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remove deprecated qw-as-parens behaviour
[perl5.git] / pod / perldiag.pod
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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>
fa816bf3 26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
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27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
4438c4b7
JH
34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
6df41af2
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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
de42a5a9 53=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
1109a392
MHM
59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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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
6df41af2
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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
c2e66d9e
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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
6df41af2
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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
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92=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
93
94(W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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95bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
96(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
97like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
98assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
99clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
100really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 101
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102=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
103
104(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
105asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
106named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 107the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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108function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
109and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
110
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111=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
112
113=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 114
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115(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
116the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
1172 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
118might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
119foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
120that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
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121
122In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
123to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
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124C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
125by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
126want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
127unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
128that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
129off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 130
bdac9d71 131=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
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132
133(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
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134string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
135the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
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136write C<-foo()>.
137
79ef86ee 138=item Ambiguous use of 's//le...' resolved as 's// le...'; Rewrite as 's//el' if you meant 'use locale rules and evaluate rhs as an expression'. In Perl 5.18, it will be resolved the other way
94b03d7d 139
fa816bf3 140(W deprecated, ambiguous) You wrote a pattern match with substitution
79ef86ee 141immediately followed by "le". In Perl 5.16 and earlier, this is
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142resolved as meaning to take the result of the substitution, and see if
143it is stringwise less-than-or-equal-to what follows in the expression.
144Having the "le" immediately following a pattern is deprecated behavior,
79ef86ee 145so in Perl 5.18, this expression will be resolved as meaning to do the
94b03d7d 146pattern match using the rules of the current locale, and evaluate the
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147rhs as an expression when doing the substitution. In 5.14, and 5.16 if
148you want the latter interpretation, you can simply write "el" instead.
149But note that the C</l> modifier should not be used explicitly anyway;
150you should use C<use locale> instead. See L<perllocale>.
94b03d7d 151
6df41af2 152=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 153
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154(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
155redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
156redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 157
6df41af2 158=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 159
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160(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
161redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
162into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
163though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
164which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 165
6df41af2
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166 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
167 while (<STDIN>) {
168 print;
169 print OUT;
170 }
171 close OUT;
c9f97d15 172
6df41af2 173=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 174
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175(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
176transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 177one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 178a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
179hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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180you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
181alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 182
6df41af2 183=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 184
6df41af2 185(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 186
b0fdf69e 187=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 188
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189(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
190subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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191
192 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 193 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 194 &do_something
a0d0e21e 195
8ea97a1e 196=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 197
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198(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
199such as:
5f05dabc 200
201 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 202 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 203
8ea97a1e 204or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 205
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206 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
207 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 208
6df41af2 209=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 210
6df41af2 211(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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212name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
213error.
a0d0e21e 214
f86702cc 215=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 216
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217(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
218that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
219will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 220
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221=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
222
a534ac11
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223(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
224system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
225take care of transforming data between external and internal
226representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
227point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
228didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
229result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 230
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231=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
232
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233(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
234spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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235
236=item assertion botched: %s
237
21b5e840 238(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
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239
240=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
241
21b5e840 242(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 243
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FC
244=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
245
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246(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
247the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 248
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249=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
250
251(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
252must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
253know which context to supply to the right side.
254
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255=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
256
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257(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily
258the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
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FC
259Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
260created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
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261thread. See L<threads>.
262
2393f1b9 263=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 264
49293501 265(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 266the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 267
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268=item Attempt to bless into a reference
269
270(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 271the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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272supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
273
274 bless $self, $proto;
275
276when you intended
277
278 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
279
280If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
281of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
282example by:
283
284 bless $self, "$proto";
285
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286=item Attempt to clear deleted array
287
288(S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
289Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
290can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
291callback on the array.
292
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293=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
294
295(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
296which is not in its key set.
297
298=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
299
300(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
301declared readonly from a restricted hash.
302
de42a5a9 303=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 304
f84fe999 305(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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306that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
307outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 308
12578ffb 309=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 310
f84fe999 311(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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312strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
313strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
314of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 315
7d5b40b4 316=item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 317
f84fe999 318(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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319free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
320SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
321free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
322try to free it.
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323
324=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
325
f84fe999 326(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e 327
7d5b40b4 328=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 329
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330(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
331see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
332earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
333This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
334that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
335mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
336corrupted.
a0d0e21e 337
dcdda58d
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338=item Attempt to join self
339
340(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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341impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
342to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 343
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344=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
345
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346(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
347function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
348means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
349invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
350literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
351avoid this warning.
84902520 352
087b5369
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353=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
354
355(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
356compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
357unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
358L<perlvar/%INC>.
359
1b20cd17
NC
360=item Attempt to set length of freed array
361
362(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
363can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
fa816bf3 364of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
1b20cd17
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365
366 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
367 $$r = 503
368
b7a902f4 369=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
370
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371(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
372used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
373dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 374
c32124fe
NC
375=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
376
57dedab9
FC
377(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
378"locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
379obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
380will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
c32124fe 381
f1a3ce43
NC
382=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
383
57dedab9
FC
384(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
385the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
386The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
387will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
f1a3ce43 388
ccce04a4
FC
389=item av_reify called on tied array
390
391(S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
392confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
393
de42a5a9 394=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 395
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396(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
397or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 398S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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399S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
400
7a95317d
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401=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
402
496a33f5 403(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
7a95317d
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404substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
405most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
406
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407=item Bad filehandle: %s
408
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409(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
410symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
411open(), or did it in another package.
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412
413=item Bad free() ignored
414
be771a83 415(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
fa816bf3 416been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 417setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 418
9ea8bc6d 419This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 420dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 421which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 422
aa689395 423=item Bad hash
424
425(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
426
6df41af2
GS
427=item Badly placed ()'s
428
429(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
430of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
431Perl yourself.
432
a7cb8dae 433=item Bad name after %s
a0d0e21e 434
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435(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
436didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
437of quotes, so
a0d0e21e
LW
438
439 $var = 'myvar';
440 $sym = mypack::$var;
441
442is not the same as
443
444 $var = 'myvar';
445 $sym = "mypack::$var";
446
88e1f1a2
JV
447=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
448
449(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
450plugin API.
451
4ad56ec9
IZ
452=item Bad realloc() ignored
453
6903afa2
FC
454(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
455had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
456be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 457
a0d0e21e
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458=item Bad symbol for array
459
460(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
461wasn't a symbol table entry.
462
4df3f177
SP
463=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
464
465(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
466that wasn't a symbol table entry.
467
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468=item Bad symbol for filehandle
469
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470(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
471that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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472
473=item Bad symbol for hash
474
475(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
476wasn't a symbol table entry.
477
34d09196
GS
478=item Bareword found in conditional
479
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480(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
481conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
482of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
483
484 open FOO || die;
485
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486It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
487a bareword:
34d09196
GS
488
489 use constant TYPO => 1;
490 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
491
492The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
493
6df41af2
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494=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
495
496(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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497subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
498symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
499
500=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
501
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502(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
503compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
504you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 505
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506=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
507
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508(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
509subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
510exited.
a0d0e21e 511
68dc0745 512=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
513
514(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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515implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
516occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
517be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
518depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 519
6df41af2
GS
520=item \1 better written as $1
521
be771a83
GS
522(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
523The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
524substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
525because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
526there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 527
252aa082
JH
528=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
529
e476b1b5 530(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
531(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
532L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 533
69282e91 534=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 535
be771a83
GS
536(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
537check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 538
c289d2f7
JH
539=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
540
541(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 542Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 543
f866a7cd
FC
544=item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
545
546=item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
547
548(W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
549C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
550itself in a future release.
551
c5a0f51a
JH
552=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
553
e476b1b5 554(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 555
043c750c 556=item Bizarre copy of %s
4633a7c4 557
be771a83 558(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
4dcecea4 559copiable.
4633a7c4 560
f675dbe5
CB
561=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
562
be771a83
GS
563(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
564iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
565which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 566
7fcfef4d
FC
567=item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
568
569(P) When starting a new thread or return values from a thread, Perl
570encountered an invalid data type.
571
a0d0e21e
LW
572=item Callback called exit
573
4929bf7b 574(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
575exited by calling exit.
576
6df41af2 577=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 578
be771a83
GS
579(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
580parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
581that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
582early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
583subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
584checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
585function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
586the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 587
49704364 588=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
589
590(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
591compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
592attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
593See L<perlfunc/pack>.
594
49704364 595=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
596
597(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
598format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
599
5c1f4d79
NC
600=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
601
6903afa2
FC
602(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
603in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
604The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
605no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 606
4040665a 607=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
608
609(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 610be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 611
b5d97229
RGS
612=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
613
614(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
615either with open() or binmode().
616
7355df7e
FC
617=item Cannot set tied @DB::args
618
619(F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
620is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
621
ce65bc73
FC
622=item Cannot tie unreifiable array
623
624(P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
625keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
626do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
627Perl code, but are only used internally.
628
96ebfdd7
RK
629=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
630
631(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
632integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
633to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
634
a0d0e21e
LW
635=item Can't bless non-reference value
636
637(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
638encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
639
dc57907a
RGS
640=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
641
0d863452 642(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
6903afa2 643a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
0d863452
RH
644
645=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 646
0d863452
RH
647(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
648
6df41af2
GS
649=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
650
651(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
652object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
653like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
654
655 $BADREF = undef;
656 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
657 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
658
a0d0e21e
LW
659=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
660
54310121 661(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
662ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
663didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
664object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
665
666=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
667
668(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
669object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
670defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
671Something like this will reproduce the error:
672
673 $BADREF = 42;
674 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
675 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
676
a0d0e21e
LW
677=item Can't chdir to %s
678
679(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
680that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
681
0545a864 682=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 683
be771a83
GS
684(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
685nosuid.
104d25b7 686
22e74366 687=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
688
689(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 690(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
691say things like:
692
693 *foo += 1;
694
695You CAN say
696
697 $foo = *foo;
698 $foo += 1;
699
700but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
701
0d863452 702=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 703
0d863452
RH
704(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
705or C<default> block.
706
a0d0e21e
LW
707=item Can't create pipe mailbox
708
be771a83
GS
709(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
710quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 711
eb64745e
GS
712=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
713
30c282f6
NC
714(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
715"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 716
fc7debfb
FC
717=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
718
719(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
720C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
721issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
722error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
723
6df41af2
GS
724=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
725
be771a83
GS
726(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
727a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 728
a0d0e21e
LW
729=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
730
be771a83
GS
731(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
732reason.
a0d0e21e 733
54310121 734=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 735
be771a83
GS
736(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
737reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
738C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 739
10f9c03d 740=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 741
e476b1b5 742(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
743characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
744inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 745
7253e4e3 746=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 747
6903afa2
FC
748(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
749want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The
750<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
751was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 752
a0d0e21e
LW
753=item Can't do waitpid with flags
754
be771a83
GS
755(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
756waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 757
a0d0e21e
LW
758=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
759
be771a83
GS
760(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
761point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
762line.
a0d0e21e 763
1109a392
MHM
764=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
765
766(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
767or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
768little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
769See L<perlfunc/pack>.
770
a0d0e21e
LW
771=item Can't exec "%s": %s
772
d1be9408 773(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
774named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
775permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
776C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
777architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
778can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
779#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
780
781=item Can't exec %s
782
be771a83
GS
783(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
784that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
785need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
786
787=item Can't execute %s
788
be771a83
GS
789(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
790found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 791
6df41af2 792=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 793
be771a83
GS
794(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
795is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 796
56ca2fc0
JH
797=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
798
799(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
6903afa2 800could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
e1b711da
KW
801See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
802for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 803
6df41af2
GS
804=item Can't find label %s
805
be771a83
GS
806(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
807possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
808
809=item Can't find %s on PATH
810
be771a83
GS
811(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
812found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 813
6df41af2 814=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 815
be771a83
GS
816(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
817found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
818script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
819
820=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
821
be771a83
GS
822(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
823that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
824nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 825
fb73857a 826 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
827
97b3d10f 828If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
829included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
830may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
831a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
832L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 833
660a4616
TS
834=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
835
5f8ad6b6
FC
836(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
837property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
fa816bf3 838letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
e1b711da 839L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
6903afa2 840for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
fa816bf3
FC
841mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by
842C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
5f8ad6b6 843until C<\E>).
660a4616 844
b3647a36 845=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 846
be771a83
GS
847(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
848pipeline.
a0d0e21e 849
b3647a36
SR
850=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
851
c973c02e 852(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
853after five seconds.
