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additional tests for package block syntax
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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).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
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
be771a83 117one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 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
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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
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309=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
310
311(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "locked"
312attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
313effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in the next major
314release of Perl 5.
315
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316=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
317
318(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "unique"
b7a2910f 319attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
259976bd 320had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in the next major
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321release of Perl 5.
322
fe13d51d 323=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
a0d0e21e 324
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325(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
326or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 327S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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328S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
329
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330=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
331
496a33f5 332(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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333substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
334most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
335
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336=item Bad filehandle: %s
337
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338(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
339symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
340open(), or did it in another package.
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341
342=item Bad free() ignored
343
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344(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
345been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 346setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 347
9ea8bc6d 348This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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349dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
350which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 351
aa689395 352=item Bad hash
353
354(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
355
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356=item Badly placed ()'s
357
358(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
359of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
360Perl yourself.
361
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362=item Bad name after %s::
363
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364(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
365didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
366of quotes, so
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367
368 $var = 'myvar';
369 $sym = mypack::$var;
370
371is not the same as
372
373 $var = 'myvar';
374 $sym = "mypack::$var";
375
88e1f1a2
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376=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
377
378(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
379plugin API.
380
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381=item Bad realloc() ignored
382
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383(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
384never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
385by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 386
a0d0e21e
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387=item Bad symbol for array
388
389(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
390wasn't a symbol table entry.
391
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392=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
393
394(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
395that wasn't a symbol table entry.
396
397
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398=item Bad symbol for filehandle
399
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400(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
401that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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402
403=item Bad symbol for hash
404
405(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
406wasn't a symbol table entry.
407
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408=item Bareword found in conditional
409
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410(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
411conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
412of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
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413
414 open FOO || die;
415
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416It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
417a bareword:
34d09196
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418
419 use constant TYPO => 1;
420 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
421
422The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
423
6df41af2
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424=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
425
426(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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427subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
428symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
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429
430=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
431
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432(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
433compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
434you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 435
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436=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
437
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438(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
439subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
440exited.
a0d0e21e 441
68dc0745 442=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
443
444(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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445implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
446occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
447be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
448depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 449
6df41af2
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450=item \1 better written as $1
451
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452(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
453The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
454substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
455because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
456there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 457
252aa082
JH
458=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
459
e476b1b5 460(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
461(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
462L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 463
69282e91 464=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 465
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466(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
467check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 468
c289d2f7
JH
469=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
470
471(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
472Check you control flow and number of arguments.
473
c5a0f51a
JH
474=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
475
e476b1b5 476(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 477
4633a7c4
LW
478=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
479
be771a83 480(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 481copyable.
4633a7c4 482
f675dbe5
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483=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
484
be771a83
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485(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
486iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
487which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 488
a0d0e21e
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489=item Callback called exit
490
4929bf7b 491(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
492exited by calling exit.
493
6df41af2 494=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 495
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496(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
497parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
498that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
499early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
500subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
501checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
502function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
503the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 504
49704364 505=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
506
507(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
508compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
509attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
510See L<perlfunc/pack>.
511
49704364 512=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
513
514(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
515format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
516
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NC
517=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
518
519(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
520then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
521triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
522from that type of reference to a typeglob.
523
ba2fdce6
NC
524=item Cannot copy to %s in %s
525
526(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
527be directly assigned not.
528
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RGS
529=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
530
531(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
532either with open() or binmode().
533
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RK
534=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
535
536(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
537integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
538to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
539
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540=item Can't bless non-reference value
541
542(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
543encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
544
dc57907a
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545=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
546
0d863452
RH
547(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
548a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
549
550=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 551
0d863452
RH
552(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
553
a0d0e21e
LW
554=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
555
556(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
557functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
558in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
559
6df41af2
GS
560=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
561
562(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
563object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
564like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
565
566 $BADREF = undef;
567 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
568 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
569
a0d0e21e
LW
570=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
571
54310121 572(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
573ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
574didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
575object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
576
577=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
578
579(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
580object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
581defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
582Something like this will reproduce the error:
583
584 $BADREF = 42;
585 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
586 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
587
a0d0e21e
LW
588=item Can't chdir to %s
589
590(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
591that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
592
0545a864 593=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 594
be771a83
GS
595(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
596nosuid.
104d25b7 597
6df41af2
GS
598=item Can't coerce array into hash
599
600(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
601information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
602only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
603
a0d0e21e
LW
604=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
605
606(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 607(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
608say things like:
609
610 *foo += 1;
611
612You CAN say
613
614 $foo = *foo;
615 $foo += 1;
616
617but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
618
619=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
620
621(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 622(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
623
624=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
625
626(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 627(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 628
0d863452 629=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 630
0d863452
RH
631(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
632or C<default> block.
633
a0d0e21e
LW
634=item Can't create pipe mailbox
635
be771a83
GS
636(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
637quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 638
eb64745e 639=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 640
2f7e735d 641(F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
30c282f6 642class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
2f7e735d 643extended for other types of variables in future.
eb64745e
GS
644
645=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
646
30c282f6
NC
647(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
648"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 649
6df41af2
GS
650=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
651
be771a83
GS
652(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
653a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 654
a0d0e21e
LW
655=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
656
be771a83
GS
657(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
658reason.
a0d0e21e 659
54310121 660=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 661
be771a83
GS
662(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
663reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
664C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 665
10f9c03d 666=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 667
e476b1b5 668(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
669characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
670inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 671
7253e4e3 672=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 673
b45f050a 674(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 675regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 676regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 677
a0d0e21e
LW
678=item Can't do waitpid with flags
679
be771a83
GS
680(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
681waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 682
a0d0e21e
LW
683=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
684
be771a83
GS
685(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
686point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
687line.
a0d0e21e 688
1109a392
MHM
689=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
690
691(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
692or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
693little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
694See L<perlfunc/pack>.
695
a0d0e21e
LW
696=item Can't exec "%s": %s
697
d1be9408 698(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
699named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
700permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
701C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
702architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
703can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
704#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
705
706=item Can't exec %s
707
be771a83
GS
708(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
709that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
710need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
711
712=item Can't execute %s
713
be771a83
GS
714(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
715found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 716
6df41af2 717=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 718
be771a83
GS
719(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
720is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 721
56ca2fc0
JH
722=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
723
724(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
e1b711da
KW
725could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
726See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
727for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 728
6df41af2
GS
729=item Can't find label %s
730
be771a83
GS
731(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
732possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
733
734=item Can't find %s on PATH
735
be771a83
GS
736(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
737found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 738
6df41af2 739=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 740
be771a83
GS
741(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
742found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
743script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
744
745=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
746
be771a83
GS
747(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
748that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
749nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 750
fb73857a 751 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
752
be771a83
GS
753If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
754unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
755editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 756
660a4616
TS
757=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
758
759(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
e1b711da
KW
760example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
761Unicode property, see
762L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
763for a complete list of available properties.
660a4616
TS
764If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
765by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
766possible C<\E>).
767
b3647a36 768=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 769
be771a83
GS
770(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
771pipeline.
a0d0e21e 772
b3647a36
SR
773=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
774
c973c02e 775(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
776after five seconds.
777
748a9306
LW
778=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
779
be771a83
GS
780(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
781between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
782Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
783the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
784account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
785the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
786the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
787the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
788if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
789because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
790appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
791and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
792routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
793shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
794only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 795
a0d0e21e
LW
796=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
797
be771a83
GS
798(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
799pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
800
801=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
802
748a9306
LW
803(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
804mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 805
6df41af2 806=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 807
be771a83
GS
808(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
809loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
810
811=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
812
be771a83
GS
813(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
814a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
815you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
816See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 817
9850bf21 818=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 819
9850bf21
RH
820(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
821comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
822as the reduce() function in List::Util).
823
c74ace89 824=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 825
be771a83 826(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 827"string" or block.
b150fb22 828
6df41af2
GS
829=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
830
be771a83
GS
831(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
832subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
833cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
834routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 835
0b5b802d
GS
836=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
837
be771a83
GS
838(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
839signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
840signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
841processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
842situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
843may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 844
e2c0f81f
DG
845=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
846
847(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
848attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
849process identifier.
850
6df41af2 851=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 852
6df41af2 853(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
854except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
855block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
856block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
857usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
858inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
859L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 860
2c7d6b9c
RGS
861=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
862
863(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
864package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
865
b8170e59
JB
866=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
867
868(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
869may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
870incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
871between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
16d98ec5 872extension was built against an older version of the library that is
b8170e59
JB
873installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
874extensions.
875
748a9306
LW
876=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
877
2ba9eb46 878(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
30c282f6 879lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
748a9306
LW
880localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
881package name.
882
6df41af2 883=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 884
6df41af2
GS
885(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
886handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 887pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 888that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 889
ea071790 890=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
891
892(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
893found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
894unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
895need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
896the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
897to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
898L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 899
6df41af2
GS
900=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
901
be771a83
GS
902(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
903autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
904are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
905the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 906
b8170e59
JB
907=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
908
909(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
910for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
911unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
912
a0d0e21e
LW
913=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
914
915(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
916functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 917method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
918
919=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
920
be771a83
GS
921(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
922doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 923
2f7da168
RK
924=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
925
926(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
927e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
928
3e3baf6d
TB
929=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
930
be771a83
GS
931(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
932VMS.
3e3baf6d 933
a0d0e21e
LW
934=item Can't modify %s in %s
935
be771a83
GS
936(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
937to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 938
54310121 939=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
940
941(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
942a NULL.
943
6df41af2
GS
944=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
945
946(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
947such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
948
5f05dabc 949=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 950
5f05dabc 951(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
952buffer.
953
6df41af2
GS
954=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
955
956(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
957there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
958count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
959grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
960though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
961once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 962
a0d0e21e
LW
963=item Can't open %s: %s
964
c47ff5f1 965(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
966filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
967switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
968is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
969the command line.
a0d0e21e 970
9a869a14
RGS
971=item Can't open a reference
972
973(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
974using the 3-arg open() syntax :
975
976 open FH, '>', $ref;
977
978but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
979open is not supported.
