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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
466416ed 23below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
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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
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
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53=item Aliasing via reference is experimental
54
55(S experimental::refaliasing) This warning is emitted if you use
56a reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment to
57alias one variable to another. Simply suppress the warning if you
58want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
59the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be
60removed in a future Perl version:
61
62 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
63 use feature "refaliasing";
64 \$x = \$y;
65
de42a5a9 66=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 67
6df41af2 68(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 69
04f74579 70=item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
ef54e1a4 71
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72(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
73after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 74
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75=item alpha->numify() is lossy
76
77(W numeric) An alpha version can not be numified without losing
78information.
79
6df41af2 80=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 81
75b44862 82(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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83keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
84one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
85subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 86
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87To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
88before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
89Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
90imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 91
6df41af2 92To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 93on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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94to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
95L<attributes>).
43192e07 96
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97=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
98
99(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
100all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
101first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
102C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
103
6df41af2 104=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 105
7c7af292 106(S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
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107you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
108a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 109
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110=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
111
112(S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
113string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
114the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
115write C<-foo()>.
116
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117=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
118
7c7af292 119(S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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120bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
121(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
122like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
123assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
124clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
125really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 126
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127=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
128
129(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
130asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
131named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 132the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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133function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
134and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
135
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136=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
137
138=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 139
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140(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
141the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
1422 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
143might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
144foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
145that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
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146
147In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
148to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
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149C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
150by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
151want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
152unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
153that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
154off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 155
6df41af2 156=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 157
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158(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
159redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
160redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 161
6df41af2 162=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 163
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164(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
165redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
166into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
167though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
168which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 169
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170 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
171 while (<STDIN>) {
172 print;
173 print OUT;
174 }
175 close OUT;
c9f97d15 176
6df41af2 177=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 178
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179(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
180transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 181one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 182a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
183hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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184you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
185alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 186
6df41af2 187=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 188
6df41af2 189(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 190
f86702cc 191=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 192
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193(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
194that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
195will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 196
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197Note that for the C<Inf> and C<NaN> (infinity and not-a-number) the
198definition of "numeric" is somewhat unusual: the strings themselves
199(like "Inf") are considered numeric, and anything following them is
200considered non-numeric.
201
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202=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
203
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204(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
205system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
206take care of transforming data between external and internal
207representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
208point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
209didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
210result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 211
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212=item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
213
214(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
215operator which expects either a number or a string matching
216C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
217Auto-decrement> for details.
218
637494ac 219=item Array passed to stat will be coerced to a scalar%s
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220
221(W syntax) You called stat() on an array, but the array will be
222coerced to a scalar - the number of elements in the array.
223
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224=item A signature parameter must start with '$', '@' or '%'
225
226(F) Each subroutine signature parameter declaration must start with a valid
227sigil; for example:
228
229 sub foo ($a, $, $b = 1, @c) {}
230
231=item A slurpy parameter may not have a default value
232
233(F) Only scalar subroutine signature parameters may have a default value;
234for example:
235
236 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
237 sub foo (@a = (1)) {} # invalid
238 sub foo (%a = (a => b)) {} # invalid
239
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240=item assertion botched: %s
241
21b5e840 242(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
a0d0e21e 243
0eacef8e 244=item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
a0d0e21e 245
21b5e840 246(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 247
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248=item Assigned value is not a reference
249
250(F) You tried to assign something that was not a reference to an lvalue
251reference (e.g., C<\$x = $y>). If you meant to make $x an alias to $y, use
252C<\$x = \$y>.
253
254=item Assigned value is not %s reference
255
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256(F) You tried to assign a reference to a reference constructor, but the
257two references were not of the same type. You cannot alias a scalar to
258an array, or an array to a hash; the two types must match.
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259
260 \$x = \@y; # error
261 \@x = \%y; # error
262 $y = [];
263 \$x = $y; # error; did you mean \$y?
264
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265=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
266
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267(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled
268(e.g., and under C<use v5.16;>, and as of Perl 5.30)
7d345e3d 269the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 270
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271=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
272
273(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
274must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
275know which context to supply to the right side.