854
748a9306
LW
855=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
856
be771a83
GS
857(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
858between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
859Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
860the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
861account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
862the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 863the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
864the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
865if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
866because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
867appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
868and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
869routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
870shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
871only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 872
a0d0e21e
LW
873=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
874
be771a83
GS
875(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
876pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
877
878=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
879
748a9306
LW
880(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
881mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 882
6df41af2 883=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 884
be771a83
GS
885(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
886loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
887
888=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
889
be771a83
GS
890(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
891a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
892you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
893See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 894
9850bf21 895=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 896
9850bf21
RH
897(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
898comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
899as the reduce() function in List::Util).
900
c74ace89 901=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 902
be771a83 903(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 904"string" or block.
b150fb22 905
6df41af2
GS
906=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
907
be771a83
GS
908(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
909subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
910cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
911routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 912
0b5b802d
GS
913=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
914
be771a83
GS
915(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
916signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
917signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
918processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
919situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
920may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 921
e2c0f81f
DG
922=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
923
924(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
925attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
926process identifier.
927
6df41af2 928=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 929
6df41af2 930(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
931except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
932block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
933block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
934usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
935inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
936L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 937
2c7d6b9c
RGS
938=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
939
940(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
941package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
942
b8170e59
JB
943=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
944
6903afa2
FC
945(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
946This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
947that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
948to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
949dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
950that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
951dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 952
748a9306
LW
953=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
954
2ba9eb46 955(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
956lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
957want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
958the package name.
748a9306 959
6df41af2 960=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 961
6df41af2
GS
962(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
963handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 964pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 965that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 966
ea071790 967=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a 968
fa816bf3
FC
969(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
970Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
971the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
972to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
973extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
be771a83
GS
974to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
975L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 976
6df41af2
GS
977=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
978
be771a83
GS
979(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
980autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
981are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
982the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 983
b8170e59
JB
984=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
985
986(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 987for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
988unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
989
a0d0e21e
LW
990=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
991
992(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
993functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 994method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
995
996=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
997
be771a83
GS
998(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
999doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 1000
2f7da168
RK
1001=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1002
1003(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1004e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1005
f4ad53f4 1006=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 1007
be771a83
GS
1008(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1009VMS.
3e3baf6d 1010
a0d0e21e
LW
1011=item Can't modify %s in %s
1012
be771a83
GS
1013(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1014to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 1015
54310121 1016=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
1017
1018(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1019a NULL.
1020
6df41af2
GS
1021=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
1022
1023(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 1024such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 1025
5f05dabc 1026=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 1027
5f05dabc 1028(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1029buffer.
1030
6df41af2
GS
1031=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1032
1033(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1034there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1035count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1036grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1037though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1038once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1039
46fa9b26
FC
1040=item Can't open %s
1041
1042(F) You tried to run a perl built with MAD support with
1043the PERL_XMLDUMP environment variable set, but the file
1044named by that variable could not be opened.
1045
a0d0e21e
LW
1046=item Can't open %s: %s
1047
c47ff5f1 1048(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e 1049filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
46fa9b26
FC
1050switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1051this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1052you named on the command line.
1053
1054(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1055your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
a0d0e21e 1056
9a869a14
RGS
1057=item Can't open a reference
1058
1059(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1060using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1061
1062 open FH, '>', $ref;
1063
1064but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1065open is not supported.
1066
a0d0e21e
LW
1067=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1068
be771a83
GS
1069(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1070You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1071as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1072">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1073
748a9306
LW
1074=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1075
be771a83
GS
1076(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1077redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1078the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1079
1080=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1081
be771a83
GS
1082(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1083redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1084command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1085
1086=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1087
be771a83
GS
1088(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1089redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1090the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1091
1092=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1093
be771a83
GS
1094(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1095redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1096for stdout.
748a9306 1097
3b1cf97d 1098=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1099
1100(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1101
fa3aa65a
JC
1102If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1103shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1104you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1105
6df41af2
GS
1106=item Can't read CRTL environ
1107
1108(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1109from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1110missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1111or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1112searched.
6df41af2 1113
6df41af2
GS
1114=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1115
1116(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1117there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1118count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1119or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1120though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1121loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1122
64977eb6 1123=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1124
be771a83
GS
1125(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1126file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1127the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1128
a0d0e21e
LW
1129=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1130
e476b1b5 1131(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1132probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1133
748a9306
LW
1134=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1135
be771a83
GS
1136(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1137to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1138
4f12ec0e
FC
1139=item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1140
1141(F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1142all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1143the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1144supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1145
fe13d51d 1146=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1147
1fa582fa
FC
1148(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1149opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1150package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1151
cd06dffe
GS
1152=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1153
be771a83
GS
1154(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1155temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1156is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1157
96ebfdd7
RK
1158=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1159
1160(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1161there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1162
78f9721b
SM
1163=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1164
6903afa2
FC
1165(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1166subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1167think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1168write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1169Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1170
a0d0e21e
LW
1171=item Can't stat script "%s"
1172
be771a83
GS
1173(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1174open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1175
a0d0e21e
LW
1176=item Can't take log of %g
1177
fb73857a 1178(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1179negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1180standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1181negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1182
1183=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1184
1185(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1186negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1187with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1188
1189=item Can't undef active subroutine
1190
1191(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1192however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1193redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1194
c81225bc 1195=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1196
be771a83
GS
1197(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1198into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1199specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1200indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1201
6651ba0b
FC
1202=item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1203
1204(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1205other than "=" after the module name.
1206
1db89ea5
BS
1207=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1208
e27ad1f2 1209(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1210table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1211for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1212
96ebfdd7
RK
1213=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1214
1215(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1216be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1217
6df41af2
GS
1218=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1219
be771a83
GS
1220(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1221references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1222
90b75b61 1223=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1224
20561843 1225(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1226Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1227provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1228
1109a392
MHM
1229=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1230
1231(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1232byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1233allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1234
6df41af2
GS
1235=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1236
be771a83
GS
1237(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1238foreach.
6df41af2 1239
aab6a793 1240=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1241
be771a83
GS
1242(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1243is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1244(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1245have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1246weren't.
1247
6d3b25aa
RGS
1248=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1249
1250(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1251that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1252For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1253is inside a big-endian group.
1254
c07a80fd 1255=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1256
1257(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1258You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1259and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1260Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1261lexical variable.
1262
a0d0e21e
LW
1263=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1264
1265(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1266reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1267test the type of the reference, if need be.
1268
748a9306 1269=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1270
b41bf23f
FC
1271(F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1272C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1273L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1274in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1275for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1276of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1277symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
a0d0e21e 1278
748a9306
LW
1279=item Can't use subscript on %s
1280
1281(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1282subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1283didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1284
6df41af2
GS
1285=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1286
75b44862
GS
1287(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1288creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1289backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1290expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1291value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1292instead.
6df41af2 1293
810b8aa5
GS
1294=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1295
1296(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1297references can be weakened.
1298
fc7debfb
FC
1299=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1300
1301(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1302loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1303from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1304or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1305
5f05dabc 1306=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1307
be771a83
GS
1308(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1309with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1310Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1311
4a68bf9d 1312=item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
f9d13529 1313
1fa582fa 1314(F)(W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
79ef86ee 1315It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.18. In the
17a3df4c
KW
1316cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1317derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1318
1319Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
f9d13529 1320
f337b084 1321=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1322
1323(W pack) You said
1324
1325 pack("C", $x)
1326
1327where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1328only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1329and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1330
1331 pack("C", $x & 255)
1332
1333If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1334instead.
1335
f337b084
TH
1336=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1337
1338(W pack) You said
1339
1340 pack("U0W", $x)
1341
6903afa2
FC
1342where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1343expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1344as if you meant:
f337b084
TH
1345
1346 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1347
1348=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1349
1350(W pack) You said
1351
1352 pack("c", $x)
1353
1354where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1355is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1356and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1357
1358 pack("c", $x & 255);
1359
1360If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1361instead.
1362
f337b084
TH
1363=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1364
1365(W unpack) You tried something like
1366
1367 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1368
1a147d38 1369where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1370below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1371value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1372
1373 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1374
1375=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1376
1377(W pack) You tried something like
1378
1379 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1380
1a147d38 1381where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1382value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1383uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1384
1385 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1386
1387=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1388
1389(W unpack) You tried something like
1390
1391 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1392
1a147d38 1393where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1394value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1395uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1396
1397 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1398
f866a7cd
FC
1399=item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1400
1401(D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1402to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1403evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
79ef86ee 1404ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.18. Just use a
f866a7cd
FC
1405semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1406
1407=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1408
1409(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1410non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1411written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1412characters.
1413
6651ba0b
FC
1414=item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1415
1416(F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1417
96ebfdd7
RK
1418=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1419
1420(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1421
abc7ecad
SP
1422=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1423
1424(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1425a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1426
541ed3a9
FC
1427=item Closure prototype called
1428
1429(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1430handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1431This subroutine cannot be called.
1432
49704364
WL
1433=item Code missing after '/'
1434
6903afa2
FC
1435(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1436another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1437
0876b9a0
KW
1438=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1439
c634fdd3 1440=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed
9ae3ac1a 1441
1b64326b
FC
1442(W utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1443of U+10FFFF.
1444
1445Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1446to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1447but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1448it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1449but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
145032 bit word.
0876b9a0 1451
9ae3ac1a
KW
1452None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1453code point. For example,
1454
1455 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1456
1457will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1458
1459 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1460
1461will match.
1462
94b42e47
KW
1463This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1464
1465 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Fails.
1466 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also fails!
1467
1468and both these succeed:
1469
1470 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Succeeds.
1471 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also succeeds!
1472
6df41af2
GS
1473=item %s: Command not found
1474
a892b81a
FC
1475(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1476shell instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
1477into Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
8f721816
MM
1478
1479 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
6df41af2 1480
7a2e2cd6 1481=item Compilation failed in require
1482
1483(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1484Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1485encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1486
c3464db5
DD
1487=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1488
be771a83
GS
1489(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1490situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1491to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1492arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1493recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1494under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1495in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1496that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1497on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1498
38875929
DM
1499=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1500
6903afa2
FC
1501(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1502call cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked.
1503The cond_broadcast() function is used to wake up another thread
1504that is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1505sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1506is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1507variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1508thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
38875929 1509
38875929
DM
1510=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1511
6903afa2
FC
1512(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1513call cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The
1514cond_signal() function is used to wake up another thread that
1515is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1516sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1517is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1518variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1519thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
38875929 1520
69282e91 1521=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1522
be771a83
GS
1523(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1524to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1525L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1526
41ab332f 1527=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1528
be771a83
GS
1529(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1530an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1531specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
fbb93542 1532corresponding L<overload> pragma?.
6df41af2 1533
fc8cd66c
YO
1534=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1535
1a147d38 1536(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
fbb93542 1537the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape.
fc8cd66c 1538
779c5bc9
GS
1539=item Constant is not %s reference
1540
1541(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1542is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1543The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1544usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1545See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1546
4cee8e80
CS
1547=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1548
aeb94125
FC
1549(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1550been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1551for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1552
9607fc9c 1553=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1554
be771a83
GS
1555(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1556for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1557workarounds.
9607fc9c 1558
e7ea3e70
IZ
1559=item Copy method did not return a reference
1560
6903afa2 1561(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1562L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1563
4aaa4757
FC
1564=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1565
1566(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1567with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1568in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1569called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1570
1571 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1572 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1573
6798c92b
GS
1574=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1575
1576(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1577
a0d0e21e
LW
1578=item corrupted regexp pointers
1579
1580(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1581expression compiler gave it.
1582
1583=item corrupted regexp program
1584
be771a83
GS
1585(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1586valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1587
de42a5a9 1588=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1589
1590(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1591
49704364
WL
1592=item Count after length/code in unpack
1593
1594(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1595you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1596L<perlfunc/pack>.
1597
6651ba0b
FC
1598=item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1599
a0d0e21e
LW
1600=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1601
be771a83
GS
1602(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1603100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1604infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1605which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1606
aad1d01f
NC
1607This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1608setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1609
f10b0346 1610=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1611
be771a83
GS
1612(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1613checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1614array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1615
f10b0346 1616=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1617
f0ec9725
KR
1618(D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1619discouraged since 5.004.
1620
1621Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1622becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1623weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1624These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1625
1626If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1627context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
16546e45
KR
1628
1629 if (%hash) {
1630 # not empty
1631 }
1632
f0ec9725
KR
1633If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1634variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1635a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1636it's loaded, etc.