980
a0d0e21e
LW
981=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
982
be771a83
GS
983(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
984You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
985as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
986">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 987
748a9306
LW
988=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
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 '2>' or '2>>' on
992the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
993
994=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
995
be771a83
GS
996(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
997redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
998command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
999
1000=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1001
be771a83
GS
1002(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1003redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1004the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1005
1006=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1007
be771a83
GS
1008(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1009redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1010for stdout.
748a9306 1011
2b8ca739 1012=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1013
1014(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1015
fa3aa65a
JC
1016If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1017shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1018you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1019
6df41af2
GS
1020=item Can't read CRTL environ
1021
1022(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1023from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1024missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1025or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1026searched.
6df41af2 1027
6df41af2
GS
1028=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1029
1030(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1031there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1032count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1033or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1034though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1035loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1036
64977eb6 1037=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1038
be771a83
GS
1039(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1040file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1041the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1042
a0d0e21e
LW
1043=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1044
e476b1b5 1045(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1046probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1047
748a9306
LW
1048=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1049
be771a83
GS
1050(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1051to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1052
fe13d51d 1053=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1054
be771a83
GS
1055(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1056to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1057method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1058
cd06dffe
GS
1059=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1060
be771a83
GS
1061(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1062temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1063is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1064
96ebfdd7
RK
1065=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1066
1067(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1068there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1069
78f9721b
SM
1070=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1071
1072(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1073but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1074to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1075the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1076list context.
1077
a0d0e21e
LW
1078=item Can't stat script "%s"
1079
be771a83
GS
1080(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1081open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1082
a0d0e21e
LW
1083=item Can't take log of %g
1084
fb73857a 1085(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1086negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1087standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1088negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1089
1090=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1091
1092(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1093negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1094with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1095
1096=item Can't undef active subroutine
1097
1098(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1099however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1100redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1101
1102=item Can't unshift
1103
1104(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1105as the main Perl stack.
1106
c81225bc 1107=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1108
be771a83
GS
1109(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1110into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1111specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1112indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1113
1db89ea5
BS
1114=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1115
e27ad1f2 1116(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1117table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1118for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1119
96ebfdd7
RK
1120=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1121
1122(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1123be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1124
6df41af2
GS
1125=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1126
be771a83
GS
1127(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1128references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1129
90b75b61 1130=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1131
1132(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1133Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1134provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1135
1109a392
MHM
1136=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1137
1138(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1139byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1140allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1141
6df41af2
GS
1142=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1143
be771a83
GS
1144(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1145foreach.
6df41af2 1146
aab6a793 1147=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1148
be771a83
GS
1149(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1150is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1151(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1152have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1153weren't.
1154
6d3b25aa
RGS
1155=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1156
1157(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1158that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1159For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1160is inside a big-endian group.
1161
c07a80fd 1162=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1163
1164(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1165You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1166and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1167Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1168lexical variable.
1169
a0d0e21e
LW
1170=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1171
1172(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1173reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1174test the type of the reference, if need be.
1175
748a9306 1176=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1177
be771a83
GS
1178(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1179references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1180
748a9306
LW
1181=item Can't use subscript on %s
1182
1183(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1184subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1185didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1186
6df41af2
GS
1187=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1188
75b44862
GS
1189(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1190creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1191backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1192expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1193value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1194instead.
6df41af2 1195
0d863452 1196=item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
dc57907a 1197
0d863452
RH
1198(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1199loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1200from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1201or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1202
810b8aa5
GS
1203=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1204
1205(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1206references can be weakened.
1207
5f05dabc 1208=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1209
be771a83
GS
1210(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1211with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1212Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1213
f9d13529
KW
1214=item Character following "\\c" must be ASCII
1215
1216(F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1217
f337b084 1218=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1219
1220(W pack) You said
1221
1222 pack("C", $x)
1223
1224where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1225only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1226and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1227
1228 pack("C", $x & 255)
1229
1230If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1231instead.
1232
f337b084
TH
1233=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1234
1235(W pack) You said
1236
1237 pack("U0W", $x)
1238
1239where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1240all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1241meant:
1242
1243 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1244
1245=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1246
1247(W pack) You said
1248
1249 pack("c", $x)
1250
1251where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1252is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1253and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1254
1255 pack("c", $x & 255);
1256
1257If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1258instead.
1259
f337b084
TH
1260=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1261
1262(W unpack) You tried something like
1263
1264 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1265
1a147d38 1266where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
f337b084
TH
1267below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1268modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1269
1270 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1271
1272=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1273
1274(W pack) You tried something like
1275
1276 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1277
1a147d38
YO
1278where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1279value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1280uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1281
1282 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1283
1284=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1285
1286(W unpack) You tried something like
1287
1288 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1289
1a147d38
YO
1290where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1291value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1292uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1293
1294 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1295
96ebfdd7
RK
1296=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1297
1298(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1299
abc7ecad
SP
1300=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1301
1302(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1303a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1304
49704364
WL
1305=item Code missing after '/'
1306
1307(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1308template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1309
6df41af2
GS
1310=item %s: Command not found
1311
be771a83
GS
1312(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1313Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1314
7a2e2cd6 1315=item Compilation failed in require
1316
1317(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1318Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1319encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1320
c3464db5
DD
1321=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1322
be771a83
GS
1323(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1324situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1325to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1326arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1327recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1328under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1329in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1330that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1331on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1332
38875929
DM
1333=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1334
1335(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1336cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1337function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1338cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1339has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1340first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1341after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1342lock.
1343
38875929
DM
1344=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1345
1346(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1347cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1348function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1349cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1350has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1351first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1352after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1353lock.
1354
69282e91 1355=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1356
be771a83
GS
1357(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1358to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1359L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1360
41ab332f 1361=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1362
be771a83
GS
1363(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1364an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1365specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1366corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1367L<overload>.
6df41af2 1368
fc8cd66c
YO
1369=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1370
1a147d38
YO
1371(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1372the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1373forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1374See L<charnames>.
1375
1376
779c5bc9
GS
1377=item Constant is not %s reference
1378
1379(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1380is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1381The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1382usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1383See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1384
4cee8e80
CS
1385=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1386
bb028877 1387(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
be771a83
GS
1388eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1389commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1390
9607fc9c 1391=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1392
be771a83
GS
1393(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1394for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1395workarounds.
9607fc9c 1396
e7ea3e70
IZ
1397=item Copy method did not return a reference
1398
64977eb6 1399(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1400L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1401
6798c92b
GS
1402=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1403
1404(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1405
a0d0e21e
LW
1406=item corrupted regexp pointers
1407
1408(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1409expression compiler gave it.
1410
1411=item corrupted regexp program
1412
be771a83
GS
1413(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1414valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1415
6df41af2
GS
1416=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1417
1418(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1419
49704364
WL
1420=item Count after length/code in unpack
1421
1422(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1423you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1424L<perlfunc/pack>.
1425
3a4f5623 1426=item "\c%c" more clearly written simply as "%c"
f9d13529
KW
1427
1428(D deprecated) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1429non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1430written as simply itself.
1431
a0d0e21e
LW
1432=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1433
be771a83
GS
1434(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1435100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1436infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1437which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1438
aad1d01f
NC
1439This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1440setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1441
f10b0346 1442=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1443
be771a83
GS
1444(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1445checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1446array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1447
f10b0346 1448=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1449
be771a83
GS
1450(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1451checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1452is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1453
62658f4d
PM
1454=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1455
1456(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1457there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1458
fc36a67e 1459=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1460
be771a83
GS
1461(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1462long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1463that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1464
6e1bad6c 1465=item Deprecated character in \\N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \\N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1466
1467(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1468But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names are
1469deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character and
1470continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or
1471colons.
1472
6d3b25aa
RGS
1473=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1474
1475(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1476There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1477not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1478conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1479static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1480relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1481declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1482
6d3b25aa
RGS
1483 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1484
1485becomes
1486
1487 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1488
36fb85f3
RGS
1489Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1490have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1491
1492 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1493
500ab966
RGS
1494=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1495
1496(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1497just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1498to create a dangling reference.
1499
3cdd684c
TP
1500=item Did not produce a valid header
1501
1502See Server error.
1503
6df41af2
GS
1504=item %s did not return a true value
1505
1506(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1507it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1508traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1509do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1510
cc507455 1511=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1512
413ff9f6
FC
1513(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1514some such.
4633a7c4 1515
cc507455 1516=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1517
be771a83
GS
1518(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1519variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1520seems superfluous.
33633739 1521
cc507455 1522=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1523
be771a83
GS
1524(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1525@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1526carried away.
748a9306 1527
7e1af8bc 1528=item Died
5f05dabc 1529
1530(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1531you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1532
3cdd684c
TP
1533=item Document contains no data
1534
1535See Server error.
1536
62658f4d
PM
1537=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1538
1539(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1540define a C<$VERSION.>
1541
49704364
WL
1542=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1543
1544(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1545See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1546
a0d0e21e
LW
1547=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1548
1549(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1550
1551=item do_study: out of memory
1552
1553(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1554
6df41af2
GS
1555=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1556
56da5a46
RGS
1557(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1558"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1559name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1560because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1561"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1562something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1563subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1564"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1565
ac206dc8
RGS
1566=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1567
1568(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1569qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1570
84d78eb7
YO
1571=item dump is not supported
1572
1573(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1574
a0d0e21e
LW
1575=item Duplicate free() ignored
1576
be771a83
GS
1577(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1578already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1579
1109a392
MHM
1580=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1581
1582(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1583in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1584
4633a7c4
LW
1585=item elseif should be elsif
1586
56da5a46
RGS
1587(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1588ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1589"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1590unlikely to be what you want.
1591
ab13f0c7
JH
1592=item Empty %s
1593
af6f566e
HS
1594(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1595described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1596a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1597
85ab1d1d 1598=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1599
85ab1d1d 1600(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1601effective uids or gids failed.
1602
c038024b
RGS
1603=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1604
1605(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1606aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1607program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1608
748a9306
LW
1609=item Error converting file specification %s
1610
5f05dabc 1611(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1612specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1613single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1614an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1615conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1616
e4d48cc9
GS
1617=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1618
be771a83
GS
1619(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1620expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1621is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1622
fc8f615e 1623=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
e4d48cc9 1624
be771a83
GS
1625(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1626C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1627pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1628is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1629building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1630that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1631
6df41af2
GS
1632=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1633
be771a83
GS
1634(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1635assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1636pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1637
1a147d38
YO
1638=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1639
1640(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1641any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1642
1643The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1644discovered.