276
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277=item Assuming NOT a POSIX class since %s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
278
279(W regexp) You had something like these:
280
281 [[:alnum]]
282 [[:digit:xyz]
283
284They look like they might have been meant to be the POSIX classes
285C<[:alnum:]> or C<[:digit:]>. If so, they should be written:
286
287 [[:alnum:]]
288 [[:digit:]xyz]
289
290Since these aren't legal POSIX class specifications, but are legal
291bracketed character classes, Perl treats them as the latter. In the
292first example, it matches the characters C<":">, C<"[">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
293C<"m">, C<"n">, and C<"u">.
294
295If these weren't meant to be POSIX classes, this warning message is
296spurious, and can be suppressed by reordering things, such as
297
298 [[al:num]]
299
300or
301
302 [[:munla]]
303
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304=item <> at require-statement should be quotes
305
306(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
307C<require 'file'>.
308
2393f1b9 309=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 310
49293501 311(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 312the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 313
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314=item Attempt to bless into a freed package
315
316(F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
317the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
0c5a5b27 318do, so it throws up its hands in despair.
dcdfe746 319
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320=item Attempt to bless into a reference
321
322(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 323the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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324supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
325
326 bless $self, $proto;
327
328when you intended
329
330 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
331
332If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
333of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
334example by:
335
336 bless $self, "$proto";
337
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338=item Attempt to clear deleted array
339
340(S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
341Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
342can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
343callback on the array.
344
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345=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
346
347(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
348which is not in its key set.
349
350=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
351
352(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
353declared readonly from a restricted hash.
354
de42a5a9 355=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 356
f84fe999 357(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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358that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
359outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 360
12578ffb 361=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 362
f84fe999 363(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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364strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
365strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
366of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 367
7d5b40b4 368=item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 369
f84fe999 370(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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371free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
372SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
373free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
374try to free it.
a0d0e21e
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375
376=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
377
f84fe999 378(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e 379
7d5b40b4 380=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 381
8f7e4d2c 382(S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
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383see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
384earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
385This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
386that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
387mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
388corrupted.
a0d0e21e 389
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390=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
391
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392(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
393function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
394means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
395invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
396literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
397avoid this warning.
84902520 398
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399=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
400
401(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
402compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
403unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
404L<perlvar/%INC>.
405
1b20cd17
NC
406=item Attempt to set length of freed array
407
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FC
408(W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
409been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
410scalar representing the last index of an array and later
411assigning through that reference. For example
1b20cd17
NC
412
413 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
414 $$r = 503
415
b7a902f4 416=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
417
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418(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
419used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
420dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 421
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422=item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
423
424(W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
425example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
426declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
427
ccce04a4
FC
428=item av_reify called on tied array
429
430(S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
431confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
432
de42a5a9 433=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 434
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435(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
436or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 437S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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438S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
439
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440=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
441
496a33f5 442(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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443substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
444most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
445
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446=item Bad filehandle: %s
447
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448(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
449symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
450open(), or did it in another package.
a0d0e21e
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451
452=item Bad free() ignored
453
be771a83 454(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
fa816bf3 455been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 456setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 457
9ea8bc6d 458This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 459dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 460which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 461
aa689395 462=item Bad hash
463
464(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
465
6df41af2
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466=item Badly placed ()'s
467
468(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
469of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
470Perl yourself.
471
a7cb8dae 472=item Bad name after %s
a0d0e21e 473
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474(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
475didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
476of quotes, so
a0d0e21e
LW
477
478 $var = 'myvar';
479 $sym = mypack::$var;
480
481is not the same as
482
483 $var = 'myvar';
484 $sym = "mypack::$var";
485
88e1f1a2
JV
486=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
487
488(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
489plugin API.
490
4ad56ec9
IZ
491=item Bad realloc() ignored
492
6903afa2
FC
493(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
494had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
495be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 496
a0d0e21e
LW
497=item Bad symbol for array
498
499(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
500wasn't a symbol table entry.
501
4df3f177
SP
502=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
503
504(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
505that wasn't a symbol table entry.
506
a0d0e21e
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507=item Bad symbol for filehandle
508
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509(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
510that wasn't a symbol table entry.
a0d0e21e
LW
511
512=item Bad symbol for hash
513
514(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
515wasn't a symbol table entry.