1637
69794302 1638
bcb95744
FC
1639=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1640
6903afa2 1641(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1642most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1643of the C<....> part.
1644
1645The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1646discovered.
1647
62658f4d
PM
1648=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1649
1650(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1651there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1652
fc36a67e 1653=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1654
be771a83
GS
1655(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1656long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1657that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1658
4a68bf9d 1659=item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1660
1661(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
5fca8acb
FC
1662But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1663are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1664and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1665parentheses or colons.
cb233ae3 1666
6d3b25aa
RGS
1667=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1668
fa816bf3
FC
1669(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1670has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6d3b25aa 1671not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 1672conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
fa816bf3 1673static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 1674relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 1675declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1676
6d3b25aa
RGS
1677 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1678
1679becomes
1680
1681 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1682
fa816bf3
FC
1683Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to have
1684lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
36fb85f3
RGS
1685
1686 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1687
500ab966
RGS
1688=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1689
1690(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
1691just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1692than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 1693
3cdd684c
TP
1694=item Did not produce a valid header
1695
1696See Server error.
1697
6df41af2
GS
1698=item %s did not return a true value
1699
1700(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1701it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1702traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1703do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1704
cc507455 1705=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1706
413ff9f6
FC
1707(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1708some such.
4633a7c4 1709
cc507455 1710=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1711
be771a83
GS
1712(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1713variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1714seems superfluous.
33633739 1715
cc507455 1716=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1717
be771a83
GS
1718(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1719@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1720carried away.
748a9306 1721
7e1af8bc 1722=item Died
5f05dabc 1723
1724(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 1725you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 1726
3cdd684c
TP
1727=item Document contains no data
1728
1729See Server error.
1730
62658f4d
PM
1731=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1732
1733(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1734define a C<$VERSION.>
1735
49704364
WL
1736=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1737
1738(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1739See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1740
a0d0e21e
LW
1741=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1742
1743(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1744
1745=item do_study: out of memory
1746
1747(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1748
6df41af2
GS
1749=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1750
56da5a46
RGS
1751(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1752"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1753name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1754because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1755"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1756something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1757subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1758"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1759
ac206dc8
RGS
1760=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1761
1762(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1763qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1764
84d78eb7
YO
1765=item dump is not supported
1766
1767(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1768
a0d0e21e
LW
1769=item Duplicate free() ignored
1770
be771a83
GS
1771(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1772already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1773
1109a392
MHM
1774=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1775
1776(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1777in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1778
4633a7c4
LW
1779=item elseif should be elsif
1780
fa816bf3
FC
1781(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
1782it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1783named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1784unlikely to be what you want.
1785
ab13f0c7
JH
1786=item Empty %s
1787
af6f566e 1788(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
6903afa2 1789described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
af6f566e 1790a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1791
85ab1d1d 1792=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1793
85ab1d1d 1794(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1795effective uids or gids failed.
1796
c038024b
RGS
1797=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1798
1799(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1800aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 1801program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 1802
748a9306
LW
1803=item Error converting file specification %s
1804
5f05dabc 1805(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1806specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1807single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1808an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1809conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1810
e4d48cc9
GS
1811=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1812
be771a83
GS
1813(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1814expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1815is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1816
fc8f615e 1817=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
e4d48cc9 1818
be771a83
GS
1819(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1820C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
1821pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1822it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1823C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1824interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1825L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1826
6df41af2
GS
1827=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1828
be771a83
GS
1829(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1830assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1831pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1832
1a147d38
YO
1833=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1834
1835(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 1836any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38
YO
1837
1838The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1839discovered.
1840
fc36a67e 1841=item Excessively long <> operator
1842
1843(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1844Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1845filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1846variable and glob that.
1847
ed9aa3b7
SG
1848=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1849
af8bb25a 1850(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 1851OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 1852
fe13d51d 1853=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1854
1855(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1856
1857=item Exiting eval via %s
1858
be771a83
GS
1859(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1860goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1861
1862=item Exiting format via %s
1863
9a2ff54b 1864(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1865goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1866
0a753a76 1867=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1868
be771a83
GS
1869(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1870sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1871loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1872
a0d0e21e
LW
1873=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1874
be771a83
GS
1875(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1876as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1877
1878=item Exiting substitution via %s
1879
be771a83
GS
1880(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1881as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1882
7b8d334a
GS
1883=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1884
be771a83
GS
1885(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1886the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1887usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1888e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1889
6df41af2
GS
1890=item %s: Expression syntax
1891
be771a83
GS
1892(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1893Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1894
1895=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1896
3c10abe3
AG
1897(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1898CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1899queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1900
7253e4e3 1901=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1902
be771a83 1903(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1904character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1905in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1906"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1907problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1908
1b1ee2ef 1909=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1910
be771a83
GS
1911(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1912system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1913details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1914you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1915
1916=item fcntl is not implemented
1917
1918(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1919PDP-11 or something?
1920
22846ab4
AB
1921=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1922
1923(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1924is not possible.
1925
f337b084
TH
1926=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1927
1928(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
1929which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1930a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 1931C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 1932
af8c498a 1933=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1934
6c8d78fb
HS
1935(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1936it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1937"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1938write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1939
af8c498a 1940=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1941
6c8d78fb
HS
1942(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1943you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
1944with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1945read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1946is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1947output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1948
1949=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1950
1951(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 1952as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1953previously.
1954
1955=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1956
1957(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
fa816bf3 1958as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1959
1960=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1961
1962(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1963a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1964happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1965name.
a0d0e21e 1966
56e90b21
GS
1967=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1968
be771a83 1969(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1970some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1971filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1972same name?
56e90b21 1973
6df41af2
GS
1974=item Format not terminated
1975
1976(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1977to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1978
a0d0e21e
LW
1979=item Format %s redefined
1980
e476b1b5 1981(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1982
1983 {
271595cc 1984 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1985 eval "format NAME =...";
1986 }
1987
a0d0e21e
LW
1988=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1989
e476b1b5 1990(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1991
1992 if ($foo = 123)
1993
1994when you meant
1995
1996 if ($foo == 123)
1997
1998(or something like that).
1999
6df41af2
GS
2000=item %s found where operator expected
2001
56da5a46
RGS
2002(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2003If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
2004operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2005operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 2006
a0d0e21e
LW
2007=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2008
2009(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2010
2011=item gethostent not implemented
2012
2013(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2014because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2015on the Internet.
2016
69282e91 2017=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2018
be771a83
GS
2019(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2020socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 2021
748a9306
LW
2022=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2023
2024(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2025C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2026
6df41af2
GS
2027=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2028
be771a83
GS
2029(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2030forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2031L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2032
2033=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
2034
a4edf47d 2035(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 2036that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
2037declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2038which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 2039
e476b1b5
GS
2040=item glob failed (%s)
2041
5ead438e 2042(S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
73c4e9dc
FC
2043for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2044pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 2045nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
2046resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2047is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2048in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2049if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2050all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 2051think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 2052C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 2053
a0d0e21e
LW
2054=item Glob not terminated
2055
2056(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
2057a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2058not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2059earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 2060
bcd05b94 2061=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2062
e9200be3 2063(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2064it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2065date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2066not-a-number value).
2067
bcd05b94 2068=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2069
e9200be3 2070(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2071it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2072
6df41af2 2073=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2074
6df41af2
GS
2075(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2076version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2077
2078=item goto must have label
2079
2080(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2081unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2082
6651ba0b
FC
2083=item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2084
2085(F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2086the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2087has since been undefined.
2088
49704364 2089=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 2090
bca4a986
FC
2091(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2092something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 2093
fe13d51d 2094=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2095
2096(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2097
a0d0e21e
LW
2098=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2099
be771a83
GS
2100(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2101to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2102created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
2103
2104=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2105
be771a83
GS
2106(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2107spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 2108
6df41af2
GS
2109=item %s has too many errors
2110
2111(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2112Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2113
e6897b1a
KW
2114=item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
2115
2116(D syntax)
2117
6903afa2
FC
2118You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following
2119a pattern without an intervening space. If you are trying to use
2120the C</le> flags on a substitution, use C</el> instead. Otherwise, add
2121white space between the pattern and following word to eliminate
2122the warning. As an example of the latter, the two constructs:
2123
e6897b1a
KW
2124
2125 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
2126 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
2127
6903afa2
FC
2128both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow
2129the first form in Perl 5.18. And,
e6897b1a
KW
2130
2131 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
2132
2133will be disallowed too.
2134
252aa082
JH
2135=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2136
e476b1b5 2137(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2138(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2139L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2140
8903cb82 2141=item Identifier too long
2142
2143(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2144about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2145names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2146of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2147
c3c41406 2148=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 2149
20561843 2150(W) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a zero-length
6903afa2
FC
2151sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class its
2152behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
2153been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2154
6df41af2 2155=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 2156
6df41af2 2157(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2158
6df41af2 2159=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2160
be771a83
GS
2161(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2162binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2163offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2164
6597eb22
FC
2165=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2166
2167(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2168Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2169
78d0fecf 2170=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
4fdae800 2171
d5898338 2172(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2173would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2174when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2175version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2176to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2177
d37a9538
ST
2178=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2179
197afce1 2180(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2181Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
d37a9538 2182
904d85c5
RGS
2183=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2184
2185(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2186you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2187
8e742a20
MHM
2188=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2189
6903afa2 2190(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2191
a0d0e21e
LW
2192=item Illegal division by zero
2193
be771a83
GS
2194(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2195your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2196meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2197
6df41af2
GS
2198=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2199
be771a83
GS
2200(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2201A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2202number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2203
a0d0e21e
LW
2204=item Illegal modulus zero
2205
be771a83
GS
2206(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2207numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2208
6df41af2 2209=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2210
6df41af2
GS
2211(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2212two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2213
2214=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2215
d1be9408 2216(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2217
399388f4 2218=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2219
d1be9408 2220(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2221Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2222
fe13d51d 2223=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2224
6df41af2 2225(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2226following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2227
6df41af2 2228=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2229
75b44862 2230(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2231internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2232delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2233
6df41af2 2234=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2235
be771a83
GS
2236(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2237name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2238didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2239ignored.
54310121 2240
6df41af2 2241=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2242
be771a83
GS
2243(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2244the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2245system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2246times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2247would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2248
be771a83
GS
2249Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2250also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2251
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2252=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2253
2254(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2255C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2256documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2257
979699d9
JH
2258=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2259
2260(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2261Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2262encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2263
1a147d38
YO
2264=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2265
2266(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2267text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2268either consume text or fail.
2269
2270The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2271discovered.
2272
6dbe9451
NC
2273=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2274
6903afa2
FC
2275(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2276initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2277C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2278context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2279supported in a future perl release.
6dbe9451 2280
a0d0e21e
LW
2281=item Insecure dependency in %s
2282
8b1a09fc 2283(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2284The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2285setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2286tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2287from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2288such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2289L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2290
2291=item Insecure directory in %s
2292
be771a83
GS
2293(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2294setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2295the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2296See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2297
62f468fc 2298=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2299
2300(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2301setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2302C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2303supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2304the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2305
0e9be77f
DM
2306=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2307
2308(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2309expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2310function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2311See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2312
b9ef414d
FC
2313=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2314
2315(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2316or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2317integers for your architecture.
2318
a7ae9550
GS
2319=item Integer overflow in %s number
2320
75b44862 2321(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2322either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2323your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2324On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2325representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
23260b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2327transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2328internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2329operations.
bbce6d69 2330
46314c13
JP
2331=item Integer overflow in version
2332
2333(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2334size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2335because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2336element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2337trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2338100/9.
2339
7253e4e3 2340=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2341
2342(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2343The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2344discovered.
2345
748a9306
LW
2346=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2347
be771a83
GS
2348(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2349you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2350to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2351L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2352Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2353terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2354
7253e4e3 2355=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2356
fa816bf3 2357(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
7253e4e3
RK
2358<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2359discovered.
a0d0e21e 2360
6df41af2
GS
2361=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2362
75b44862 2363(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2364followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2365operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2366L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2367
09bef843
SB
2368=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2369
a4a4c9e2 2370(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
2371by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2372
2373=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2374
a4a4c9e2 2375(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 2376recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2377
c635e13b 2378=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2379
be771a83
GS
2380(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2381L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2382
9e08bc66
TS
2383=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2384
2385(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2386didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2387from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2388The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2389The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2390escape was discovered.