1645
fc36a67e 1646=item Excessively long <> operator
1647
1648(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1649Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1650filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1651variable and glob that.
1652
ed9aa3b7
SG
1653=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1654
1655(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1656
fe13d51d 1657=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1658
1659(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1660
1661=item Exiting eval via %s
1662
be771a83
GS
1663(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1664goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1665
1666=item Exiting format via %s
1667
9a2ff54b 1668(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1669goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1670
0a753a76 1671=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1672
be771a83
GS
1673(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1674sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1675loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1676
a0d0e21e
LW
1677=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1678
be771a83
GS
1679(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1680as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1681
1682=item Exiting substitution via %s
1683
be771a83
GS
1684(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1685as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1686
7b8d334a
GS
1687=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1688
be771a83
GS
1689(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1690the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1691usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1692e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1693
6df41af2
GS
1694=item %s: Expression syntax
1695
be771a83
GS
1696(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1697Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1698
1699=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1700
3c10abe3
AG
1701(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1702CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1703queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1704
7253e4e3 1705=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1706
be771a83 1707(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1708character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1709in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1710"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1711problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1712
748a9306 1713=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1714
be771a83
GS
1715(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1716system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1717details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1718you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1719
1720=item fcntl is not implemented
1721
1722(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1723PDP-11 or something?
1724
22846ab4
AB
1725=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1726
1727(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1728is not possible.
1729
f337b084
TH
1730=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1731
1732(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1733which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1734a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1735C<u63> as format.
1736
af8c498a 1737=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1738
6c8d78fb
HS
1739(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1740it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1741"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1742write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1743
af8c498a 1744=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1745
6c8d78fb
HS
1746(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1747you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
be771a83
GS
1748with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1749intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
6c8d78fb
HS
1750Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1751(also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1752
1753=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1754
1755(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1756as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1757previously.
1758
1759=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1760
1761(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1762as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1763
1764=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1765
1766(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1767a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1768happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1769name.
a0d0e21e 1770
56e90b21
GS
1771=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1772
be771a83 1773(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1774some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1775filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1776same name?
56e90b21 1777
6df41af2
GS
1778=item Format not terminated
1779
1780(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1781to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1782
a0d0e21e
LW
1783=item Format %s redefined
1784
e476b1b5 1785(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1786
1787 {
271595cc 1788 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1789 eval "format NAME =...";
1790 }
1791
a0d0e21e
LW
1792=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1793
e476b1b5 1794(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1795
1796 if ($foo = 123)
1797
1798when you meant
1799
1800 if ($foo == 123)
1801
1802(or something like that).
1803
6df41af2
GS
1804=item %s found where operator expected
1805
56da5a46
RGS
1806(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1807If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1808operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1809operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1810
a0d0e21e
LW
1811=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1812
1813(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1814
1815=item gethostent not implemented
1816
1817(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1818because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1819on the Internet.
1820
69282e91 1821=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1822
be771a83
GS
1823(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1824socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1825
748a9306
LW
1826=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1827
1828(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1829C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1830
6df41af2
GS
1831=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1832
be771a83
GS
1833(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1834forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1835L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1836
1837=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1838
a4edf47d 1839(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1840that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1841declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1842which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1843
e476b1b5
GS
1844=item glob failed (%s)
1845
be771a83
GS
1846(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1847C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1848C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1849nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1850resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1851broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1852config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1853were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1854empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1855think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1856C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1857
a0d0e21e
LW
1858=item Glob not terminated
1859
1860(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1861a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1862not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1863earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1864
8b56d6ff
FC
1865=item gmtime(%.0f) too large
1866
fc003d4b
MS
1867(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was larger than
1868it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1869date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1870not-a-number value).
1871
1872=item gmtime(%.0f) too small
1873
1874(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was smaller than
1875it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1876date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1877not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 1878
6df41af2 1879=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1880
6df41af2
GS
1881(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1882version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1883
1884=item goto must have label
1885
1886(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1887unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1888
49704364 1889=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 1890
49704364 1891(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
18529408 1892supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
49704364 1893 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 1894
fe13d51d 1895=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
1896
1897(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1898
a0d0e21e
LW
1899=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1900
be771a83
GS
1901(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1902to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1903created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1904
1905=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1906
be771a83
GS
1907(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1908spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1909
6df41af2
GS
1910=item %s has too many errors
1911
1912(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1913Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1914
252aa082
JH
1915=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1916
e476b1b5 1917(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1918(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1919L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1920
8903cb82 1921=item Identifier too long
1922
1923(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1924about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1925names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1926of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1927
c3c41406 1928=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 1929
ff3f963a
KW
1930(W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
1931zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1a147d38 1932its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
1933been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1934
6df41af2 1935=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1936
6df41af2 1937(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1938
6df41af2 1939=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1940
be771a83
GS
1941(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1942binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1943offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1944
4fdae800 1945=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1946
d5898338 1947(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1948would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1949when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1950version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1951to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1952
d37a9538
ST
1953=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1954
197afce1
MT
1955(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
1956Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
d37a9538 1957
904d85c5
RGS
1958=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1959
1960(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1961you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1962
8e742a20
MHM
1963=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1964
1965(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1966
a0d0e21e
LW
1967=item Illegal division by zero
1968
be771a83
GS
1969(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1970your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1971meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1972
6df41af2
GS
1973=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1974
be771a83
GS
1975(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1976A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1977number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1978
a0d0e21e
LW
1979=item Illegal modulus zero
1980
be771a83
GS
1981(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1982numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1983
6df41af2 1984=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1985
6df41af2
GS
1986(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1987two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1988
1989=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 1990
d1be9408 1991(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 1992
399388f4 1993=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1994
d1be9408 1995(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 1996Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1997
fe13d51d 1998=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 1999
6df41af2 2000(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2001following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2002
6df41af2 2003=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2004
75b44862 2005(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2006internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2007delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2008
6df41af2 2009=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2010
be771a83
GS
2011(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2012name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2013didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2014ignored.
54310121 2015
6df41af2 2016=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2017
be771a83
GS
2018(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2019the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2020system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2021times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2022would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2023
be771a83
GS
2024Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2025also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2026
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2027=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2028
2029(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2030C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2031documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2032
979699d9
JH
2033=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2034
2035(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2036Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2037encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2038
1a147d38
YO
2039=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2040
2041(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2042text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2043either consume text or fail.
2044
2045The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2046discovered.
2047
6dbe9451
NC
2048=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2049
2050(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2051of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2052C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2053as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2054
a0d0e21e
LW
2055=item Insecure dependency in %s
2056
8b1a09fc 2057(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2058The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2059setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2060tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2061from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2062such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2063L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2064
2065=item Insecure directory in %s
2066
be771a83
GS
2067(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2068setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2069the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2070See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2071
62f468fc 2072=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2073
2074(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2075setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2076C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2077supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2078the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2079
a7ae9550
GS
2080=item Integer overflow in %s number
2081
75b44862 2082(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2083either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2084your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2085On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2086representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
20870b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2088transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2089internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2090operations.
bbce6d69 2091
2fba7546
GA
2092=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2093
0be96356
AL
2094(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2095or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2fba7546
GA
2096integers for your architecture.
2097
46314c13
JP
2098=item Integer overflow in version
2099
2100(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2101size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2102because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2103element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2104trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2105100/9.
2106
7253e4e3 2107=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2108
2109(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2110The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2111discovered.
2112
748a9306
LW
2113=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2114
be771a83
GS
2115(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2116you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2117to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2118L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2119Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2120terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2121
7253e4e3 2122=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2123
7253e4e3
RK
2124(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2125<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2126discovered.
a0d0e21e 2127
6df41af2
GS
2128=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2129
75b44862 2130(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2131followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2132operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2133L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2134
09bef843
SB
2135=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2136
2137The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2138by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2139
2140=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2141
be771a83
GS
2142The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2143recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2144
c635e13b 2145=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2146
be771a83
GS
2147(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2148L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2149
9e08bc66
TS
2150=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2151
2152(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2153didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2154from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2155The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2156The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2157escape was discovered.
2158
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2159=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2160
2161(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2162or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2163(Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2164
7253e4e3 2165=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2166
2167(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2168greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2169C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2170up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2171problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2172
d1573ac7 2173=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2174
2175(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2176character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2177
09bef843
SB
2178=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2179
0120eecf 2180(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2181elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2182parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2183See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2184
b4581f09
JH
2185=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2186
2187(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2188colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2189If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2190list was terminated too soon.
2191
49704364 2192=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2193
49704364
WL
2194(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2195See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2196(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2197silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2198
46314c13
JP
2199=item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2200
2201(F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2202that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2203version formats.
2204
2205=item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2206
2207(F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2208See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2209
a0d0e21e
LW
2210=item ioctl is not implemented
2211
2212(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2213strange for a machine that supports C.
2214
c289d2f7
JH
2215=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2216
2217(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2218Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2219
fe13d51d 2220=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2221
2222(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2223you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2224with 'useperlio'.
2225
80cbd5ad
JH
2226=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2227
2228(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2229neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2230
b4581f09
JH
2231=item $* is no longer supported
2232
d1d15184 2233(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
4fd19576
B
2234been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In previous versions of perl the use of
2235C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line matching within a string.
2236
2237Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2238modifiers. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value then all regular
2239expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2240
8ae1fe26
RGS
2241=item $# is no longer supported
2242
d1d15184 2243(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
8ae1fe26
RGS
2244been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2245printf/sprintf functions instead.
2246
6ad11d81
JH
2247=item `%s' is not a code reference
2248
04a80ee0
RGS
2249(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2250needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
2251to a subroutine.
2252
2253=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2254
04a80ee0
RGS
2255(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2256unaware of.
6ad11d81 2257
a0d0e21e
LW
2258=item junk on end of regexp
2259
2260(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2261
2262=item Label not found for "last %s"
2263
be771a83
GS
2264(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2265of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2266L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2267
2268=item Label not found for "next %s"
2269
2270(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2271that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2272L<perlfunc/last>.
2273
2274=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2275
2276(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2277that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2278L<perlfunc/last>.
2279
85ab1d1d 2280=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2281
85ab1d1d 2282(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2283effective uids or gids failed.