516
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FC
517=item Bad symbol for scalar
518
519(P) An internal request asked to add a scalar entry to something that
520wasn't a symbol table entry.
521
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522=item Bareword found in conditional
523
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524(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
525conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
526of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
527
528 open FOO || die;
529
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530It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
531a bareword:
34d09196
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532
533 use constant TYPO => 1;
534 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
535
536The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
537
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NC
538=item Bareword in require contains "%s"
539
a52f2cce
NC
540=item Bareword in require maps to disallowed filename "%s"
541
09eb1f39 542=item Bareword in require maps to empty filename
5bad2b39 543
a52f2cce 544(F) The bareword form of require has been invoked with a filename which could
d4e5761f 545not have been generated by a valid bareword permitted by the parser. You
a52f2cce
NC
546shouldn't be able to get this error from Perl code, but XS code may throw it
547if it passes an invalid module name to C<Perl_load_module>.
548
5bad2b39
DM
549=item Bareword in require must not start with a double-colon: "%s"
550
551(F) In C<require Bare::Word>, the bareword is not allowed to start with a
d4e5761f 552double-colon. Write C<require ::Foo::Bar> as C<require Foo::Bar> instead.
5bad2b39 553
6df41af2
GS
554=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
555
556(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
be771a83
GS
557subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
558symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
559
560=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
561
be771a83
GS
562(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
563compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
564you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 565
a0d0e21e
LW
566=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
567
be771a83
GS
568(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
569subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
570exited.
a0d0e21e 571
68dc0745 572=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
573
574(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
be771a83
GS
575implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
576occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
577be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
578depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 579
c782d7ee 580=item \%d better written as $%d
6df41af2 581
be771a83
GS
582(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
583The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
584substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
585because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
586there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 587
252aa082
JH
588=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
589
e476b1b5 590(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
591(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
592L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 593
69282e91 594=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 595
be771a83
GS
596(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
597check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 598
c289d2f7
JH
599=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
600
601(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 602Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 603
c5a0f51a
JH
604=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
605
e476b1b5 606(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 607
043c750c 608=item Bizarre copy of %s
4633a7c4 609
be771a83 610(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
ab830aa0 611copiable.
4633a7c4 612
5a25739d
FC
613=item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
614
434f489b 615(P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
5a25739d
FC
616encountered an invalid data type.
617
b927b7e9 618=item Both or neither range ends should be Unicode in regex; marked by
6e8a73f2 619S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b927b7e9
KW
620
621(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
622
623In a bracketed character class in a regular expression pattern, you
624had a range which has exactly one end of it specified using C<\N{}>, and
625the other end is specified using a non-portable mechanism. Perl treats
626the range as a Unicode range, that is, all the characters in it are
627considered to be the Unicode characters, and which may be different code
628points on some platforms Perl runs on. For example, C<[\N{U+06}-\x08]>
629is treated as if you had instead said C<[\N{U+06}-\N{U+08}]>, that is it
630matches the characters whose code points in Unicode are 6, 7, and 8.
631But that C<\x08> might indicate that you meant something different, so
632the warning gets raised.
633
f675dbe5
CB
634=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
635
be771a83
GS
636(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
637iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
638which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 639
a0d0e21e
LW
640=item Callback called exit
641
4929bf7b 642(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
643exited by calling exit.
644
6df41af2 645=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 646
be771a83
GS
647(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
648parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
649that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
650early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
651subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
652checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
653function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
654the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 655
0c7df902
JH
656=item Cannot chr %f
657
658(F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
659
1b4d0d79
TC
660=item Cannot complete in-place edit of %s: %s
661
662(F) Your perl script appears to have changed directory while
663performing an in-place edit of a file specified by a relative path,
664and your system doesn't include the directory relative POSIX functions
665needed to handle that.
666
5dee29d4 667=item Cannot compress %f in pack
0c7df902 668
5dee29d4
JH
669(F) You tried compressing an infinity or not-a-number as an unsigned
670integer with BER, which makes no sense.
0c7df902 671
49704364 672=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b 673
717feafc
JH
674(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress.