2391
8149aa9f
FC
2392=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2393
2394(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
2395number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
23960 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 2397
6651ba0b
FC
2398=item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2399
2400(F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2401cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2402arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2403B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2404
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2405=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2406
162a3e34
FC
2407(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2408where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2409the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2410a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 2411
6651ba0b
FC
2412=item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2413
2414(F) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl with
2415the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
2416See also L<< perlrun/B<-D>I<letters> >>.
2417
7253e4e3 2418=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2419
2420(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2421greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2422C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2423up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2424problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2425
d1573ac7 2426=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2427
2428(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2429character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2430
09bef843
SB
2431=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2432
0120eecf 2433(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2434elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2435parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2436See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2437
b4581f09
JH
2438=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2439
2bfc5f71
FC
2440(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2441than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
2442If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2443list was terminated too soon.
2444
2c86d456
DG
2445=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2446
fa816bf3 2447(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
2448A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2449decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2450v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2451The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2452See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2453
49704364 2454=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2455
49704364
WL
2456(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2457See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 2458
49704364 2459(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2460silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2461
2c86d456
DG
2462=item Invalid version format (%s)
2463
fa816bf3 2464(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
2465A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2466decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
fa816bf3
FC
2467v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2468must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2469optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2470trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2471after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2472text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2473for more details on allowed version formats.
46314c13 2474
798ae1b7
DG
2475=item Invalid version object
2476
fa816bf3
FC
2477(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2478Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2479an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
798ae1b7 2480
a0d0e21e
LW
2481=item ioctl is not implemented
2482
2483(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2484strange for a machine that supports C.
2485
c289d2f7
JH
2486=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2487
2488(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 2489Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 2490
fe13d51d 2491=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2492
2493(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 2494you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
2495with 'useperlio'.
2496
80cbd5ad
JH
2497=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2498
2499(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 2500neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 2501
b4581f09
JH
2502=item $* is no longer supported
2503
a58ac25e 2504(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
6903afa2 2505perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
a58ac25e
FC
2506previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2507matching within a string.
4fd19576
B
2508
2509Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
6903afa2
FC
2510modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2511with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
570dedd4 2512then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2513
8ae1fe26
RGS
2514=item $# is no longer supported
2515
a58ac25e 2516(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
6903afa2 2517perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
a58ac25e 2518should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
8ae1fe26 2519
ccf3535a 2520=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 2521
6903afa2
FC
2522(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2523overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2524an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 2525
ccf3535a 2526=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 2527
04a80ee0
RGS
2528(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2529unaware of.
6ad11d81 2530
a0d0e21e
LW
2531=item junk on end of regexp
2532
2533(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2534
2535=item Label not found for "last %s"
2536
be771a83
GS
2537(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2538of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2539L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2540
2541=item Label not found for "next %s"
2542
2543(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2544that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2545L<perlfunc/last>.
2546
2547=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2548
2549(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2550that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2551L<perlfunc/last>.
2552
85ab1d1d 2553=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2554
85ab1d1d 2555(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2556effective uids or gids failed.
2557
49704364
WL
2558=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2559
d7f8936a 2560(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
2561length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2562an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 2563
e508c8a4
MH
2564=item length() used on %s
2565
0d46a4e7
FC
2566(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2567probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
2568
2569Array size can be obtained by doing:
2570
2571 scalar(@array);
2572
2573The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2574
2575 scalar(keys %hash);
2576
f0e67a1d
Z
2577=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2578
2579(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
6903afa2
FC
2580(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2581couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2582of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
2583it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
2584
2585=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2586
2587(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2588detectable way.
2589
69282e91 2590=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2591
be771a83
GS
2592(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2593to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2594L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2595
6651ba0b
FC
2596=item List form of piped open not implemented
2597
2598(F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
2599form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
2600Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
2601
bcd05b94 2602=item localtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2603
e9200be3 2604(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
fc003d4b 2605than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
6903afa2 2606wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2607not-a-number value).
2608
bcd05b94 2609=item localtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2610
e9200be3 2611(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
fc003d4b 2612than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
e7a1a147 2613wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2614
58e23c8d 2615=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2616
2617(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 2618handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2619
b88df990
NC
2620=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2621
2622(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2623for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
6903afa2 2624hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
b88df990
NC
2625because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2626are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2627You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2628
93fad930 2629=item lstat() on filehandle%s
2f7da168
RK
2630
2631(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2632by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2633instead on the filehandle.)
2634
345d70e3 2635=item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
bb3abb05 2636
345d70e3
FC
2637(W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
2638attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
2639does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
2640want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
2641details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
2642if you really know what you are doing.
bb3abb05 2643
885ef6f5
GG
2644=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2645
345d70e3
FC
2646(W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
2647subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
2648not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
2649add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
2650foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
2651
2652See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
885ef6f5 2653
2db62bbc 2654=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 2655
2db62bbc 2656(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2657are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2658
2659=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2660
2db62bbc 2661(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2662are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2663
6df41af2
GS
2664=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2665
2666(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2667
2668 prefix1;prefix2
2669
2670or
6df41af2
GS
2671 prefix1 prefix2
2672
be771a83
GS
2673with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2674a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2675appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2676"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2677
2f758a16
ST
2678=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2679
d37a9538
ST
2680(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2681syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2682obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2683when the function is called.
2f758a16 2684
ba210ebe
JH
2685=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2686
4d6f11e5 2687(S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2575c402 2688encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2689
2575c402
JW
2690One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2691you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
6903afa2 26928-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2575c402
JW
2693
2694If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2695sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2696set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2697message.
2698
2699See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2700
ff3f963a
KW
2701=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2702
2703(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2704
4a5d3a93
FC
2705=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2706
2707(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2708rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2709
f337b084
TH
2710=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2711
2712(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2713rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2714
2715=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2716
2717(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2718rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2719
4a5d3a93 2720=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 2721
4a5d3a93
FC
2722(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2723doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2724
2725=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2726
2727(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2728regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2729shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2730See L<perlre>.
f337b084 2731
de42a5a9 2732=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 2733
6903afa2 2734(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2735usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2736too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2737resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 2738safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 2739
25f58aea
PN
2740=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2741
2742(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2743interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2744"use" or "my".
2745
0d2487cd 2746=item '%' may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2747
2748(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2749checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2750See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2751
a0d0e21e
LW
2752=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2753
2754(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2755doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2756
3cdd684c
TP
2757=item Method %s not permitted
2758
2759See Server error.
2760
a0d0e21e
LW
2761=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2762
2763(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2764by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2765ended earlier on the current line.
2766
2767=item Misplaced _ in number
2768
d4ced10d
JH
2769(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2770separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2771
7baa4690
HS
2772=item Missing argument in %s
2773
2774(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2775supplied.
2776
9e81e6a1
RGS
2777=item Missing argument to -%c
2778
2779(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2780immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2781
ff3f963a 2782=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2783
4a2d328f 2784(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
2785double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2786(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2787This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2788follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 2789
f0a2b745
KW
2790=item Missing braces on \o{}
2791
2792(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2793
a0d0e21e
LW
2794=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2795
2796(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2797"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2798
06eaf0bc
GS
2799=item Missing command in piped open
2800
be771a83
GS
2801(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2802C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2803blank.
06eaf0bc 2804
961ce445
RGS
2805=item Missing control char name in \c
2806
2807(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2808character name.
2809
6df41af2
GS
2810=item Missing name in "my sub"
2811
be771a83
GS
2812(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2813they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2814
2815=item Missing $ on loop variable
2816
be771a83
GS
2817(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2818are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2819can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2820
cc507455 2821=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2822
56da5a46
RGS
2823(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2824"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2825
ab13f0c7
JH
2826=item Missing right brace on %s
2827
ff3f963a
KW
2828(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2829
4a68bf9d 2830=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 2831
d32207c9
FC
2832(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2833
2834The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2835meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
fa816bf3 2836name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
d32207c9
FC
2837double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2838it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2839
2840Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2841in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2842for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2843
2844This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2845by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2846form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2847means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
28483; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2849C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2850
2851However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2852mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2853If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2854escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2855
d98d5fff 2856=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2857
be771a83
GS
2858(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2859ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2860were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2861
6df41af2
GS
2862=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2863
56da5a46
RGS
2864(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2865"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2866the previous line just because you saw this message.
2867
a0d0e21e
LW
2868=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2869
2870(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2871constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2872catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2873
2874 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2875 mod(2);
2876
2877Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2878
c5674021
PDF
2879Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2880is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2881
b7e4ecc1
FC
2882 $x = 1;
2883 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2884 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
2885 } # modify the 2
c5674021 2886
7a4340ed 2887=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2888
2889(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2890subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2891backwards.
2892
7a4340ed 2893=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2894
be771a83
GS
2895(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2896couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2897
2898=item Module name must be constant
2899
2900(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2901
be98fb35 2902=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2903
be98fb35
GS
2904(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2905you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2906about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2907
fe13d51d 2908=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 2909
6903afa2 2910(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
2911can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2912list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2913See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2914
a0d0e21e
LW
2915=item msg%s not implemented
2916
2917(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2918
2919=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2920
75b44862
GS
2921(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2922They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2923
49704364 2924=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2925
49704364
WL
2926(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2927follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2928See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2929
2930=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2931
be771a83
GS
2932(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2933that yet.
6df41af2 2934
fd1b7234 2935=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2936
be771a83
GS
2937(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2938sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2939local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2940
8149aa9f
FC
2941=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2942
2943(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2944If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2945again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2946provided for this purpose.
2947
2948NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2949%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2950the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2951will not trigger this warning.
2952
4a68bf9d 2953=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
ff3f963a 2954
c3c41406 2955(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
f4e361c7
FC
2956character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses
2957its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not
2958what you want.
c3c41406 2959
4a68bf9d 2960=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
c3c41406 2961
f4e361c7
FC
2962(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
2963sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
2964bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
7fae04b9 2965backslash in double-quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2966
2967 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2968 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2969 /$re/;
2970
b09c05e6 2971Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2972
2973 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2974 /$re/;
2975
2976The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2977components:
2978
2979 $re = '\N';
2980 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2981
2982It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2983doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2984
2985Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2986C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2987
2988 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2989 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2990
49704364
WL
2991=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2992
2993(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2994negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2995
a0d0e21e
LW
2996=item Negative length
2997
be771a83
GS
2998(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2999length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 3000
ed9aa3b7
SG
3001=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3002
3003(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3004greater than or equal to zero.
3005
7253e4e3 3006=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3007
6903afa2
FC
3008(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3009So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the
3010regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 3011
7253e4e3 3012Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 3013C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3014
6df41af2 3015=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 3016
be771a83
GS
3017(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3018scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 3019
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3020=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3021
3022(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3023real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3024See L<mro>.
3025
a0d0e21e
LW
3026=item No %s allowed while running setuid
3027
be771a83
GS
3028(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3029setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3030will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3031securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 3032
6651ba0b
FC
3033=item No code specified for -%c
3034
3035(F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3036you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3037argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3038
3039 perl -e ""
3040 perl -e0
3041 perl -e1
3042
a0d0e21e
LW
3043=item No comma allowed after %s
3044
6903afa2
FC
3045(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3046not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
3047Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3048
6903afa2
FC
3049One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3050a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3051importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3052system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3053use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3054please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3055explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3056it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3057still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3058the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3059constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 3060
748a9306
LW
3061=item No command into which to pipe on command line
3062
be771a83
GS
3063(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3064redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3065doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 3066
a0d0e21e
LW
3067=item No DB::DB routine defined
3068
be771a83 3069(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 3070for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
3071module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3072statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
3073
3074=item No dbm on this machine
3075
3076(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 3077supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 3078
ccafdc96 3079=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 3080
ccafdc96
RGS
3081(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3082for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3083module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3084of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 3085
6651ba0b
FC
3086=item No directory specified for -I
3087
3088(F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3089I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3090
c47ff5f1 3091=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 3092
be771a83
GS
3093(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3094redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3095find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 3096
49704364
WL
3097=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3098
3099(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 3100matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 3101
c47ff5f1 3102=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 3103
be771a83
GS
3104(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3105redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3106name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 3107
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3108=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3109
3110(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3111in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3112it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
fa816bf3 3113or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2c7d6b9c 3114
6df41af2
GS
3115=item "no" not allowed in expression
3116
be771a83
GS
3117(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3118returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 3119
c47ff5f1 3120=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 3121
be771a83
GS
3122(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3123redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3124doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 3125
c47ff5f1 3126=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 3127
be771a83
GS
3128(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3129redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3130find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 3131
1ec3e8de
GS
3132=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3133
be771a83
GS
3134(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3135declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3136semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 3137
a0d0e21e
LW
3138=item No Perl script found in input
3139
3140(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3141with #! and containing the word "perl".