2284
49704364
WL
2285=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2286
d7f8936a 2287(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
49704364
WL
2288length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2289an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2290
f0e67a1d
Z
2291=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2292
2293(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2294(using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but
2295tried to insert a character that couldn't be part of the current input.
2296This is an inherent pitfall of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the
2297reasons to avoid it. Where it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only
2298plain ASCII is recommended.
2299
2300=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2301
2302(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2303detectable way.
2304
69282e91 2305=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2306
be771a83
GS
2307(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2308to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2309L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2310
8b56d6ff
FC
2311=item localtime(%.0f) too large
2312
fc003d4b
MS
2313(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was larger
2314than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2315wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2316not-a-number value).
2317
2318=item localtime(%.0f) too small
2319
2320(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was smaller
2321than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2322wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2323not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 2324
58e23c8d 2325=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2326
2327(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
58e23c8d 2328handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2329
b88df990
NC
2330=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2331
2332(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2333for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2334hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2335because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2336are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2337You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2338
2f7da168
RK
2339=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2340
2341(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2342by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2343instead on the filehandle.)
2344
885ef6f5
GG
2345=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2346
963d9ce9 2347(W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
885ef6f5
GG
2348by declaring the subroutine with a lvalue attribute is not
2349possible. To make the the subroutine a lvalue subroutine add the
2350lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the the declaration before
2351the definition.
2352
96ebfdd7
RK
2353=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2354
2355(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2356values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2357L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2358
49704364
WL
2359=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2360
2361(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2362are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2363
2364=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2365
2366(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2367are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2368
6df41af2
GS
2369=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2370
2371(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2372
2373 prefix1;prefix2
2374
2375or
6df41af2
GS
2376 prefix1 prefix2
2377
be771a83
GS
2378with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2379a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2380appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2381"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2382
2f758a16
ST
2383=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2384
d37a9538
ST
2385(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2386syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2387obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2388when the function is called.
2f758a16 2389
ba210ebe
JH
2390=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2391
2575c402
JW
2392(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2393encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2394
2575c402
JW
2395One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2396you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
23978-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2398
2399If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2400sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2401set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2402message.
2403
2404See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2405
dea0fc0b
JH
2406=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2407
183097aa 2408(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
dea0fc0b
JH
2409doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2410
ff3f963a
KW
2411=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2412
2413(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2414
f337b084
TH
2415=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2416
2417(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2418rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2419
2420=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2421
2422(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2423rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2424
2425=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2426
2427(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2428rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2429
fe13d51d 2430=item Maximal count of pending signals (%d) exceeded
2563cec5 2431
fe13d51d 2432(F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2433usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2434too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2435resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2436safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2437
49704364 2438=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2439
2440(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
7253e4e3
RK
2441regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2442shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2443See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2444
25f58aea
PN
2445=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2446
2447(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2448interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2449"use" or "my".
2450
49704364 2451=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2452
2453(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2454checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2455See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2456
a0d0e21e
LW
2457=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2458
2459(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2460doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2461
3cdd684c
TP
2462=item Method %s not permitted
2463
2464See Server error.
2465
a0d0e21e
LW
2466=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2467
2468(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2469by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2470ended earlier on the current line.
2471
2472=item Misplaced _ in number
2473
d4ced10d
JH
2474(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2475separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2476
7baa4690
HS
2477=item Missing argument in %s
2478
2479(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2480supplied.
2481
9e81e6a1
RGS
2482=item Missing argument to -%c
2483
2484(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2485immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2486
ff3f963a 2487=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2488
4a2d328f 2489(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
c3c41406
KW
2490double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2491comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2492This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2493the C<\N>.
423cee85 2494
a0d0e21e
LW
2495=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2496
2497(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2498"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2499
06eaf0bc
GS
2500=item Missing command in piped open
2501
be771a83
GS
2502(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2503C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2504blank.
06eaf0bc 2505
961ce445
RGS
2506=item Missing control char name in \c
2507
2508(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2509character name.
2510
6df41af2
GS
2511=item Missing name in "my sub"
2512
be771a83
GS
2513(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2514they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2515
2516=item Missing $ on loop variable
2517
be771a83
GS
2518(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2519are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2520can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2521
cc507455 2522=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2523
56da5a46
RGS
2524(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2525"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2526
ab13f0c7
JH
2527=item Missing right brace on %s
2528
ff3f963a
KW
2529(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2530
0a96133f 2531=item Missing right brace on \\N{} or unescaped left brace after \\N
ff3f963a 2532
0a96133f
KW
2533(F)
2534C<\N> has two meanings.
2535
2536The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2537in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
ff3f963a 2538Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
0a96133f
KW
2539double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2540have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
ff3f963a 2541
0a96133f 2542Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
c3c41406
KW
2543patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2544C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
ff3f963a
KW
2545
2546This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
c3c41406 2547left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
ff3f963a
KW
2548the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2549that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
0a96133f 25503; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
ff3f963a
KW
2551and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2552
2553However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
c3c41406 2554omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
0a96133f
KW
2555raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2556the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2557
d98d5fff 2558=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2559
be771a83
GS
2560(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2561ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2562were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2563
6df41af2
GS
2564=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2565
56da5a46
RGS
2566(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2567"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2568the previous line just because you saw this message.
2569
a0d0e21e
LW
2570=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2571
2572(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2573constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2574catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2575
2576 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2577 mod(2);
2578
2579Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2580
c5674021
PDF
2581Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2582is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2583
2584 $x = 1;
2585 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2586 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2587 }
c5674021 2588
7a4340ed 2589=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2590
2591(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2592subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2593backwards.
2594
7a4340ed 2595=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2596
be771a83
GS
2597(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2598couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2599
2600=item Module name must be constant
2601
2602(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2603
be98fb35 2604=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2605
be98fb35
GS
2606(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2607you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2608about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2609
fe13d51d 2610=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7
SG
2611
2612(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2613can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2614list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2615See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2616
a0d0e21e
LW
2617=item msg%s not implemented
2618
2619(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2620
2621=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2622
75b44862
GS
2623(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2624They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2625
49704364 2626=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2627
49704364
WL
2628(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2629follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2630See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2631
2632=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2633
be771a83
GS
2634(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2635that yet.
6df41af2 2636
30c282f6 2637=item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2638
be771a83
GS
2639(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2640sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2641local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2642
ff3f963a
KW
2643=item \\N in a character class must be a named character: \\N{...}
2644
c3c41406
KW
2645(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2646character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2647specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2648
2649=item \\N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2650
2651(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2652was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
b09c05e6 2653such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2654
2655 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2656 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2657 /$re/;
2658
b09c05e6 2659Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2660
2661 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2662 /$re/;
2663
2664The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2665components:
2666
2667 $re = '\N';
2668 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2669
2670It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2671doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2672
2673Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2674C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2675
2676 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2677 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2678
8b1a09fc 2679=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2680
e476b1b5 2681(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
2682If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2683again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 2684provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e 2685
64b374f4
FD
2686NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2687%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2688the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2689will not trigger this warning.
2690
ff3f963a
KW
2691=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \\N{U+...}
2692
2693(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
c3c41406
KW
2694number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2695or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
ff3f963a 2696
49704364
WL
2697=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2698
2699(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2700negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2701
a0d0e21e
LW
2702=item Negative length
2703
be771a83
GS
2704(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2705length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2706
ed9aa3b7
SG
2707=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2708
2709(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2710greater than or equal to zero.
2711
7253e4e3 2712=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2713
b45f050a 2714(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2715things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2716expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2717
7253e4e3 2718Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2719C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2720
6df41af2 2721=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2722
be771a83
GS
2723(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2724scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2725
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2726=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2727
2728(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2729real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2730See L<mro>.
2731
a0d0e21e
LW
2732=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2733
be771a83
GS
2734(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2735setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2736will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2737securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2738
a0d0e21e
LW
2739=item No comma allowed after %s
2740
2741(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2742allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2743Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2744
0a753a76 2745One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2746constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2747importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2748does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2749explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2750L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2751would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2752remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2753constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2754list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2755this error was triggered?
2756
748a9306
LW
2757=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2758
be771a83
GS
2759(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2760redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2761doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2762
a0d0e21e
LW
2763=item No DB::DB routine defined
2764
be771a83 2765(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
ccafdc96
RGS
2766for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2767module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2768statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2769
2770=item No dbm on this machine
2771
2772(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2773supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2774
ccafdc96 2775=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2776
ccafdc96
RGS
2777(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2778for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2779module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2780of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2781
96ebfdd7
RK
2782=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2783
2784(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2785
c47ff5f1 2786=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2787
be771a83
GS
2788(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2789redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2790find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2791
49704364
WL
2792=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2793
2794(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2795matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2796
c47ff5f1 2797=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2798
be771a83
GS
2799(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2800redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2801name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2802
6df41af2
GS
2803=item No #! line
2804
2805(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2806even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2807
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2808=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2809
2810(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2811in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2812it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2813or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2814
6df41af2
GS
2815=item "no" not allowed in expression
2816
be771a83
GS
2817(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2818returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2819
c47ff5f1 2820=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2821
be771a83
GS
2822(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2823redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2824doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2825
c47ff5f1 2826=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2827
be771a83
GS
2828(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2829redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2830find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2831
1ec3e8de
GS
2832=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2833
be771a83
GS
2834(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2835declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2836semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2837
a0d0e21e
LW
2838=item No Perl script found in input
2839
2840(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2841with #! and containing the word "perl".
2842
2843=item No setregid available
2844
2845(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2846your system.
2847
2848=item No setreuid available
2849
2850(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2851your system.
2852
6df41af2
GS
2853=item No %s specified for -%c
2854
2855(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2856you haven't specified one.
2857
e75d1f10
RD
2858=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2859
2860(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2861but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2862package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2863
2c692339
RGS
2864=item No such class %s
2865
30c282f6 2866(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2c692339
RGS
2867this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2868
3c20a832
SP
2869=item No such hook: %s
2870
2871(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2872accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2873
6df41af2
GS
2874=item No such pipe open
2875
2876(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2877close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2878earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2879
a0d0e21e
LW
2880=item No such signal: SIG%s
2881
be771a83
GS
2882(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2883not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2884names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2885
2886=item Not a CODE reference
2887
2888(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2889subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2890use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2891also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2892
2893=item Not a format reference
2894
2895(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2896format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2897
2898=item Not a GLOB reference
2899
be771a83
GS
2900(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2901symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2902something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2903kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2904
2905=item Not a HASH reference
2906
be771a83
GS
2907(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2908reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2909find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2910
6df41af2
GS
2911=item Not an ARRAY reference
2912
be771a83
GS
2913(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2914a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2915to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2916
a0d0e21e
LW
2917=item Not a perl script
2918
2919(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2920even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2921mention perl.