675The BER compressed integer format can only be used with positive
676integers, and you attempted to compress a very large number (> 1e308).
677See L<perlfunc/pack>.
0258719b 678
49704364 679=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
680
681(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
682format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
683
5c1f4d79
NC
684=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
685
6903afa2
FC
686(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
687in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
688The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
689no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 690
4040665a 691=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
692
693(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 694be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 695
b5d97229
RGS
696=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
697
698(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
699either with open() or binmode().
700
714f94d1
FC
701=item Cannot open %s as a dirhandle: it is already open as a filehandle
702
703(F) You tried to use opendir() to associate a dirhandle to a symbol (glob
704or scalar) that already holds a filehandle. Since this idiom might render
705your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
706is a fatal error.
707
708=item Cannot open %s as a filehandle: it is already open as a dirhandle
709
710(F) You tried to use open() to associate a filehandle to a symbol (glob
711or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle. Since this idiom might render
712your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
713is a fatal error.
714
0c7df902
JH
715=item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
716
5dee29d4 717(F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an integer,
0c7df902
JH
718which makes no sense.
719
720=item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
721
722(F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
723which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
724
7355df7e
FC
725=item Cannot set tied @DB::args
726
727(F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
728is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
729
ce65bc73
FC
730=item Cannot tie unreifiable array
731
732(P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
733keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
734do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
735Perl code, but are only used internally.
736
26b0dc0c 737=item Cannot yet reorder sv_vcatpvfn() arguments from va_list
46e58bd2 738
26b0dc0c 739(F) Some XS code tried to use C<sv_vcatpvfn()> or a related function with a
46e58bd2 740format string that specifies explicit indexes for some of the elements, and
d4e5761f
FC
741using a C-style variable-argument list (a C<va_list>). This is not currently
742supported. XS authors wanting to do this must instead construct a C array
743of C<SV*> scalars containing the arguments.
46e58bd2 744
96ebfdd7
RK
745=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
746
747(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
748integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
749to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
750
a0d0e21e
LW
751=item Can't bless non-reference value
752
753(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
754encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
755
7896dde7
Z
756=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
757
758(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
759a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
760
761=item Can't "break" outside a given block
762
763(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
764
6df41af2
GS
765=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
766
767(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
768object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
769like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
770
771 $BADREF = undef;
772 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
773 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
774
a0d0e21e
LW
775=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
776
54310121 777(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
778ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
779didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
780object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
781
782=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
783
784(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
785object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
786defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
787Something like this will reproduce the error:
788
789 $BADREF = 42;
790 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
791 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
792
dfe378f1
FC
793=item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
794
795(P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
796symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
797
2bf7e7b2
FC
798=item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
799
800(F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
801not attached to the symbol table.
802
a0d0e21e
LW
803=item Can't chdir to %s
804
f703fc96 805(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
a0d0e21e
LW
806that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
807
0545a864 808=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 809
be771a83
GS
810(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
811nosuid.
104d25b7 812
22e74366 813=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
814
815(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 816(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
817say things like:
818
819 *foo += 1;
820
821You CAN say
822
823 $foo = *foo;
824 $foo += 1;
825
826but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
827
7896dde7 828=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 829
7896dde7
Z
830(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
831or C<default> block.
0d863452 832
a0d0e21e
LW
833=item Can't create pipe mailbox
834
be771a83
GS
835(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
836quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 837
eb64745e
GS
838=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
839
30c282f6
NC
840(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
841"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 842
7896dde7
Z
843=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
844
845(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
846C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
847issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
848error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
849
1e85b658
DM
850=item Can't determine class of operator %s, assuming BASEOP
851
852(S) This warning indicates something wrong in the internals of perl.
853Perl was trying to find the class (e.g. LISTOP) of a particular OP,
854and was unable to do so. This is likely to be due to a bug in the perl
855internals, or due to a bug in XS code which manipulates perl optrees.
856
a2162cd9
FC
857=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
858
859(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
860a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
861
862=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
863
864(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
865reason.
866
a2162cd9
FC
867=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
868
869(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
870characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
871inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
872
ab0b796c
KW
873=item Can't do %s("%s") on non-UTF-8 locale; resolved to "%s".