3142
3143=item No setregid available
3144
3145(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3146your system.
3147
3148=item No setreuid available
3149
3150(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3151your system.
3152
e75d1f10
RD
3153=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3154
b7e4ecc1
FC
3155(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3156variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3157The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3158L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 3159
2c692339
RGS
3160=item No such class %s
3161
dc7e5945
FC
3162(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3163declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2c692339 3164
3c20a832
SP
3165=item No such hook: %s
3166
dc7e5945
FC
3167(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3168Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 3169
6df41af2
GS
3170=item No such pipe open
3171
3172(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
3173close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3174earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 3175
a0d0e21e
LW
3176=item No such signal: SIG%s
3177
be771a83
GS
3178(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3179not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3180names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
3181
3182=item Not a CODE reference
3183
3184(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3185subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3186use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3187also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3188
3189=item Not a format reference
3190
3191(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
3192format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
3193
3194=item Not a GLOB reference
3195
be771a83
GS
3196(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3197symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3198something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3199kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3200
3201=item Not a HASH reference
3202
be771a83
GS
3203(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3204reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3205find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3206
6df41af2
GS
3207=item Not an ARRAY reference
3208
be771a83
GS
3209(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3210a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3211to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 3212
d4fc4415
FC
3213=item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3214
3215(F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3216another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3217or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3218
a0d0e21e
LW
3219=item Not a SCALAR reference
3220
be771a83
GS
3221(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3222a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3223to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3224
3225=item Not a subroutine reference
3226
3227(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3228subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3229use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3230also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3231
e7ea3e70 3232=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3233
3234(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3235doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3236
a0d0e21e
LW
3237=item Not enough arguments for %s
3238
3239(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3240
6df41af2
GS
3241=item Not enough format arguments
3242
be771a83
GS
3243(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3244supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3245
3246=item %s: not found
3247
be771a83
GS
3248(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3249of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3250yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3251
3252=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3253
6df41af2
GS
3254(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3255timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3256to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3257F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3258need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3259
f0a2b745
KW
3260=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3261
fa816bf3
FC
3262(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3263unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3264is as indicated.
f0a2b745 3265
4ef2275c
GA
3266=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3267
3268(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3269Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
6903afa2 3270select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4ef2275c 3271
a0d0e21e
LW
3272=item Null filename used
3273
be771a83
GS
3274(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3275machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 3276
6df41af2
GS
3277=item NULL OP IN RUN
3278
f84fe999 3279(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 3280pointer.
6df41af2 3281
55497cff 3282=item Null picture in formline
3283
3284(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3285specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3286supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3287
a0d0e21e
LW
3288=item Null realloc
3289
3290(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3291
3292=item NULL regexp argument
3293
5f05dabc 3294(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3295
3296=item NULL regexp parameter
3297
3298(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3299
fc36a67e 3300=item Number too long
3301
be771a83 3302(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3303about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3304versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3305the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3306"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3307
f0a2b745
KW
3308=item Number with no digits
3309
1043934d 3310(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 3311a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 3312the braces.
f0a2b745 3313
252aa082
JH
3314=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3315
75b44862 3316(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3317(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3318L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 3319
6ad11d81
JH
3320=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3321
04a80ee0 3322(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 3323arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3324
b21befc1
MG
3325=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3326
3327(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3328which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3329
1930e939 3330=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3331
be771a83
GS
3332(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3333which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3334
bbce6d69 3335=item Offset outside string
3336
1fa582fa 3337(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 3338with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3339imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3340take place when going past the end of the string when either
3341C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3342for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3343with real files).
bbce6d69 3344
c289d2f7 3345=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3346
3347(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3348never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3349call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3350
96ebfdd7
RK
3351=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3352
3353(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3354that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3355
a0d0e21e
LW
3356=item oops: oopsAV
3357
e476b1b5 3358(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3359
3360=item oops: oopsHV
3361
e476b1b5 3362(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3363
abc718f2
RGS
3364=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3365
a4a4c9e2 3366(W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3367a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3368Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3369and is deprecated.
3370
3371=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3372
a4a4c9e2 3373(W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3374a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3375Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3376and is deprecated.
3377
a0288114 3378=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3379
be771a83
GS
3380(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3381handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3382of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 3383the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3384
5ff1373f 3385=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 3386
8457b38f 3387(W utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
73c4e9dc
FC
3388semantics on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do
3389is not defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3390
3391If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3392matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3393
3394If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3395C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 3396
5ff1373f 3397=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 3398
8457b38f 3399(W utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
73c4e9dc
FC
3400semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of
3401surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics
3402are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and they are to do
3403nothing for this operation. Because the use of surrogates can be
3404dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3405
3406If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3407matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3408
3409If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3410C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 3411
748a9306
LW
3412=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3413
be771a83
GS
3414(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3415was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3416use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3417example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3418"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3419
6df41af2
GS
3420=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3421
be771a83
GS
3422(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3423in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3424
a80b8354
GS
3425=item Out of memory!
3426
3427(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3428remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3429no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3430
19a52907
JH
3431At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3432process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3433C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3434the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3435and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3436
6d3b25aa
RGS
3437=item Out of memory during %s extend
3438
3439(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3440the largest possible memory allocation.
3441
6df41af2 3442=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 3443
6df41af2 3444(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
6903afa2 3445remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
3446the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3447possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 3448
1b979e0a 3449=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 3450
1fa582fa 3451(X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
be771a83
GS
3452insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3453request.
eff9c6e2
CS
3454
3455The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3456depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
3457However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3458emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
3459is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3460where the failed request happened.
55497cff 3461
1b979e0a
IZ
3462=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3463
3464(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
3465is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3466C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 3467
6df41af2
GS
3468=item Out of memory for yacc stack
3469
be771a83
GS
3470(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3471parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3472otherwise.
6df41af2 3473
28be1210
TH
3474=item '.' outside of string in pack
3475
3476(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3477position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3478
49704364 3479=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 3480
49704364 3481(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
3482the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3483
f337b084
TH
3484=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3485
3486(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6903afa2 3487the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
fa816bf3 3488UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
f337b084 3489
7778d804
FC
3490=item overload arg '%s' is invalid
3491
3492(W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
3493recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
3494
7cb0cfe6
BM
3495=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3496
3497(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
6903afa2 3498but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
7cb0cfe6
BM
3499L<overload>.
3500
3501=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3502
3503(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
6903afa2 3504overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
7cb0cfe6 3505
6df41af2
GS
3506=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3507
be771a83
GS
3508(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3509package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3510some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3511mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 3512
96ebfdd7
RK
3513=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3514
3515(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3516signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3517
a0d0e21e
LW
3518=item page overflow
3519
be771a83
GS
3520(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3521page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 3522
6df41af2
GS
3523=item panic: %s
3524
3525(P) An internal error.
3526
c99a1475
NC
3527=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3528
3529(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3530an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3531platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3532enter this branch on this platform.
3533
5637ef5b 3534=item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3535
3536(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3537
5637ef5b 3538=item panic: ck_split, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3539
3540(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3541
5637ef5b 3542=item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
a0d0e21e 3543
be771a83
GS
3544(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3545there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 3546
810b8aa5
GS
3547=item panic: del_backref
3548
3549(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3550reference.
3551
a0d0e21e
LW
3552=item panic: die %s
3553
3554(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3555it wasn't an eval context.
3556
a0d0e21e
LW
3557=item panic: do_subst
3558
be771a83
GS
3559(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3560data.
a0d0e21e 3561
2269b42e 3562=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 3563
2269b42e 3564(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 3565data.
a0d0e21e 3566
b7f7fd0b
NC
3567=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3568
10203f38 3569(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
3570failure was caught.
3571
c635e13b 3572=item panic: frexp
3573
3574(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3575
5637ef5b 3576=item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
a0d0e21e
LW
3577
3578(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3579and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3580
b0d55c99
FC
3581=item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
3582
3583(P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
6903afa2
FC
3584repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
3585Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
3586the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
b0d55c99 3587
5637ef5b 3588=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3589
3590(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3591
5637ef5b 3592=item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3593
3594(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3595
e446cec8
IZ
3596=item panic: kid popen errno read
3597
3598(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3599
5637ef5b 3600=item panic: last, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3601
3602(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3603it wasn't a block context.
3604
3605=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3606
be771a83
GS
3607(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3608scope.
a0d0e21e 3609
5637ef5b 3610=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
a0d0e21e
LW
3611
3612(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3613invalid enum on the top of it.
3614
810b8aa5
GS
3615=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3616
3617(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3618references to an object.
3619
5637ef5b 3620=item panic: malloc, %s
6df41af2
GS
3621
3622(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3623
27d5b266
JH
3624=item panic: memory wrap
3625
3626(P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3627
5637ef5b 3628=item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3629
3630(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3631and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3632
5637ef5b 3633=item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3634
3635(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3636and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3637
3638=item panic: pad_free po
3639
3640(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3641
5637ef5b 3642=item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3643
3644(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3645and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3646
3647=item panic: pad_sv po
3648
3649(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3650
5637ef5b 3651=item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3652
3653(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3654and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3655
3656=item panic: pad_swipe po
3657
3658(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3659
5637ef5b 3660=item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3661
3662(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3663
96ebfdd7
RK
3664=item panic: pp_match%s
3665
3666(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3667data.
3668
5637ef5b 3669=item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
2269b42e
JH
3670
3671(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3672
5637ef5b 3673=item panic: realloc, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3674
3675(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3676
ccfb6d2e
FC
3677=item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
3678
3679(P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
3680reference count other than 1.
3681
5637ef5b 3682=item panic: restartop in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3683
3684(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3685didn't supply the destination.
3686
5637ef5b 3687=item panic: return, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3688
3689(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3690then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3691
5637ef5b 3692=item panic: scan_num, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3693
3694(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3695
6c65d5f9
NC
3696=item panic: sv_chop %s
3697
3698(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3699scalar's string buffer.
3700
5637ef5b 3701=item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3702
3703(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3704was string.
3705
ad49ad39
NC
3706=item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
3707
3708(P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
3709In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab" is
3710shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
3711
a0d0e21e
LW
3712=item panic: top_env
3713
6224f72b 3714(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 3715
65bca31a
NC
3716=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3717
a1efa96e
FC
3718(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
3719permitted at run time.
65bca31a 3720
dea0fc0b
JH
3721=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3722
3723(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 3724to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 3725
e0ea5e2d
NC
3726=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3727
3728(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3729to even) byte length.
3730
5637ef5b 3731=item panic: yylex, %s
2f7da168
RK
3732
3733(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3734
28ac2b49
Z
3735=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3736
3737(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3738a detectable way.
3739
1a147d38
YO
3740=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3741
3742(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
6903afa2
FC
3743consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
3744the nesting limit is exceeded.
1a147d38
YO
3745
3746The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3747discovered.
3748
7b8d334a 3749=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 3750
e476b1b5 3751(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
3752
3753 my $foo, $bar = @_;
3754
3755when you meant
3756
3757 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3758
30c282f6 3759Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 3760
96ebfdd7
RK
3761=item C<-p> destination: %s
3762
3763(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3764command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3765redirected it with select().)
3766
3767=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3768
3769(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3770"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3771that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3772
801eb083 3773=item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%x; please use the perlbug utility to report
d50a4f90
KW
3774
3775(W regex, deprecated) You used a regular expression with
3776case-insensitive matching, and there is a bug in Perl in which the
3777built-in regular expression folding rules are not accurate. This may
3778lead to incorrect results. Please report this as a bug using the
3779"perlbug" utility. (This message is marked deprecated, so that it by
3780default will be turned-on.)
3781
1109a392
MHM
3782=item Perl_my_%s() not available
3783
3784(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3785so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3786conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3787'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3788
6651ba0b
FC
3789=item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
3790
3791(F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
3792Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
3793of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
3794interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
3795decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
3796is equivalent to v5.100.
3797
6d3b25aa
RGS
3798=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3799
3800(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3801recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3802you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3803
6df41af2
GS
3804=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3805
fa816bf3 3806(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 3807C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3808
96ebfdd7
RK
3809=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3810
3811See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3812
6651ba0b
FC
3813=item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
3814
3815(F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
3816on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
3817Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
3818wrong and the version check should just be removed.
