4523=item Unterminated compressed integer
4524
4525(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4526compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4527See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4528
e2e6a0f1
YO
4529=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4530
4531(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4532the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4533
4534=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4535
4536(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4537the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4538
2bf803e2
YO
4539=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4540
4541(F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4542a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 4543
6df41af2 4544=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 4545
6df41af2 4546(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
4547a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4548not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4549earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 4550
6df41af2 4551=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 4552
be771a83
GS
4553(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4554still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 4555
8e11cd2b
JC
4556=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4557
4558(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4559See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4560
4561=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4562
4563(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4564See L<Win32> for more information.
4565
96ebfdd7 4566=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 4567
96ebfdd7
RK
4568(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4569meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 4570
96ebfdd7 4571 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4572
4573must be written as
4574
96ebfdd7 4575 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4576
4577The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4578where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4579
b4581f09
JH
4580=item Useless localization of %s
4581
4582(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4583legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4584some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4585
96ebfdd7 4586=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 4587
96ebfdd7
RK
4588(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4589meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 4590
96ebfdd7 4591 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4592
4593must be written as
4594
96ebfdd7 4595 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4596
4597The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4598where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4599
6df41af2 4600=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 4601
75b44862 4602(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
4603nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4604value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4605often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4606to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4607get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4608said
a0d0e21e 4609
6df41af2 4610 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 4611
6df41af2
GS
4612when you meant to say
4613
4614 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4615
4616Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4617reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4618example, if you say
4619
4620 $array = (1,2);
4621
4622when you should have said
4623
4624 $array = [1,2];
4625
4626The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4627while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4628a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4629throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4630L<perlref> for more on this.
4631
65191a1e
BS
4632This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4633since they are often used in statements like
4634
4358a253 4635 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
4636
4637String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4638about.
4639
6df41af2
GS
4640=item Useless use of "re" pragma
4641
4642(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4643
a801c63c
RGS
4644=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4645
4646(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4647
4648 my $x = sort @y;
4649
4650This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4651
de4864e4
JH
4652=item Useless use of %s with no values
4653
f87c3213 4654(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
de4864e4
JH
4655apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4656usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4657possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4658if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4659you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4660
6df41af2
GS
4661=item "use" not allowed in expression
4662
be771a83
GS
4663(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4664returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 4665
c47ff5f1 4666=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 4667
be771a83
GS
4668(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
4669if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4633a7c4 4670
96ebfdd7
RK
4671=item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4672
4673(D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4674$ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4675behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4676will simply fail.
4677
4678Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4679blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4680
64e578a2
MJD
4681=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4682
4683(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4684modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4685
4ac733c9
MJD
4686=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4687
4688(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4689use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4690used. (This may change in the future.)
4691
b6c83531 4692=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 4693
b6c83531
JH
4694(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4695This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
4696
4697 @a = (3,4);
4698 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4699
4700You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4701For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4702reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4703middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4704
39b99f21 4705=item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4706
4707(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4708to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4709
96ebfdd7 4710=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 4711
96ebfdd7
RK
4712(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4713operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4714repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 4715
a0d0e21e
LW
4716=item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4717
be771a83
GS
4718(D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
4719a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4720of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
a0d0e21e 4721
dc848c6f 4722=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4723
be771a83
GS
4724(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4725are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4726subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4727C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4728$obj->bar() >>).
dc848c6f 4729
be771a83
GS
4730This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4731methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4732code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4733currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4734C<AUTOLOAD>s.
dc848c6f 4735
4736The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
be771a83
GS
4737non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4738to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4739named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4740startup.
dc848c6f 4741
be771a83
GS
4742In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4743you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 4744C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
fb73857a 4745
6df41af2
GS
4746=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4747
4748(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4749only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4750
6df41af2
GS
4751=item Use of %s is deprecated
4752
75b44862 4753(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
be771a83
GS
4754generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4755old way has bad side effects.
6df41af2 4756
96ebfdd7
RK
4757=item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4758
4759(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4760it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4761The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4762
4763=item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4764
4765(D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4766name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4767otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4768instead.