2922
2923=item Not a SCALAR reference
2924
be771a83
GS
2925(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2926a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2927to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2928
2929=item Not a subroutine reference
2930
2931(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2932subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2933use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2934also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2935
e7ea3e70 2936=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2937
2938(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2939doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2940
a0d0e21e
LW
2941=item Not enough arguments for %s
2942
2943(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2944
6df41af2
GS
2945=item Not enough format arguments
2946
be771a83
GS
2947(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2948supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2949
2950=item %s: not found
2951
be771a83
GS
2952(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2953of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2954yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2955
2956=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2957
6df41af2
GS
2958(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2959timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2960to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2961F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2962need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 2963
4ef2275c
GA
2964=item Non-string passed as bitmask
2965
2966(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2967Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2968select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2969
a0d0e21e
LW
2970=item Null filename used
2971
be771a83
GS
2972(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2973machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2974
6df41af2
GS
2975=item NULL OP IN RUN
2976
be771a83
GS
2977(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2978pointer.
6df41af2 2979
55497cff 2980=item Null picture in formline
2981
2982(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2983specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2984supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2985
a0d0e21e
LW
2986=item Null realloc
2987
2988(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2989
2990=item NULL regexp argument
2991
5f05dabc 2992(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2993
2994=item NULL regexp parameter
2995
2996(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2997
fc36a67e 2998=item Number too long
2999
be771a83 3000(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3001about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3002versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3003the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3004"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3005
6df41af2
GS
3006=item Octal number in vector unsupported
3007
be771a83
GS
3008(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3009The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3010future version.
6df41af2 3011
252aa082
JH
3012=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3013
75b44862 3014(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3015(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3016L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
3017
3018See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3019
6ad11d81
JH
3020=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3021
04a80ee0
RGS
3022(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3023arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3024
b21befc1
MG
3025=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3026
3027(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3028which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3029
1930e939 3030=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3031
be771a83
GS
3032(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3033which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3034
bbce6d69 3035=item Offset outside string
3036
42bc49da
JH
3037(F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3038with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3039imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3040take place when going past the end of the string when either
3041C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3042for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3043with real files).
bbce6d69 3044
c289d2f7 3045=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3046
3047(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3048never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3049call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3050
96ebfdd7
RK
3051=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3052
3053(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3054that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3055
a0d0e21e
LW
3056=item oops: oopsAV
3057
e476b1b5 3058(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3059
3060=item oops: oopsHV
3061
e476b1b5 3062(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3063
abc718f2
RGS
3064=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3065
3066(W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3067a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3068Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3069and is deprecated.
3070
3071=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3072
3073(W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3074a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3075Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3076and is deprecated.
3077
a0288114 3078=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3079
be771a83
GS
3080(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3081handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3082of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3083C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3084
748a9306
LW
3085=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3086
be771a83
GS
3087(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3088was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3089use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3090example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3091"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3092
6df41af2
GS
3093=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3094
be771a83
GS
3095(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3096in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3097
a80b8354
GS
3098=item Out of memory!
3099
3100(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3101remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3102no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3103
19a52907
JH
3104At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3105process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3106C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3107the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3108and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3109
6d3b25aa
RGS
3110=item Out of memory during %s extend
3111
3112(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3113the largest possible memory allocation.
3114
6df41af2 3115=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 3116
6df41af2
GS
3117(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3118remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
3119the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3120possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 3121
1b979e0a 3122=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 3123
be771a83
GS
3124(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3125insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3126request.
eff9c6e2
CS
3127
3128The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3129depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
3130However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3131emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
3132is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3133where the failed request happened.
55497cff 3134
1b979e0a
IZ
3135=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3136
3137(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
3138is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3139C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 3140
6df41af2
GS
3141=item Out of memory for yacc stack
3142
be771a83
GS
3143(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3144parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3145otherwise.
6df41af2 3146
28be1210
TH
3147=item '.' outside of string in pack
3148
3149(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3150position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3151
49704364 3152=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 3153
49704364 3154(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
3155the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3156
f337b084
TH
3157=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3158
3159(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3160the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3161UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3162
7cb0cfe6
BM
3163=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3164
3165(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3166but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3167L<overload>.
3168
3169=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3170
3171(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3172overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3173
6df41af2
GS
3174=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3175
be771a83
GS
3176(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3177package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3178some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3179mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 3180
96ebfdd7
RK
3181=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3182
3183(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3184signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3185
a0d0e21e
LW
3186=item page overflow
3187
be771a83
GS
3188(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3189page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 3190
6df41af2
GS
3191=item panic: %s
3192
3193(P) An internal error.
3194
c99a1475
NC
3195=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3196
3197(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3198an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3199platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3200enter this branch on this platform.
3201
a0d0e21e
LW
3202=item panic: ck_grep
3203
3204(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3205
3206=item panic: ck_split
3207
3208(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3209
3210=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3211
be771a83
GS
3212(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3213there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 3214
810b8aa5
GS
3215=item panic: del_backref
3216
3217(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3218reference.
3219
7619c85e
RG
3220=item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3221
3222(P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3223last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3224an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3225a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3226
a0d0e21e
LW
3227=item panic: die %s
3228
3229(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3230it wasn't an eval context.
3231
a0d0e21e
LW
3232=item panic: do_subst
3233
be771a83
GS
3234(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3235data.
a0d0e21e 3236
2269b42e 3237=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 3238
2269b42e 3239(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 3240data.
a0d0e21e 3241
b7f7fd0b
NC
3242=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3243
10203f38 3244(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
3245failure was caught.
3246
c635e13b 3247=item panic: frexp
3248
3249(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3250
a0d0e21e
LW
3251=item panic: goto
3252
3253(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3254and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3255
23976bdd
NC
3256=item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3257
3258(P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3259but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3260contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3261adds a new object to the hash.
3262
a0d0e21e
LW
3263=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3264
3265(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3266
3267=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3268
3269(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3270
e446cec8
IZ
3271=item panic: kid popen errno read
3272
3273(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3274
a0d0e21e
LW
3275=item panic: last
3276
3277(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3278it wasn't a block context.
3279
3280=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3281
be771a83
GS
3282(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3283scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
3284
3285=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3286
3287(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3288invalid enum on the top of it.
3289
810b8aa5
GS
3290=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3291
3292(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3293references to an object.
3294
6df41af2
GS
3295=item panic: malloc
3296
3297(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3298
27d5b266
JH
3299=item panic: memory wrap
3300
3301(P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3302
a0d0e21e
LW
3303=item panic: pad_alloc
3304
3305(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3306and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3307
3308=item panic: pad_free curpad
3309
3310(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3311and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3312
3313=item panic: pad_free po
3314
3315(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3316
3317=item panic: pad_reset curpad
3318
3319(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3320and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3321
3322=item panic: pad_sv po
3323
3324(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3325
3326=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3327
3328(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3329and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3330
3331=item panic: pad_swipe po
3332
3333(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3334
3335=item panic: pp_iter
3336
3337(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3338
96ebfdd7
RK
3339=item panic: pp_match%s
3340
3341(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3342data.
3343
2269b42e
JH
3344=item panic: pp_split
3345
3346(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3347
a0d0e21e
LW
3348=item panic: realloc
3349
3350(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3351
3352=item panic: restartop
3353
3354(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3355didn't supply the destination.
3356
3357=item panic: return
3358
3359(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3360then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3361
3362=item panic: scan_num
3363
3364(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3365
6c65d5f9
NC
3366=item panic: sv_chop %s
3367
3368(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3369scalar's string buffer.
3370
a0d0e21e
LW
3371=item panic: sv_insert
3372
3373(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3374was string.
3375
3376=item panic: top_env
3377
6224f72b 3378(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 3379
65bca31a
NC
3380=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3381
3382(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3383at run time.
3384
dea0fc0b
JH
3385=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3386
3387(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 3388to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 3389
e0ea5e2d
NC
3390=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3391
3392(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3393to even) byte length.
3394
2f7da168
RK
3395=item panic: yylex
3396
3397(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3398
1a147d38
YO
3399=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3400
3401(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3402consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3403nesting limit is exceeded.
3404
3405The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3406discovered.
3407
7b8d334a 3408=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 3409
e476b1b5 3410(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
3411
3412 my $foo, $bar = @_;
3413
3414when you meant
3415
3416 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3417
30c282f6 3418Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 3419
96ebfdd7
RK
3420=item C<-p> destination: %s
3421
3422(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3423command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3424redirected it with select().)
3425
3426=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3427
3428(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3429"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3430that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3431
1109a392
MHM
3432=item Perl_my_%s() not available
3433
3434(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3435so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3436conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3437'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3438
6d3b25aa
RGS
3439=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3440
3441(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3442recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3443you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3444
6df41af2
GS
3445=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3446
3447(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 3448C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3449
96ebfdd7
RK
3450=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3451
3452See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3453
6df41af2
GS
3454=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3455
3456(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3457
3458 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3459 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3460 LC_ALL = "En_US",
3461 LANG = (unset)
3462 are supported and installed on your system.