3819
6df41af2
GS
3820=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3821
3822(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3823
3824 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3825 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3826 LC_ALL = "En_US",
3827 LANG = (unset)
3828 are supported and installed on your system.
3829 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3830
3831Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3832settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
3833This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3834system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3835locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3836dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4b07a369
FC
3837Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
3838fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
3839time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
0ea6b70f 3840L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 3841
bd3fa61c 3842=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 3843
be771a83
GS
3844(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3845process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3846fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 3847
49704364 3848=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
3849
3850(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3851
96ebfdd7
RK
3852=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3853
3854(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3855shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3856Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3857the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3858not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3859
3860=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3861
3862(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3863the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3864
49704364 3865=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3866
9a0b3859 3867(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
3868I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3869/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3870implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3871cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3872where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3873
49704364 3874=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3875
3876(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
3877beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3878If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3879expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3880backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3881about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3882
49704364 3883=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3884
7253e4e3
RK
3885(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3886with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3887need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3888character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3889and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3890problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3891
bbce6d69 3892=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3893
e476b1b5 3894(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 3895strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
3896literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3897parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3898
774d564b 3899You probably wrote something like this:
3900
54310121 3901 @list = qw(
774d564b 3902 a # a comment
bbce6d69 3903 b # another comment
774d564b 3904 );
bbce6d69 3905
3906when you should have written this:
3907
774d564b 3908 @list = qw(
54310121 3909 a
3910 b
774d564b 3911 );
3912
3913If you really want comments, build your list the
3914old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3915
3916 @list = (
3917 'a', # a comment
3918 'b', # another comment
3919 );
bbce6d69 3920
3921=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3922
be771a83
GS
3923(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3924commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3925different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3926frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3927
54310121 3928You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 3929
774d564b 3930 qw! a, b, c !;
3931
3932which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3933commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 3934
774d564b 3935 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 3936
a0d0e21e
LW
3937=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3938
3939(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3940Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3941end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3942Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3943
276b2a0c
RGS
3944=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3945
3946(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3947with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3948
3949 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3950
3951This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
6903afa2 3952higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
96a925ab
YST
3953really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3954parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
276b2a0c 3955
77772344
B
3956=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3957
3958(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3959The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 3960record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
3961followed by the word 'bar'.
3962
3963If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3964C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3965
3966If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3967followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3968C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3969
e5035638
FC
3970=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3971
ccf3535a 3972(W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
6903afa2 3973but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
e5035638
FC
3974literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3975to the array you apparently lost track of.
3976
a0d0e21e
LW
3977=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3978
e476b1b5 3979(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 3980
a0d0e21e
LW
3981 open FOO || die;
3982
3983is now misinterpreted as
3984
3985 open(FOO || die);
3986
be771a83
GS
3987because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3988list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3989parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3990of "||".
a0d0e21e 3991
3cdd684c
TP
3992=item Premature end of script headers
3993
3994See Server error.
3995
6df41af2
GS
3996=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3997
be771a83 3998(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3999before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 4000
9a7dcd9c 4001=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4002
be771a83 4003(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4004before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4005
6df41af2 4006=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 4007
6df41af2
GS
4008(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
4009applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
4010port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
4011L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 4012in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 4013
327323c1
RGS
4014=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
4015
fa816bf3
FC
4016(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
4017useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
327323c1 4018
3fe9a6f1 4019=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 4020
9a0b3859 4021(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 4022declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 4023
ed9aa3b7
SG
4024=item Prototype not terminated
4025
2a6fd447 4026(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
4027definition.
4028
f9eb106c
FC
4029=item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
4030
4031(W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
4032match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
4033use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
4034class, which should know about the locale's rules.
4035(See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
4036
4037Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
4038Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
4039subset.
4040
4041Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
4042locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
4043CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
4044"MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
4045meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
4046should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
4047positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
4048incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
4049is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
4050case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
4051change when upper cased.
4052
96ebfdd7
RK
4053=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4054
6903afa2
FC
4055(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
4056you meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4057about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 4058
49704364 4059=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 4060
6903afa2
FC
4061(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
4062the {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4063about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 4064
49704364 4065=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 4066
b45f050a
JF
4067(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
4068it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
4069quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
4070"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
4071C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 4072
7253e4e3
RK
4073The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4074discovered.
4075
89ea2908
GA
4076=item Range iterator outside integer range
4077
4078(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
4079are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
4080One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
4081by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 4082
3b7fbd4a
SP
4083=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4084
1a147d38 4085(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
4086a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4087
96ebfdd7
RK
4088=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
4089
4090(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
4091before now. Check your control flow.
4092
b5fe5ca2
SR
4093=item read() on closed filehandle %s
4094
4095(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4096
4097=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
4098
4099(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4100
de42a5a9 4101=item Reallocation too large: %x
6df41af2
GS
4102
4103(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
4104
4ad56ec9
IZ
4105=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
4106
be771a83
GS
4107(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
4108already been freed.
4ad56ec9 4109
a0d0e21e
LW
4110=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
4111
be771a83
GS
4112(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
4113the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
4114which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
4115
6651ba0b
FC
4116=item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
4117
4118(P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
4119a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
4120$fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
4121loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
4122
3e0ccd42 4123=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 4124
2c7d6b9c
RGS
4125(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
4126believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
4127crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 4128
12605ff9
FC
4129=item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
4130
2e0cfa16
FC
4131=item refcnt: fd %d%s
4132
12605ff9
FC
4133=item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
4134
fa816bf3 4135(P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
2e0cfa16
FC
4136you see this message, something is very wrong.
4137
1930e939
TP
4138=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
4139
be771a83 4140(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
6903afa2
FC
4141with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
4142usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
4143to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
4144
4145 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
4146 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
4147 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
4148 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
4149
810b8aa5
GS
4150=item Reference is already weak
4151
e476b1b5 4152(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
4153Doing so has no effect.
4154
b72d83b2
RGS
4155=item Reference to invalid group 0
4156
6903afa2
FC
4157(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
4158to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
4159(normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4160backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
b72d83b2 4161
49704364 4162=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4163
4164(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
6903afa2 4165not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
bbaee129
FC
4166you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4167expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 4168
7253e4e3 4169The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 4170discovered.
9baa0206 4171
1a147d38
YO
4172=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4173
4174(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
9381611c 4175expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
6903afa2 4176such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
9381611c 4177spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
1a147d38
YO
4178
4179The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4180discovered.
4181
bcb95744 4182=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1a147d38 4183
bcb95744
FC
4184(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4185are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4186expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
1a147d38
YO
4187
4188The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4189discovered.
4190
a0d0e21e
LW
4191=item regexp memory corruption
4192
4193(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4194expression compiler gave it.
4195
ff3f26d2
KW
4196=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4197
3955e1a9
KW
4198=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4199
f6a766d5 4200(F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
ff3f26d2 4201of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
3955e1a9 4202
9442e3b8
KW
4203=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-"
4204
4205(F regexp) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning
4206on another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
4207expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4208the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4209
3955e1a9
KW
4210=item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4211
f6a766d5 4212(F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
3955e1a9
KW
4213mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4214supposed to be there.
4215
b45f050a 4216=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 4217
be771a83
GS
4218(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4219earlier.
a0d0e21e 4220
a1b95068
WL
4221=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
4222
d7f8936a 4223(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068 4224numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
6903afa2 4225terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
a1b95068 4226
b08e453b
RB
4227=item Replacement list is longer than search list
4228
4229(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
fa816bf3 4230search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
b08e453b
RB
4231are meaningless.
4232
a0d0e21e
LW
4233=item Reversed %s= operator
4234
be771a83 4235(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
964742a1 4236always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 4237
abc7ecad
SP
4238=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4239
4240(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
4241really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4242
96ebfdd7
RK
4243=item Scalars leaked: %d
4244
4245(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
4246not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
4247What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
4248especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
4249
a0d0e21e
LW
4250=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4251
be771a83
GS
4252(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4253single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4254value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4255behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4256argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4257and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4258if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 4259
748a9306 4260On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 4261element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
4262Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4263L<perlref>.
4264
a6006777 4265=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4266
75b44862 4267(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
4268element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4269(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4270like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4271argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4272and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4273if you're expecting only one subscript.
4274
4275On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4276as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4277not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 4278L<perlref>.
4279
a0d0e21e
LW
4280=item Search pattern not terminated
4281
4282(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4283construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4284Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4285
0cb1bcd7 4286Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd
JH
4287construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
4288in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4289misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4290
25c09cbf
SF
4291=item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
4292
4293(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
4294construct.
4295
4296The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
4297C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
6903afa2 4298parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
25c09cbf
SF
4299the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
4300
abc7ecad
SP
4301=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4302
4303(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4304really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4305
3257ea4f
FC
4306=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4307
4308(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4309filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4310
a0d0e21e
LW
4311=item select not implemented
4312
4313(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4314
ae21d580 4315=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 4316
ae21d580
JH
4317(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4318the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 4319
6df41af2 4320=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 4321
75b44862
GS
4322(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4323semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
4324
4325=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4326
be771a83
GS
4327(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4328scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 4329
6df41af2 4330=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 4331
6df41af2 4332(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 4333
69282e91 4334=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4335
be771a83 4336(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4337before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4338
7253e4e3 4339=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 4340
6903afa2
FC
4341(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
4342<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4343discovered. See L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 4344
49704364 4345=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4346
6903afa2
FC
4347(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
4348but has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
4349expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4350
49704364 4351=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4352
7253e4e3
RK
4353(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4354<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
fb85c044
KW
4355discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4356Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9442e3b8 4357redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
9de15fec 4358causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4359
4a68bf9d 4360=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1f1031fe
YO
4361
4362(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4363sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4364
49704364 4365=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
4366
4367(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
7253e4e3 4368parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
6903afa2 4369the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
7253e4e3 4370L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4371
96ebfdd7
RK
4372=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4373
6903afa2
FC
4374(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contain braces, they
4375must balance for Perl to detect the end of the clause properly.
4376The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4377problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 4378
d7201950 4379=item Z<>500 Server error
6df41af2
GS
4380
4381See Server error.
4382
a5f75d66
AD
4383=item Server error
4384
6903afa2
FC
4385(A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
4386when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
4387actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
4388frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
4389not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
4390headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 4391
4392B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4393
6903afa2
FC
4394You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
4395the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
4396user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
4397variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
4398in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
4399less. Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 4400
06a5f41f
JH
4401 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4402 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4403 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 4404
be94a901
GS
4405You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4406
a0d0e21e
LW
4407=item setegid() not implemented
4408
be771a83
GS
4409(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4410support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4411didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4412
4413=item seteuid() not implemented
4414
be771a83
GS
4415(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4416support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4417didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4418
81777298
GS
4419=item setpgrp can't take arguments
4420
be771a83
GS
4421(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4422arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4423group ID.
81777298 4424
a0d0e21e
LW
4425=item setrgid() not implemented
4426
be771a83
GS
4427(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4428support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4429didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4430
4431=item setruid() not implemented
4432
be771a83
GS
4433(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4434support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4435didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4436
6df41af2
GS
4437=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4438
be771a83
GS
4439(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4440forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
4441L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4442
a0d0e21e
LW
4443=item shm%s not implemented
4444
4445(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4446
984200d0
YST
4447=item !=~ should be !~
4448
4449(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4450interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4451operators: probably not what you intended.
4452
6df41af2
GS
4453=item <> should be quotes
4454
4455(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4456C<require 'file'>.
4457
4458=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4459
4460(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
4461as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4462result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4463probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 4464
69282e91 4465=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4466
75b44862
GS
4467(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4468superfluous.
a0d0e21e 4469
f86702cc 4470=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 4471
be771a83
GS
4472(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4473Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 4474
229c18ce
RGS
4475=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4476
4477(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4478overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4479the smart match.
4480
a0d0e21e
LW
4481=item sort is now a reserved word
4482
4483(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4484But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4485
a0d0e21e
LW
4486=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4487
4488(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4489or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4490
f1c31c52
FC
4491=item Source filters apply only to byte streams
4492
4493(F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
4494source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
4495not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
4496C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
4497
8cbc2e3b
JH
4498=item splice() offset past end of array
4499
4500(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
fa816bf3
FC
4501the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
4502end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
4503try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
4504See L<perlfunc/splice>.
8cbc2e3b 4505
a0d0e21e
LW
4506=item Split loop
4507
be771a83
GS
4508(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4509iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
6903afa2 4510happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 4511
a0d0e21e
LW
4512=item Statement unlikely to be reached
4513
be771a83
GS
4514(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4515die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4516unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4517instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4518a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 4519
fd1b7234
FC
4520=item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
4521
4522(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
4523sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
4524local() if you want to localize a package variable.