4769
1f1cc344 4770=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 4771
77b96956 4772(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
4773isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4774to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 4775
64977eb6 4776If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344
JH
4777C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4778either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
353c6505 4779operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 4780
85b81015
LW
4781=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4782
be771a83
GS
4783(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4784versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4785explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4786use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4787suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4788a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
85b81015 4789
bbd7eb8a
RD
4790=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4791
159f47d9 4792(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
4793arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4794but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4795arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4796
cc95b072 4797=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 4798
be771a83
GS
4799(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4800defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4801To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 4802
29489e7c
DM
4803To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
4804name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
4805do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
4806in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
4807displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
4808program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
4809. $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
4810even though there is no C<.> in your program.
e5be4a53 4811
a1063b2d
RH
4812=item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4813
496a33f5 4814(D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1b1f1335
NIS
4815C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4816used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
496a33f5 4817be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d
RH
4818
4819=item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4820
496a33f5 4821(D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1b1f1335
NIS
4822C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4823allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
496a33f5 4824removed in a future version.
a1063b2d 4825
9466bab6
JH
4826=item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4827
507b9800
JH
4828(W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4829requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
48300xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4831UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4832encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4833character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4834this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
9466bab6 4835
68dc0745 4836=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 4837
75b44862 4838(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
4839C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4840can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4841false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4842constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4843C<defined> operator.
a6006777 4844
f675dbe5
CB
4845=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4846
be771a83
GS
4847(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4848%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4849longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
48501024 characters.
f675dbe5 4851
b5c19bd7 4852=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 4853
b5c19bd7
DM
4854(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
4855attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
42c13b56 4856This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
4857declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
4858(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
42c13b56 4859subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 4860
b5c19bd7 4861 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 4862
b5c19bd7
DM
4863At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
4864since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
4865the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
4866now been created and is live:
be771a83 4867
b5c19bd7
DM
4868 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
4869
4870The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
4871gone out of scope, for example,
4872
4873 sub f {
4874 my $a;
4875 sub { eval '$a' }
4876 }
4877 f()->();
4878
4879Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
4880executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 4881
b4581f09
JH
4882=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4883
4884(F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4885you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4886something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4887that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4888front of your variable.
4889
58e23c8d 4890=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
4891
4892(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
58e23c8d 4893known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
b4581f09
JH
4894
4895=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4896
30c282f6 4897(W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
b4581f09
JH
4898scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4899instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4900earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4901all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4902
6df41af2
GS
4903=item Variable syntax
4904
4905(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4906of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4907Perl yourself.
4908
44a8e56a 4909=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4910
be771a83 4911(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 4912lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 4913
b5c19bd7 4914When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
4915the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4916call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4917outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4918longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4919variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 4920
44a8e56a 4921This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4922anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 4923reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 4924are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 4925
e2e6a0f1
YO
4926=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4927
4928(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
4929or check that you are using the right verb.
4930
4931=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4932
4933(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
4934argument or check that you are using the right verb.
4935
084610c0
GS
4936=item Version number must be a constant number
4937
4938(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4939its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4940the version number.
4941
808ee47e
SP
4942=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
4943
32e998fd
RGS
4944(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
4945are being ignored.
808ee47e 4946
7e1af8bc 4947=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 4948
4949(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 4950you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 4951
f86702cc 4952=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 4953
be771a83
GS
4954(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4955the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4956space.
a0d0e21e 4957
5f05dabc 4958=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 4959
be771a83
GS
4960(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4961looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4962term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4963function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
4964
4965 rand + 5;
4966
4967you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4968
4969 rand() + 5;
4970
4971but in actual fact, you got
4972
4973 rand(+5);
4974
5f05dabc 4975So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 4976
4b3603a4
JH
4977=item Wide character in %s
4978
62961d2e 4979(W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
4980one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
4981way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
4982output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
4983warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
4984cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
4985filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 4986
49704364
WL
4987=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
4988
4989(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
4990C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
4991determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
4992of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
4993
9a7dcd9c 4994=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4995
be771a83 4996(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4997before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4998
b4581f09
JH
4999=item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5000
5001When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5002into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5003this encoding, for example
5004
5005 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5006
5007if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5008
49704364 5009=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 5010
49704364
WL
5011(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5012the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 5013
49704364 5014=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
5015
5016(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5017the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5018
a0d0e21e
LW
5019=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5020
5f05dabc 5021(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 5022sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 5023about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 5024your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
5025
5026=item You need to quote "%s"
5027
be771a83
GS
5028(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5029Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5030which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5031assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5032what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 5033
6cfd5ea7
JH
5034=item Your random numbers are not that random
5035
5036(F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5037not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5038Something Very Wrong.
5039
a0d0e21e
LW
5040=back
5041
00eb3f2b
RGS
5042=head1 SEE ALSO
5043
5044L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.
5045
56e90b21 5046=cut