3463 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3464
3465Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3466settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
3467This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3468system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3469locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3470dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3471Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3472the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3473you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3474L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 3475
bd3fa61c 3476=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 3477
be771a83
GS
3478(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3479process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3480fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 3481
49704364 3482=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
3483
3484(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3485
96ebfdd7
RK
3486=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3487
3488(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3489shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3490Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3491the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3492not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3493
3494=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3495
3496(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3497the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3498
49704364 3499=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3500
9a0b3859 3501(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
3502I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3503/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3504implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3505cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3506where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3507
49704364 3508=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3509
3510(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
3511beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3512If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3513expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3514backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3515about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3516
49704364 3517=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3518
7253e4e3
RK
3519(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3520with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3521need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3522character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3523and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3524problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3525
bbce6d69 3526=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3527
e476b1b5 3528(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 3529strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
3530literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3531parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3532
774d564b 3533You probably wrote something like this:
3534
54310121 3535 @list = qw(
774d564b 3536 a # a comment
bbce6d69 3537 b # another comment
774d564b 3538 );
bbce6d69 3539
3540when you should have written this:
3541
774d564b 3542 @list = qw(
54310121 3543 a
3544 b
774d564b 3545 );
3546
3547If you really want comments, build your list the
3548old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3549
3550 @list = (
3551 'a', # a comment
3552 'b', # another comment
3553 );
bbce6d69 3554
3555=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3556
be771a83
GS
3557(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3558commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3559different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3560frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3561
54310121 3562You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 3563
774d564b 3564 qw! a, b, c !;
3565
3566which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3567commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 3568
774d564b 3569 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 3570
a0d0e21e
LW
3571=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3572
3573(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3574Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3575end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3576Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3577
276b2a0c
RGS
3578=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3579
3580(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3581with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3582
3583 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3584
3585This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3586higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
96a925ab
YST
3587really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3588parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
276b2a0c 3589
18623440
PS
3590=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3591
3592(W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
32b0a12e
AMS
3593but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3594literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3595to the array you apparently lost track of.
18623440 3596
77772344
B
3597=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3598
3599(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3600The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 3601record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
3602followed by the word 'bar'.
3603
3604If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3605C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3606
3607If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3608followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3609C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3610
a0d0e21e
LW
3611=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3612
e476b1b5 3613(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 3614
a0d0e21e
LW
3615 open FOO || die;
3616
3617is now misinterpreted as
3618
3619 open(FOO || die);
3620
be771a83
GS
3621because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3622list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3623parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3624of "||".
a0d0e21e 3625
3cdd684c
TP
3626=item Premature end of script headers
3627
3628See Server error.
3629
6df41af2
GS
3630=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3631
be771a83 3632(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3633before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 3634
9a7dcd9c 3635=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3636
be771a83 3637(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3638before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3639
6df41af2 3640=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 3641
6df41af2
GS
3642(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3643applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3644port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3645L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 3646in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 3647
327323c1
RGS
3648=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3649
197afce1 3650(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
327323c1
RGS
3651since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3652
3fe9a6f1 3653=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 3654
9a0b3859 3655(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 3656declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 3657
ed9aa3b7
SG
3658=item Prototype not terminated
3659
2a6fd447 3660(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
3661definition.
3662
96ebfdd7
RK
3663=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3664
3665(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3666meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3667where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3668
49704364 3669=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3670
b45f050a 3671(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
7253e4e3 3672{min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 3673the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 3674
49704364 3675=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3676
b45f050a
JF
3677(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3678it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3679quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3680"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3681C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 3682
7253e4e3
RK
3683The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3684discovered.
3685
89ea2908
GA
3686=item Range iterator outside integer range
3687
3688(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3689are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
3690One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3691by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 3692
3b7fbd4a
SP
3693=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3694
1a147d38 3695(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
3696a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3697
96ebfdd7
RK
3698=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3699
3700(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3701before now. Check your control flow.
3702
b5fe5ca2
SR
3703=item read() on closed filehandle %s
3704
3705(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3706
3707=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3708
3709(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3710
6df41af2
GS
3711=item Reallocation too large: %lx
3712
3713(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3714
4ad56ec9
IZ
3715=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3716
be771a83
GS
3717(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3718already been freed.
4ad56ec9 3719
a0d0e21e
LW
3720=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3721
be771a83
GS
3722(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3723the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
3724which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3725
3e0ccd42 3726=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 3727
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3728(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3729believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3730crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 3731
7a4340ed 3732=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 3733
be771a83
GS
3734(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3735a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3736hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 3737
1930e939
TP
3738=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3739
be771a83
GS
3740(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3741with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3742means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3743parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
3744
3745 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3746 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3747 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3748 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3749
810b8aa5
GS
3750=item Reference is already weak
3751
e476b1b5 3752(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
3753Doing so has no effect.
3754
a0d0e21e
LW
3755=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3756
be771a83
GS
3757(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3758a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 3759
b72d83b2
RGS
3760=item Reference to invalid group 0
3761
3762(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3763capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
353c6505 3764backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
b72d83b2
RGS
3765backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3766
49704364 3767=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3768
3769(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3770not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3771wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3772prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
9baa0206 3773
7253e4e3 3774The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 3775discovered.
9baa0206 3776
c74340f9
YO
3777=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3778
2bf803e2 3779(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
c74340f9 3780not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
2bf803e2 3781where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
c74340f9
YO
3782
3783The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3784discovered.
3785
1a147d38
YO
3786=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3787
3788(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3789expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3790as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3791correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3792
3793The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3794discovered.
3795
3796=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3797
3798(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3799most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3800of the C<....> part.
3801
3802The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3803discovered.
3804
a0d0e21e
LW
3805=item regexp memory corruption
3806
3807(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3808expression compiler gave it.
3809
b45f050a 3810=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 3811
be771a83
GS
3812(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3813earlier.
a0d0e21e 3814
a1b95068
WL
3815=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3816
d7f8936a 3817(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068
WL
3818numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3819terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3820
b08e453b
RB
3821=item Replacement list is longer than search list
3822
3823(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
3824search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
3825are meaningless.
3826
a0d0e21e
LW
3827=item Reversed %s= operator
3828
be771a83
GS
3829(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3830always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 3831
abc7ecad
SP
3832=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3833
3834(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3835really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3836
96ebfdd7
RK
3837=item Scalars leaked: %d
3838
3839(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3840not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3841What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3842especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3843
a0d0e21e
LW
3844=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3845
be771a83
GS
3846(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3847single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3848value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3849behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3850argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3851and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3852if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 3853
748a9306 3854On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 3855element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
3856Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3857L<perlref>.
3858
a6006777 3859=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3860
75b44862 3861(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
3862element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3863(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3864like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3865argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3866and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3867if you're expecting only one subscript.
3868
3869On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3870as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3871not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 3872L<perlref>.
3873
a0d0e21e
LW
3874=item Search pattern not terminated
3875
3876(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3877construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3878Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3879
0cb1bcd7 3880Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd
JH
3881construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3882in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3883misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3884
25c09cbf
SF
3885=item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3886
3887(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3888construct.
3889
3890The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3891C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3892parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3893the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3894
9ddeeac9 3895=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3896
be771a83
GS
3897(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3898filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3899
abc7ecad
SP
3900=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3901
3902(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3903really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3904
a0d0e21e
LW
3905=item select not implemented
3906
3907(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3908
ae21d580 3909=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 3910
ae21d580
JH
3911(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3912the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 3913
6df41af2 3914=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 3915
75b44862
GS
3916(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3917semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
3918
3919=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3920
be771a83
GS
3921(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3922scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 3923
6df41af2 3924=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 3925
6df41af2 3926(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 3927
69282e91 3928=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3929
be771a83 3930(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3931before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3932
7253e4e3 3933=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 3934
7253e4e3 3935(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
b45f050a 3936shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 3937L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 3938
49704364 3939=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3940
b45f050a 3941(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
7253e4e3 3942has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
3943where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3944
49704364 3945=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3946
7253e4e3
RK
3947(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3948<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3949discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3950
1f1031fe
YO
3951=item Sequence \\%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3952
3953(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
3954sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
3955
49704364 3956=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3957
3958(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
7253e4e3
RK
3959parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3960the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3961L<perlre>.
6df41af2 3962
96ebfdd7
RK
3963=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3964
3965(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3966for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3967the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3968L<perlre>.
3969
6df41af2
GS
3970=item 500 Server error
3971
3972See Server error.
3973
a5f75d66
AD
3974=item Server error
3975
3cdd684c 3976This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
3977to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3978varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3979are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3980contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3981produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 3982
3983B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3984
be771a83
GS
3985You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3986user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3987account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3988(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3989location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3990Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 3991
06a5f41f
JH
3992 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3993 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3994 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 3995
be94a901
GS
3996You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3997
a0d0e21e
LW
3998=item setegid() not implemented
3999
be771a83
GS
4000(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4001support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4002didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4003
4004=item seteuid() not implemented
4005
be771a83
GS
4006(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4007support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4008didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4009
81777298
GS
4010=item setpgrp can't take arguments
4011
be771a83
GS
4012(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4013arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4014group ID.
81777298 4015
a0d0e21e
LW
4016=item setrgid() not implemented
4017
be771a83
GS
4018(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4019support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4020didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4021
4022=item setruid() not implemented
4023
be771a83
GS
4024(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4025support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4026didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4027
6df41af2
GS
4028=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4029
be771a83
GS
4030(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4031forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
4032L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4033
a0d0e21e
LW
4034=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
4035
be771a83
GS
4036(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
4037world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e 4038
d504a7a1
RGS
4039=item Setuid script not plain file
4040
4041(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
4042but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
4043
a0d0e21e
LW
4044=item shm%s not implemented
4045
4046(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4047
984200d0
YST
4048=item !=~ should be !~
4049
4050(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4051interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4052operators: probably not what you intended.
4053
6df41af2
GS
4054=item <> should be quotes
4055
4056(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4057C<require 'file'>.
4058
4059=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4060
4061(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
4062as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4063result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4064probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 4065
69282e91 4066=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4067
75b44862
GS
4068(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4069superfluous.
a0d0e21e 4070
f86702cc 4071=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 4072
be771a83
GS
4073(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4074Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 4075
229c18ce
RGS
4076=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4077
4078(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4079overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4080the smart match.
4081
a0d0e21e
LW
4082=item sort is now a reserved word
4083
4084(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4085But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4086
a0d0e21e
LW
4087=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4088
4089(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4090or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4091
8cbc2e3b
JH
4092=item splice() offset past end of array
4093
4094(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4095the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4096of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4097explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4098L<perlfunc/splice>.