4525
9ddeeac9 4526=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 4527
355b1299
JH
4528(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4529was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 4530
fe13d51d 4531=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 4532
be771a83
GS
4533(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4534stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4535C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 4536
a0d0e21e
LW
4537=item Subroutine %s redefined
4538
e476b1b5 4539(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
4540
4541 {
271595cc 4542 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
4543 eval "sub name { ... }";
4544 }
4545
4546=item Substitution loop
4547
be771a83
GS
4548(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4549shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4550is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 4551L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
4552
4553=item Substitution pattern not terminated
4554
d1be9408 4555(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4556construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4557Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4558
4559=item Substitution replacement not terminated
4560
d1be9408 4561(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4562construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4563Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4564
4565=item substr outside of string
4566
8a9eb13d 4567(W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
be771a83
GS
4568a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4569length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4570substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4571assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 4572
bf1320bf
RGS
4573=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4574
9d277376 4575(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
bf1320bf
RGS
4576inferior to its current type.
4577
49704364 4578=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 4579
fa816bf3
FC
4580(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
4581two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
4582both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
4583it in clustering parentheses:
b45f050a
JF
4584
4585 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4586
fa816bf3
FC
4587The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4588was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4589
49704364 4590=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 4591
39ef1de7 4592(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is
fa816bf3 4593a number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
6903afa2 4594expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4595
85ab1d1d
JH
4596=item switching effective %s is not implemented
4597
be771a83
GS
4598(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4599and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 4600
ae7df085 4601=item %s syntax OK
2f7da168
RK
4602
4603(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4604
a0d0e21e
LW
4605=item syntax error
4606
4607(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4608
4609 A keyword is misspelled.
4610 A semicolon is missing.
4611 A comma is missing.
4612 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4613 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4614 A closing quote is missing.
4615
4616Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4617error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4618The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4619it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 4620before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
4621Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4622the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4623C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
524e9188 4624if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
a0d0e21e 4625
ccf3535a 4626=item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
cb1a09d0 4627
be771a83
GS
4628(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4629of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4630yourself.
cb1a09d0 4631
25f58aea
PN
4632=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4633
4634(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4635a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4636or "my $var" or "our $var".
4637
b5fe5ca2
SR
4638=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4639
4640(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4641
4642=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4643
4644(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4645
6087ac44 4646=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 4647
6087ac44
JH
4648(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4649"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4650machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4651unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 4652
69282e91 4653=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4654
be771a83 4655(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4656before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4657
96ebfdd7
RK
4658=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4659
4660(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4661know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4662
fc36a67e 4663=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4664
be771a83
GS
4665(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4666for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 4667
abc7ecad
SP
4668=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4669
4670(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4671a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4672
c2771421
FC
4673=item tell() on unopened filehandle
4674
4675(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4676was either never opened or has since been closed.
4677
b82b06b8
FC
4678=item That use of $[ is unsupported
4679
4680(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4681as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4682
4683 $[ = 0;
4684 $[ = 1;
4685 ...
4686 local $[ = 0;
4687 local $[ = 1;
4688 ...
4689
4690This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4691from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[> and L<arybase>.
4692
f86702cc 4693=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
4694
4695(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4696probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 4697think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
4698will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4699will deny it.
4700
6df41af2
GS
4701=item The %s function is unimplemented
4702
a4a4c9e2 4703(F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
6df41af2
GS
4704to the probings of Configure.
4705
5e1c7ca2 4706=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 4707
be771a83
GS
4708(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4709linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4710past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4711instead.
a0d0e21e 4712
371fce9b
DM
4713=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4714
1108974d 4715(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 4716
437784d6 4717=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
4718
4719=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4720
75b44862 4721(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
4722element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4723wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4724need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4725F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4726target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
4727%ENV which produced the warning.
4728
6b3c7930
JH
4729=item thread failed to start: %s
4730
4447dfc1 4731(W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
6b3c7930 4732
a0d0e21e
LW
4733=item times not implemented
4734
be771a83
GS
4735(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4736suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 4737
6d3b25aa
RGS
4738=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4739
b7e4ecc1
FC
4740(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
4741the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
4742B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
4743Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
4744everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4745
4746If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
b7e4ecc1
FC
4747mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
4748fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
4749Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4750
4751If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 4752B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 4753
3a2263fe
RGS
4754=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4755
4756(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4757uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4758specified an illegal mapping.
4759See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4760
49704364
WL
4761=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4762
1a147d38 4763(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 4764
a0d0e21e
LW
4765=item Too few args to syscall
4766
4767(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4768system call to call, silly dilly.
4769
96ebfdd7
RK
4770=item Too late for "-%s" option
4771
4772(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
4773B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4774
6903afa2
FC
4775In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
4776are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4ba71d51 4777
6903afa2
FC
4778The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
4779well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
4780specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
4781it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
4782it to perl.
96ebfdd7 4783
ddda08b7
GS
4784=item Too late to run %s block
4785
4786(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4787when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
4788loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4789instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4790BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 4791
a0d0e21e
LW
4792=item Too many args to syscall
4793
5f05dabc 4794(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
4795
4796=item Too many arguments for %s
4797
4798(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4799
6df41af2
GS
4800=item Too many )'s
4801
49704364
WL
4802(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4803Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4804
8c40cb74
NC
4805=item Too many ('s
4806
be771a83
GS
4807(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4808Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4809
7253e4e3 4810=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4811
be771a83
GS
4812(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4813Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4814
2c268ad5 4815=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
4816
4817(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 4818or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4819C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4820
2c268ad5 4821=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 4822
6a36df5d
YST
4823(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4824y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 4825
96ebfdd7
RK
4826=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4827
4828(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
6903afa2 4829disallowed. See L<Safe>.
96ebfdd7 4830
a0d0e21e
LW
4831=item truncate not implemented
4832
4833(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4834Configure knows about.
4835
19c481f4
FC
4836=item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
4837
4838(F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
4839to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
4840ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
4841nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
4842
a0d0e21e
LW
4843=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4844
4845(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 4846certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4847%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
4848{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4849
7ac5715b 4850=item Type of argument to %s must be unblessed hashref or arrayref
cba5a3b0 4851
7ac5715b
FC
4852(F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with a scalar argument that
4853was not a reference to an unblessed hash or array.
cba5a3b0 4854
eec2d3df
GS
4855=item umask not implemented
4856
be771a83
GS
4857(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4858use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 4859
4633a7c4
LW
4860=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4861
4862(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4863
a0d0e21e
LW
4864=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4865
be771a83
GS
4866(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4867many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4868
4869=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4870
be771a83
GS
4871(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4872many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
4873
4874=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4875
be771a83
GS
4876(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4877many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e 4878
6651ba0b
FC
4879=item Unbalanced string table refcount: (%d) for "%s"
4880
4881(W internal) On exit, Perl found some strings remaining in the shared
4882string table used for copy on write and for hash keys. The entries
4883should have been freed, so this indicates a bug somewhere.
4884
a0d0e21e
LW
4885=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4886
be771a83
GS
4887(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4888many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
4889
4890=item Undefined format "%s" called
4891
4892(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4893another package? See L<perlform>.
4894
4895=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4896
be771a83
GS
4897(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4898Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4899
4900=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4901
be771a83
GS
4902(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4903since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
4904
4905=item Undefined subroutine called
4906
4907(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4908or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4909
4910=item Undefined subroutine in sort
4911
be771a83
GS
4912(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4913to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 4914
4633a7c4
LW
4915=item Undefined top format "%s" called
4916
4917(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4918another package? See L<perlform>.
4919
20408e3c
GS
4920=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4921
be771a83
GS
4922(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4923C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4924C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 4925
6df41af2
GS
4926=item %s: Undefined variable
4927
be771a83
GS
4928(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4929Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4930
2a53d331
KW
4931=item Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated, passed through
4932
4933(D) You used a literal C<"{"> character in a regular expression pattern.
4934You should change to use C<"\{"> instead, because a future version of
4935Perl (tentatively v5.20) will consider this to be a syntax error. If
4936the pattern delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace
4937(C<"}">) should also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for
4938example,
4939
4940 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
4941
a0d0e21e
LW
4942=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4943
4944(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4945representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4946
6651ba0b
FC
4947=item Unexpected constant lvalue entersub entry via type/targ %d:%d
4948
4949(P) When compiling a subroutine call in lvalue context, Perl failed an
4950internal consistency check. It encountered a malformed op tree.
4951
0876b9a0
KW
4952=item Unicode non-character U+%X is illegal for open interchange
4953
8457b38f 4954(W utf8, nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
6903afa2
FC
4955defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are
4956legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so, applications
4957shouldn't attempt to exchange them. If you know what you are doing
4958you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
b45f050a 4959
c794c51b
FC
4960=item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
4961
8457b38f 4962(W utf8, surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
c794c51b
FC
4963not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
4964U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
4965internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
4966available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
4967problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
4968came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 4969off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
c794c51b 4970
a0d0e21e
LW
4971=item Unknown BYTEORDER
4972
be771a83
GS
4973(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4974order.
a0d0e21e 4975
04177465
FC
4976=item Unknown error
4977
4978(P) Perl was about to print an error message in C<$@>, but the C<$@> variable
4979did not exist, even after an attempt to create it.
4980
6170680b
IZ
4981=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4982
437784d6 4983(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 4984of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 4985C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 4986
b4581f09
JH
4987=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4988
4989(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4990system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4991internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4992are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4993explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4994value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4995
f675dbe5
CB
4996=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4997
4998(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4999iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
5000data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
5001subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 5002
2f7da168
RK
5003=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
5004
a4a4c9e2 5005(W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
2f7da168 5006
bcd05b94 5007=item Unknown switch condition (?(%s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
96ebfdd7
RK
5008
5009(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6903afa2 5010is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5fecf430 5011
674f6ed9
FC
5012 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
5013 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
5014 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
5015 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
5016 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
5017 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
5018 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
5019 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
5020 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
96ebfdd7
RK
5021
5022The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
5023discovered. See L<perlre>.
5024
a05d7ebb
JH
5025=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
5026
a4a4c9e2 5027(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb
JH
5028of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
5029
5030=item Unknown Unicode option value %x
5031
a4a4c9e2 5032(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb 5033of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 5034
e2e6a0f1
YO
5035=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5036
5037(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
5038after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
5039L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
5040
c2771421
FC
5041=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
5042
6903afa2 5043(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
c2771421
FC
5044category that is unknown to perl at this point.
5045
14ef4c80
FC
5046Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
5047module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
5048module first.
c2771421 5049
7253e4e3 5050=item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 5051
6903afa2 5052(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 5053include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
6903afa2
FC
5054first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
5055problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 5056
7253e4e3 5057=item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
5058
5059(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
6903afa2
FC
5060expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
5061the matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
5062about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 5063
d98d5fff 5064=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 5065
be771a83
GS
5066(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
5067ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
5068general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
5069you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 5070
a0d0e21e
LW
5071=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
5072
be771a83
GS
5073(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
5074reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
5075somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
5076subroutine.
a0d0e21e 5077
b1fc3636 5078=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
a0d0e21e 5079
54310121 5080(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
b1fc3636 5081in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
356c7adf 5082to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 5083
4a68bf9d 5084=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 5085
be771a83
GS
5086(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
5087recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 5088understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
2628b4e0
TS
5089The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
5090escape was discovered.
6df41af2 5091
4a68bf9d 5092=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 5093
2628b4e0 5094(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
5095recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
5096change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 5097
216bfc0a 5098=item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 5099
be771a83 5100(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b7e4ecc1
FC
5101recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
5102this may change in a future version of Perl. The <-- HERE shows in
5103the regular expression about where the escape was discovered.
6df41af2 5104
a0d0e21e
LW
5105=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
5106
be771a83
GS
5107(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
5108recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
5109on your system.
a0d0e21e 5110
90248788 5111=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 5112
be771a83
GS
5113(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
5114think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
5115bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
5116
5117=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
5118
be771a83
GS
5119(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
5120operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 5121PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
5122
5123=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
5124
5125(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
5126
6df41af2
GS
5127=item Unsupported function %s
5128
5129(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
5130At least, Configure doesn't think so.
5131
54310121 5132=item Unsupported function fork
5133
5134(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
5135
be771a83 5136Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6903afa2 5137of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
be771a83 5138changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 5139
7aa207d6 5140=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
5141
5142(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 5143declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 5144
a0d0e21e
LW
5145=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
5146
5147(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
5148least that's what Configure thought.