4099
a0d0e21e
LW
4100=item Split loop
4101
be771a83
GS
4102(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4103iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4104happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 4105
a0d0e21e
LW
4106=item Statement unlikely to be reached
4107
be771a83
GS
4108(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4109die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4110unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4111instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4112a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 4113
9ddeeac9 4114=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 4115
355b1299
JH
4116(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4117was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 4118
fe13d51d 4119=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 4120
be771a83
GS
4121(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4122stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4123C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 4124
a0d0e21e
LW
4125=item Subroutine %s redefined
4126
e476b1b5 4127(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
4128
4129 {
271595cc 4130 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
4131 eval "sub name { ... }";
4132 }
4133
4134=item Substitution loop
4135
be771a83
GS
4136(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4137shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4138is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 4139L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
4140
4141=item Substitution pattern not terminated
4142
d1be9408 4143(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4144construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4145Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4146
4147=item Substitution replacement not terminated
4148
d1be9408 4149(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4150construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4151Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4152
4153=item substr outside of string
4154
be771a83
GS
4155(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4156a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4157length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4158substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4159assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 4160
bf1320bf
RGS
4161=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4162
4163(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4164inferior to its current type.
4165
49704364 4166=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4167
4168(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4169branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4170contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4171clustering parentheses:
4172
4173 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4174
7253e4e3 4175The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
4176discovered. See L<perlre>.
4177
49704364 4178=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4179
4180(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
7253e4e3 4181number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
b45f050a
JF
4182about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4183
85ab1d1d
JH
4184=item switching effective %s is not implemented
4185
be771a83
GS
4186(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4187and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 4188
2f7da168
RK
4189=item %s syntax
4190
4191(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4192
a0d0e21e
LW
4193=item syntax error
4194
4195(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4196
4197 A keyword is misspelled.
4198 A semicolon is missing.
4199 A comma is missing.
4200 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4201 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4202 A closing quote is missing.
4203
4204Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4205error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4206The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4207it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 4208before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
4209Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4210the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4211C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
be771a83
GS
4212if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4213questions>.
a0d0e21e 4214
cb1a09d0
AD
4215=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4216
be771a83
GS
4217(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4218of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4219yourself.
cb1a09d0 4220
25f58aea
PN
4221=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4222
4223(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4224a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4225or "my $var" or "our $var".
4226
b5fe5ca2
SR
4227=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4228
4229(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4230
4231=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4232
4233(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4234
6087ac44 4235=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 4236
6087ac44
JH
4237(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4238"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4239machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4240unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 4241
69282e91 4242=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4243
be771a83 4244(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4245before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4246
96ebfdd7
RK
4247=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4248
4249(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4250know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4251
fc36a67e 4252=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4253
be771a83
GS
4254(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4255for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 4256
9ddeeac9 4257=item tell() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 4258
be771a83
GS
4259(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4260was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 4261
abc7ecad
SP
4262=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4263
4264(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4265a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4266
a0d0e21e
LW
4267=item That use of $[ is unsupported
4268
be771a83
GS
4269(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4270as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e
LW
4271
4272 $[ = 0;
4273 $[ = 1;
4274 ...
4275 local $[ = 0;
4276 local $[ = 1;
4277 ...
4278
be771a83
GS
4279This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4280from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
a0d0e21e 4281
f86702cc 4282=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
4283
4284(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4285probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 4286think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
4287will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4288will deny it.
4289
6df41af2
GS
4290=item The %s function is unimplemented
4291
4292The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4293to the probings of Configure.
4294
5e1c7ca2 4295=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 4296
be771a83
GS
4297(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4298linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4299past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4300instead.
a0d0e21e 4301
371fce9b
DM
4302=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4303
1108974d 4304(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 4305
437784d6 4306=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
4307
4308=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4309
75b44862 4310(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
4311element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4312wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4313need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4314F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4315target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
4316%ENV which produced the warning.
4317
6b3c7930
JH
4318=item thread failed to start: %s
4319
4447dfc1 4320(W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
6b3c7930 4321
a0d0e21e
LW
4322=item times not implemented
4323
be771a83
GS
4324(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4325suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 4326
6d3b25aa
RGS
4327=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4328
4329(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
fe13d51d 4330B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4331This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4332script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4333So Perl gives up.
4334
4335If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4336mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
fe13d51d
JM
4337editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4338argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4339
4340If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 4341B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 4342
3a2263fe
RGS
4343=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4344
4345(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4346uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4347specified an illegal mapping.
4348See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4349
49704364
WL
4350=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4351
1a147d38 4352(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 4353
a0d0e21e
LW
4354=item Too few args to syscall
4355
4356(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4357system call to call, silly dilly.
4358
96ebfdd7
RK
4359=item Too late for "-%s" option
4360
4361(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
4362B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4363
4364In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4365not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4366
4367The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4368(with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4369this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4370script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
96ebfdd7 4371
ddda08b7
GS
4372=item Too late to run %s block
4373
4374(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4375when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
4376loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4377instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4378BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 4379
a0d0e21e
LW
4380=item Too many args to syscall
4381
5f05dabc 4382(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
4383
4384=item Too many arguments for %s
4385
4386(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4387
6df41af2
GS
4388=item Too many )'s
4389
49704364
WL
4390(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4391Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4392
8c40cb74
NC
4393=item Too many ('s
4394
be771a83
GS
4395(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4396Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4397
7253e4e3 4398=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4399
be771a83
GS
4400(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4401Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4402
2c268ad5 4403=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
4404
4405(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 4406or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4407C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4408
2c268ad5 4409=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 4410
6a36df5d
YST
4411(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4412y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 4413
96ebfdd7
RK
4414=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4415
4416(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4417disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4418
a0d0e21e
LW
4419=item truncate not implemented
4420
4421(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4422Configure knows about.
4423
4424=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4425
4426(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 4427certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4428%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
4429{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4430
eec2d3df
GS
4431=item umask not implemented
4432
be771a83
GS
4433(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4434use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 4435
4633a7c4
LW
4436=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4437
4438(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4439
a0d0e21e
LW
4440=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4441
be771a83
GS
4442(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4443many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4444
4445=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4446
be771a83
GS
4447(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4448many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
4449
4450=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4451
be771a83
GS
4452(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4453many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4454
4455=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4456
be771a83
GS
4457(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4458many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
4459
4460=item Undefined format "%s" called
4461
4462(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4463another package? See L<perlform>.
4464
4465=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4466
be771a83
GS
4467(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4468Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4469
4470=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4471
be771a83
GS
4472(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4473since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
4474
4475=item Undefined subroutine called
4476
4477(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4478or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4479
4480=item Undefined subroutine in sort
4481
be771a83
GS
4482(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4483to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 4484
4633a7c4
LW
4485=item Undefined top format "%s" called
4486
4487(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4488another package? See L<perlform>.
4489
20408e3c
GS
4490=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4491
be771a83
GS
4492(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4493C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4494C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 4495
6df41af2
GS
4496=item %s: Undefined variable
4497
be771a83
GS
4498(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4499Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4500
a0d0e21e
LW
4501=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4502
4503(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4504representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4505
6f6ac1de 4506=item Unicode non-character %s is illegal for interchange
3d401ffb 4507
6f6ac1de
RGS
4508(W utf8) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are defined by the
4509Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4510reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
5b311467
KW
4511them. In some cases, this message is also given if you use a codepoint that
4512isn't in Unicode--that is it is above the legal maximum of U+10FFFF. These
4513aren't legal at all in Unicode, so they are illegal for interchange, but can be
4514used internally in a Perl program. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4515off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
b45f050a 4516
a0d0e21e
LW
4517=item Unknown BYTEORDER
4518
be771a83
GS
4519(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4520order.
a0d0e21e 4521
6170680b
IZ
4522=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4523
437784d6 4524(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 4525of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 4526C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 4527
b4581f09
JH
4528=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4529
4530(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4531system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4532internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4533are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4534explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4535value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4536
f675dbe5
CB
4537=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4538
4539(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4540iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4541data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4542subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 4543
2f7da168
RK
4544=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4545
4546You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4547
96ebfdd7
RK
4548=item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4549
4550(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4551is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4552is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4553condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4554condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4555matched).
4556
4557The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4558discovered. See L<perlre>.
4559
a05d7ebb
JH
4560=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4561
4562You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4563of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4564
4565=item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4566
4567You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4568of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 4569
3d1a39c8
RGS
4570=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4571
4572(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4573category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4574
4575Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4576(e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
e2e6a0f1
YO
4577
4578=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4579
4580(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4581after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4582L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4583
3d1a39c8
RGS
4584first.
4585
7253e4e3 4586=item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4587
380a0633 4588(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 4589include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
7253e4e3
RK
4590first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4591was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4592
7253e4e3 4593=item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
4594
4595(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
7253e4e3
RK
4596expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4597matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4598where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4599
d98d5fff 4600=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 4601
be771a83
GS
4602(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4603ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4604general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4605you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 4606
a0d0e21e
LW
4607=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4608
be771a83
GS
4609(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4610reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4611somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4612subroutine.
a0d0e21e 4613
b1fc3636 4614=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
a0d0e21e 4615
54310121 4616(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
b1fc3636 4617in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
356c7adf 4618to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 4619
2628b4e0 4620=item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4621
be771a83
GS
4622(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4623recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 4624understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
2628b4e0
TS
4625The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4626escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4627
2f7da168
RK
4628=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4629
2628b4e0 4630(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
4631recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4632change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 4633
49704364 4634=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4635
be771a83 4636(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
4637recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4638change in a future version of Perl.
2628b4e0 4639The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
7253e4e3 4640escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4641
a0d0e21e
LW
4642=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4643
be771a83
GS
4644(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4645recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4646on your system.
a0d0e21e 4647
90248788 4648=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 4649
be771a83
GS
4650(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4651think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4652bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
4653
4654=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4655
be771a83
GS
4656(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4657operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 4658PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4659
4660=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4661
4662(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4663
6df41af2
GS
4664=item Unsupported function %s
4665
4666(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4667At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4668
54310121 4669=item Unsupported function fork
4670
4671(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4672
be771a83
GS
4673Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4674of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4675changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 4676
7aa207d6 4677=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
4678
4679(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 4680declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 4681
a0d0e21e
LW
4682=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4683
4684(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4685least that's what Configure thought.
4686
6df41af2 4687=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 4688
be771a83
GS
4689(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4690start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4691block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4692attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 4693
09bef843
SB
4694=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4695
be771a83
GS
4696(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4697an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
4698character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4699character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4700
f1991046
GS
4701=item Unterminated compressed integer
4702
4703(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4704compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4705See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4706
e2e6a0f1
YO
4707=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4708
4709(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4710the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4711
4712=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4713
4714(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4715the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4716
2bf803e2
YO
4717=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4718
4719(F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4720a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 4721
6df41af2 4722=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 4723
6df41af2 4724(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
4725a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4726not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4727earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 4728
6df41af2 4729=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 4730
be771a83
GS
4731(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4732still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 4733
8e11cd2b
JC
4734=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4735
4736(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4737See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4738
4739=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4740
4741(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4742See L<Win32> for more information.
4743
96ebfdd7 4744=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 4745
96ebfdd7
RK
4746(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4747meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 4748
96ebfdd7 4749 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4750
4751must be written as
4752
96ebfdd7 4753 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4754
4755The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4756where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4757
b4581f09
JH
4758=item Useless localization of %s
4759
4760(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4761legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4762some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4763
96ebfdd7 4764=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 4765
96ebfdd7
RK
4766(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4767meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 4768
96ebfdd7 4769 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4770
4771must be written as
4772
96ebfdd7 4773 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4774
4775The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4776where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4777
b08e453b
RB
4778=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
4779
4780(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
4781same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
4782about the /d modifier.
4783
6df41af2 4784=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 4785
75b44862 4786(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
4787nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4788value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4789often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4790to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4791get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4792said
a0d0e21e 4793
6df41af2 4794 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 4795
6df41af2
GS
4796when you meant to say
4797
4798 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4799
4800Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4801reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4802example, if you say
4803
4804 $array = (1,2);
4805
4806when you should have said
4807
4808 $array = [1,2];
4809
4810The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4811while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4812a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4813throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4814L<perlref> for more on this.
4815
65191a1e
BS
4816This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4817since they are often used in statements like
4818
4358a253 4819 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
4820
4821String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4822about.
4823
6df41af2
GS
4824=item Useless use of "re" pragma
4825
4826(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4827
a801c63c
RGS
4828=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4829
4830(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4831
4832 my $x = sort @y;
4833
4834This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4835
de4864e4
JH
4836=item Useless use of %s with no values
4837
f87c3213 4838(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
de4864e4
JH
4839apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4840usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4841possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4842if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4843you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4844
6df41af2
GS
4845=item "use" not allowed in expression
4846
be771a83
GS
4847(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4848returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 4849
55b67815
RGS
4850=item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
4851
4852(D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
4853is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
4854
c47ff5f1 4855=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 4856
8ab8f082 4857(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
83ce3e12
RGS
4858form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4859
4860=item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
4861
8ab8f082 4862(D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
83ce3e12 4863separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4633a7c4 4864
96ebfdd7
RK
4865=item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4866
4867(D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4868$ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4869behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4870will simply fail.
4871
4872Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4873blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4874
64e578a2
MJD
4875=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4876
4877(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4878modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4879
4ac733c9
MJD
4880=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4881
4882(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4883use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4884used. (This may change in the future.)
4885
036e1e65
RGS
4886=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is deprecated
4887
4888(D deprecated) The construction C<my $x := 42> currently
4889parses correctly in perl, being equivalent to C<my $x : = 42>
4890(applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>). This useless
4891construct is now deprecated, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new
4892operator in the future.
4893
b6c83531 4894=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 4895
b6c83531
JH
4896(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4897This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
4898
4899 @a = (3,4);
4900 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4901
4902You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4903For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4904reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4905middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4906
39b99f21 4907=item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4908
4909(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4910to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4911
96ebfdd7 4912=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 4913
96ebfdd7
RK
4914(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4915operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4916repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 4917
0b98bec9
RGS
4918=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
4919
4920(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
4921scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
4922
dc848c6f 4923=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4924
be771a83
GS
4925(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4926are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4927subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4928C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4929$obj->bar() >>).
dc848c6f 4930
be771a83
GS
4931This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4932methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4933code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4934currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4935C<AUTOLOAD>s.
dc848c6f 4936
4937The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
be771a83
GS
4938non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4939to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4940named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4941startup.
dc848c6f 4942
be771a83
GS
4943In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4944you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 4945C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
fb73857a 4946
609122bd
KW
4947=item Use of octal value above 377 is deprecated
4948
4949(D deprecated, W regexp) There is a constant in the regular expression whose
4950value is interpeted by Perl as octal and larger than 377 (255 decimal, 0xFF
4951hex). Perl may take this to mean different things depending on the rest of
4952the regular expression. If you meant such an octal value, convert it to
4953hexadecimal and use C<\xHH> or C<\x{HH}> instead. If you meant to have
4954part of it mean a backreference, use C<\g> for that. See L<perlre>.
4955
6df41af2
GS
4956=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4957
4958(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4959only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4960
6df41af2
GS
4961=item Use of %s is deprecated
4962
75b44862 4963(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
be771a83
GS
4964generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4965old way has bad side effects.
6df41af2 4966
96ebfdd7
RK
4967=item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4968
4969(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4970it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4971The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4972
4973=item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4974
4975(D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4976name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4977otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4978instead.
4979
1f1cc344 4980=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 4981
77b96956 4982(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
4983isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4984to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 4985
64977eb6 4986If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344
JH
4987C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4988either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
353c6505 4989operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 4990
85b81015
LW
4991=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4992
be771a83
GS
4993(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4994versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4995explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4996use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4997suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4998a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
85b81015 4999
bbd7eb8a
RD
5000=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5001
159f47d9 5002(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
5003arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5004but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5005arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5006
cc95b072 5007=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 5008
be771a83
GS
5009(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5010defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5011To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 5012
29489e7c
DM
5013To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
5014name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
5015do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
5016in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
5017displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
5018program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
5019. $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
5020even though there is no C<.> in your program.
e5be4a53 5021
a1063b2d
RH
5022=item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5023
496a33f5 5024(D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1b1f1335
NIS
5025C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
5026used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
496a33f5 5027be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d
RH
5028
5029=item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5030
496a33f5 5031(D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1b1f1335
NIS
5032C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
5033allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
496a33f5 5034removed in a future version.
a1063b2d 5035
ff3f963a
KW
5036=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5037
5038(W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5039Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5040expression pattern bracketed character class.
5041
5042=item Using just the first characters returned by \N{}
5043
5044(W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of characters. There is a finite
5045limit as to the number of characters that can be used, which this sequence
5046exceeded. In the message, the characters in the sequence are separated by
5047dots, and each is shown by its ordinal in hex. Anything to the left of the
5048C<HERE> was retained; anything to the right was discarded.
5049
9466bab6
JH
5050=item UTF-16 surrogate %s
5051
a69635b7 5052(W utf8) You tried to generate half of a UTF-16 surrogate by
507b9800
JH
5053requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
50540xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
5055UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
5056encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
e1b711da 5057character. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn off
507b9800 5058this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
9466bab6 5059
68dc0745 5060=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 5061
75b44862 5062(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
5063C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5064can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5065false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5066constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5067C<defined> operator.
a6006777 5068
f675dbe5
CB
5069=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5070
be771a83
GS
5071(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5072%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5073longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
50741024 characters.
f675dbe5 5075
b5c19bd7 5076=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 5077
b5c19bd7
DM
5078(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5079attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
42c13b56 5080This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
5081declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5082(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
42c13b56 5083subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 5084
b5c19bd7 5085 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 5086
b5c19bd7
DM
5087At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
5088since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
5089the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5090now been created and is live:
be771a83 5091
b5c19bd7
DM
5092 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5093
5094The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5095gone out of scope, for example,
5096
5097 sub f {
5098 my $a;
5099 sub { eval '$a' }
5100 }
5101 f()->();
5102
5103Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5104executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 5105
b4581f09
JH
5106=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5107
413ff9f6
FC
5108(W misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
5109that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
5110something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5111that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5112front of your variable.
5113
58e23c8d 5114=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
5115
5116(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
58e23c8d 5117known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
b4581f09
JH
5118
5119=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5120
30c282f6 5121(W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
b4581f09
JH
5122scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
5123instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
5124earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
5125all closure referents to it are destroyed.
5126
6df41af2
GS
5127=item Variable syntax
5128
5129(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5130of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5131Perl yourself.
5132
44a8e56a 5133=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5134
be771a83 5135(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 5136lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 5137
b5c19bd7 5138When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
5139the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5140call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5141outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5142longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5143variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 5144
44a8e56a 5145This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5146anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 5147reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 5148are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 5149
e2e6a0f1
YO
5150=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5151
5152(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
5153or check that you are using the right verb.
5154
5155=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5156
5157(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
5158argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5159
084610c0
GS
5160=item Version number must be a constant number
5161
5162(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5163its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5164the version number.
5165
808ee47e
SP
5166=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5167
32e998fd
RGS
5168(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5169are being ignored.
808ee47e 5170
7e1af8bc 5171=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 5172
5173(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 5174you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 5175
f86702cc 5176=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 5177
be771a83
GS
5178(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5179the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5180space.
a0d0e21e 5181
5f05dabc 5182=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 5183
be771a83
GS
5184(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5185looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5186term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5187function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
5188
5189 rand + 5;
5190
5191you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5192
5193 rand() + 5;
5194
5195but in actual fact, you got
5196
5197 rand(+5);
5198
5f05dabc 5199So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 5200
4b3603a4
JH
5201=item Wide character in %s
5202
c8f79457 5203(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
5204one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5205way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5206output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5207warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5208cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5209filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 5210
49704364
WL
5211=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5212
5213(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
5214C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
5215determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
5216of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5217
9a7dcd9c 5218=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5219
be771a83 5220(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5221before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5222
b4581f09
JH
5223=item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5224
5225When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5226into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5227this encoding, for example
5228
5229 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5230
5231if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5232
49704364 5233=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 5234
49704364
WL
5235(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5236the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 5237
49704364 5238=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
5239
5240(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5241the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5242
a0d0e21e
LW
5243=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5244
5f05dabc 5245(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 5246sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 5247about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 5248your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
5249
5250=item You need to quote "%s"
5251
be771a83
GS
5252(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5253Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5254which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5255assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5256what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 5257
6cfd5ea7
JH
5258=item Your random numbers are not that random
5259
5260(F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5261not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5262Something Very Wrong.
5263
a0d0e21e
LW
5264=back
5265
00eb3f2b
RGS
5266=head1 SEE ALSO
5267
5268L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.
5269
56e90b21 5270=cut