5149
6df41af2 5150=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 5151
be771a83
GS
5152(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
5153start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
5154block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
5155attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 5156
09bef843
SB
5157=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
5158
be771a83
GS
5159(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
5160an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
5161character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
5162character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
5163
f1991046
GS
5164=item Unterminated compressed integer
5165
5166(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
5167compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
5168See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5169
2bf803e2
YO
5170=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5171
5172(F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
fa816bf3 5173a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 5174
6df41af2 5175=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 5176
6df41af2 5177(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
5178a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
5179not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
5180earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 5181
905fe053
FC
5182=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5183
5184(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 5185the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053
FC
5186
5187=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5188
5189(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 5190the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 5191
6df41af2 5192=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 5193
be771a83
GS
5194(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
5195still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 5196
8e11cd2b
JC
5197=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
5198
5199(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
5200See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
5201
5202=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
5203
5204(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
5205See L<Win32> for more information.
5206
89474f50
FC
5207=item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
5208
5209(W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
5210
5211 if ($[ > 5.006) {
5212 ...
5213 }
5214
5215You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
5216arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
5217
8fe85e3f
FC
5218=item Useless assignment to a temporary
5219
5220(W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
5221the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
5222be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
5223
96ebfdd7 5224=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 5225
96ebfdd7
RK
5226(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
5227meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 5228
96ebfdd7 5229 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5230
5231must be written as
5232
96ebfdd7 5233 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5234
5235The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
6903afa2 5236where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 5237
b4581f09
JH
5238=item Useless localization of %s
5239
6903afa2
FC
5240(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
5241but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
b4581f09
JH
5242some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
5243
96ebfdd7 5244=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 5245
96ebfdd7
RK
5246(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
5247meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 5248
96ebfdd7 5249 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5250
5251must be written as
5252
96ebfdd7 5253 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5254
5255The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
6903afa2 5256where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 5257
b08e453b
RB
5258=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
5259
5260(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6903afa2 5261same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
b08e453b
RB
5262about the /d modifier.
5263
820438b1
FC
5264=item Useless use of \E
5265
5266(W misc) You have a \E in a double-quotish string without a C<\U>,
5267C<\L> or C<\Q> preceding it.
5268
6df41af2 5269=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 5270
75b44862 5271(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
5272nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
5273value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
5274often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
5275to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
5276get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
5277said
a0d0e21e 5278
6df41af2 5279 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 5280
6df41af2
GS
5281when you meant to say
5282
5283 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
5284
5285Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
5286reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
5287example, if you say
5288
5289 $array = (1,2);
5290
5291when you should have said
5292
5293 $array = [1,2];
5294
5295The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
5296while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
5297a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
5298throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
5299L<perlref> for more on this.
5300
65191a1e
BS
5301This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
5302since they are often used in statements like
5303
4358a253 5304 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
5305
5306String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
5307about.
5308
6df41af2
GS
5309=item Useless use of "re" pragma
5310
6903afa2 5311(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6df41af2 5312
a801c63c
RGS
5313=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
5314
5315(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
5316
5317 my $x = sort @y;
5318
5319This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
5320
de4864e4
JH
5321=item Useless use of %s with no values
5322
f87c3213 5323(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6903afa2
FC
5324apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
5325usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
de4864e4 5326possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6903afa2 5327if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
de4864e4
JH
5328you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
5329
6df41af2
GS
5330=item "use" not allowed in expression
5331
be771a83
GS
5332(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
5333returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 5334
36b2db7e
FC
5335=item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
5336
5337(D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
6903afa2 5338is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
36b2db7e 5339
c47ff5f1 5340=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 5341
8ab8f082 5342(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
83ce3e12
RGS
5343form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
5344
5345=item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
5346
8ab8f082 5347(D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
83ce3e12 5348separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4633a7c4 5349
96ebfdd7
RK
5350=item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
5351
5352(D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
5353$ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
5354behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
5355will simply fail.
5356
5357Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
5358blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
5359
64e578a2
MJD
5360=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
5361
5362(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
5363modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
5364
4ac733c9
MJD
5365=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
5366
5367(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
5368use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
5369used. (This may change in the future.)
5370
2dc78664 5371=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
036e1e65 5372
2dc78664
NC
5373(F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
5374C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
5375This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
5376error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
5377
5378If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
5379a space before the C<=>.
036e1e65 5380
b6c83531 5381=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 5382
b6c83531
JH
5383(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
5384This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
5385
5386 @a = (3,4);
5387 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
5388
5389You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
5390For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
5391reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
5392middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
5393
39b99f21 5394=item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
5395
5396(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
5397to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
5398
96ebfdd7 5399=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 5400
96ebfdd7
RK
5401(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
5402operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
5403repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 5404
0b98bec9
RGS
5405=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
5406
5407(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
5408scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
5409
dc848c6f 5410=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
5411
1da25648
FC
5412(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD>
5413subroutines are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy)
5414even when the subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain
5415functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or
5416C<< $obj->bar() >>).
dc848c6f 5417
be771a83
GS
5418This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
5419methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
5420code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
5421currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
5422C<AUTOLOAD>s.
dc848c6f 5423
5424The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
be771a83
GS
5425non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
5426to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
5427named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
5428startup.
dc848c6f 5429
be771a83
GS
5430In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
5431you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 5432C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
fb73857a 5433
6df41af2
GS
5434=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
5435
5436(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
5437only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
5438
6df41af2
GS
5439=item Use of %s is deprecated
5440
75b44862 5441(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
be771a83
GS
5442generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
5443old way has bad side effects.
6df41af2 5444
5a7abfcc
FC
5445=item Use of -l on filehandle %s
5446
5447(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
5448it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
5449The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
5450
7c7df812
FC
5451=item Use of %s on a handle without * is deprecated
5452
22d6fc57 5453(D deprecated) You used C<tie>, C<tied> or C<untie> on a scalar but that scalar
fa816bf3 5454happens to hold a typeglob, which means its filehandle will be tied. If
22d6fc57
FC
5455you mean to tie a handle, use an explicit * as in C<tie *$handle>.
5456
5457This was a long-standing bug that was removed in Perl 5.16, as there was
5458no way to tie the scalar itself when it held a typeglob, and no way to
5459untie a scalar that had had a typeglob assigned to it. If you see this
5460message, you must be using an older version.
7c7df812 5461
905fe053
FC
5462=item Use of ?PATTERN? without explicit operator is deprecated
5463
5464(D deprecated) You have written something like C<?\w?>, for a regular
5465expression that matches only once. Starting this term directly with
5466the question mark delimiter is now deprecated, so that the question mark
5467will be available for use in new operators in the future. Write C<m?\w?>
5468instead, explicitly using the C<m> operator: the question mark delimiter
5469still invokes match-once behaviour.
5470
1f1cc344 5471=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 5472
77b96956 5473(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
5474isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
5475to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 5476
64977eb6 5477If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344 5478C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
54e0f05c 5479however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
c69ca1d4 5480operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 5481
85b81015
LW
5482=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
5483
be771a83
GS
5484(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
5485versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
5486explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
5487use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
5488suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
5489a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
85b81015 5490
bbd7eb8a
RD
5491=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5492
159f47d9 5493(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
5494arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5495but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5496arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5497
cc95b072 5498=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 5499
be771a83
GS
5500(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5501defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5502To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 5503
6903afa2
FC
5504To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
5505the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
5506it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
5507undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
5508anid the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
5509literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
5510optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
5511C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
5512your program.
e5be4a53 5513
a1063b2d
RH
5514=item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5515
496a33f5 5516(D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1b1f1335 5517C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
6903afa2
FC
5518used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now
5519deprecated, and will be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d
RH
5520
5521=item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5522
496a33f5 5523(D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1b1f1335 5524C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
6903afa2
FC
5525allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated,
5526and will be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d 5527
ff3f963a
KW
5528=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5529
5530(W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5531Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5532expression pattern bracketed character class.
5533
c794c51b
FC
5534=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
5535
5536(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
5537currently reserved for future use, as the exact behaviour has not
6903afa2 5538been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
c794c51b 5539modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
0876b9a0 5540
949cf498
KW
5541=item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
5542
8457b38f 5543(W utf8, surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
949cf498
KW
5544not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
5545U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
5546internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
5547available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
5548problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
5549came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 5550off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9466bab6 5551
68dc0745 5552=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 5553
75b44862 5554(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
5555C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5556can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5557false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5558constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5559C<defined> operator.
a6006777 5560
f675dbe5
CB
5561=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5562
be771a83
GS
5563(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5564%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5565longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
55661024 characters.
f675dbe5 5567
b5c19bd7 5568=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 5569
b5c19bd7
DM
5570(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5571attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6903afa2 5572This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
5573declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5574(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6903afa2 5575subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 5576
b5c19bd7 5577 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 5578
b5c19bd7 5579At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6903afa2 5580since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
b5c19bd7
DM
5581the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5582now been created and is live:
be771a83 5583
b5c19bd7
DM
5584 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5585
5586The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5587gone out of scope, for example,
5588
5589 sub f {
5590 my $a;
5591 sub { eval '$a' }
5592 }
5593 f()->();
5594
5595Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5596executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 5597
b4581f09
JH
5598=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5599
413ff9f6
FC
5600(W misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
5601that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
5602something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5603that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5604front of your variable.
5605
58e23c8d 5606=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
5607
5608(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
58e23c8d 5609known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
b4581f09
JH
5610
5611=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5612
b9cc85ad
FC
5613(W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
5614current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
5615previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
5616that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
5617or until all closure referents to it are destroyed.
b4581f09 5618
6df41af2
GS
5619=item Variable syntax
5620
5621(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5622of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5623Perl yourself.
5624
44a8e56a 5625=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5626
be771a83 5627(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 5628lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 5629
b5c19bd7 5630When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
5631the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5632call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5633outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5634longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5635variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 5636
44a8e56a 5637This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5638anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 5639reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 5640are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 5641
6651ba0b
FC
5642=item vector argument not supported with alpha versions
5643
5644(W internal) The %vd (s)printf format does not support version objects
5645with alpha parts.
5646
e2e6a0f1
YO
5647=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5648
6903afa2
FC
5649(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
5650argument or check that you are using the right verb.
e2e6a0f1
YO
5651
5652=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5653
6903afa2 5654(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
e2e6a0f1
YO
5655argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5656
084610c0
GS
5657=item Version number must be a constant number
5658
5659(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5660its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5661the version number.
5662
808ee47e
SP
5663=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5664
32e998fd
RGS
5665(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5666are being ignored.
808ee47e 5667
7e1af8bc 5668=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 5669
5670(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 5671you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 5672
f86702cc 5673=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 5674
be771a83
GS
5675(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5676the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5677space.
a0d0e21e 5678
5f05dabc 5679=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 5680
be771a83
GS
5681(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5682looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5683term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5684function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
5685
5686 rand + 5;
5687
5688you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5689
5690 rand() + 5;
5691
5692but in actual fact, you got
5693
5694 rand(+5);
5695
5f05dabc 5696So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 5697
4b3603a4
JH
5698=item Wide character in %s
5699
c8f79457 5700(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
5701one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5702way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5703output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5704warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5705cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5706filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 5707
49704364
WL
5708=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5709
fa816bf3
FC
5710(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]>
5711only if C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that
5712can be determined from the template alone. This is not possible if
5713it contains any of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign
5714the template.
49704364 5715
9a7dcd9c 5716=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5717
be771a83 5718(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5719before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5720
9ae3ac1a 5721=item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
b4581f09 5722
a4a4c9e2 5723(F) When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
b4581f09
JH
5724into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5725this encoding, for example
5726
5727 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5728
5729if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5730
49704364 5731=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 5732
49704364
WL
5733(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5734the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 5735
49704364 5736=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
5737
5738(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5739the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5740
a0d0e21e
LW
5741=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5742
5f05dabc 5743(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 5744sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 5745about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 5746your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
5747
5748=item You need to quote "%s"
5749
be771a83
GS
5750(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5751Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5752which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5753assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5754what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 5755
6cfd5ea7
JH
5756=item Your random numbers are not that random
5757
5758(F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5759not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5760Something Very Wrong.
5761
a0d0e21e
LW
5762=back
5763
00eb3f2b
RGS
5764=head1 SEE ALSO
5765
ed3f9c4f 5766L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>, L<diagnostics>.
00eb3f2b 5767
56e90b21 5768=cut