874
875(W locale) You are 1) running under "C<use locale>"; 2) the current
876locale is not a UTF-8 one; 3) you tried to do the designated case-change
877operation on the specified Unicode character; and 4) the result of this
878operation would mix Unicode and locale rules, which likely conflict.
879Mixing of different rule types is forbidden, so the operation was not
880done; instead the result is the indicated value, which is the best
881available that uses entirely Unicode rules. That turns out to almost
882always be the original character, unchanged.
883
884It is generally a bad idea to mix non-UTF-8 locales and Unicode, and
885this issue is one of the reasons why. This warning is raised when
886Unicode rules would normally cause the result of this operation to
887contain a character that is in the range specified by the locale,
8880..255, and hence is subject to the locale's rules, not Unicode's.
889
890If you are using locale purely for its characteristics related to things
891like its numeric and time formatting (and not C<LC_CTYPE>), consider
892using a restricted form of the locale pragma (see L<perllocale/The "use
893locale" pragma>) like "S<C<use locale ':not_characters'>>".
894
895Note that failed case-changing operations done as a result of
896case-insensitive C</i> regular expression matching will show up in this
897warning as having the C<fc> operation (as that is what the regular
898expression engine calls behind the scenes.)
899
a0d0e21e
LW
900=item Can't do waitpid with flags
901
be771a83
GS
902(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
903waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 904
a0d0e21e
LW
905=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
906
be771a83
GS
907(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
908point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
909line.
a0d0e21e 910
1109a392
MHM
911=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
912
913(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
914or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
915little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
916See L<perlfunc/pack>.
917
a0d0e21e
LW
918=item Can't exec "%s": %s
919
d1be9408 920(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
921named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
922permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
923C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
924architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
925can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
926#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
927
928=item Can't exec %s
929
be771a83
GS
930(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
931that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
932need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
933
934=item Can't execute %s
935
be771a83
GS
936(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
937found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 938
6df41af2 939=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 940
be771a83
GS
941(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
942is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2
GS
943
944=item Can't find label %s
945
be771a83
GS
946(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
947possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
948
949=item Can't find %s on PATH
950
be771a83
GS
951(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
952found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 953
6df41af2 954=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 955
be771a83
GS
956(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
957found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
958script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
959
960=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
961
be771a83
GS
962(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
963that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
964nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 965
fb73857a 966 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
967
97b3d10f 968If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
969included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
970may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
971a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
972L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 973
660a4616
TS
974=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
975
29f52644
KW
976=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
977
978(F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
979known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
e1b711da 980L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
29f52644
KW
981for a complete list of available official
982properties. If it is a
983L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
984it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
985matched.
986
987If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
988by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
5f8ad6b6 989until C<\E>).
660a4616 990
b3647a36 991=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 992
be771a83
GS
993(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
994pipeline.
a0d0e21e 995
b3647a36
SR
996=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
997
c973c02e 998(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
999after five seconds.
1000
748a9306
LW
1001=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
1002
be771a83
GS
1003(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
1004between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
1005Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
1006the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
1007account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
1008the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 1009the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
1010the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
1011if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
1012because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
1013appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
1014and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
1015routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
1016shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
1017only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 1018
a0d0e21e
LW
1019=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
1020
be771a83
GS
1021(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
1022pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
1023
1024=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
1025
748a9306
LW
1026(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
1027mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 1028
6d90e983
FC
1029=item Can't "goto" into a binary or list expression
1030
1031(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a binary
1032or list expression. You can't get there from here. The reason for this
1033restriction is that the interpreter would get confused as to how many
1034arguments there are, resulting in stack corruption or crashes. This
1035error occurs in cases such as these:
1036
1037 goto F;
1038 print do { F: }; # Can't jump into the arguments to print
1039
1040 goto G;
1041 $x + do { G: $y }; # How is + supposed to get its first operand?
1042
a01f4640
FC
1043=item Can't "goto" into a "given" block
1044
1045(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a C<given>
1046block. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1047
6df41af2 1048=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 1049
be771a83
GS
1050(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
1051loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
1052
1053=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
1054
be771a83
GS
1055(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
1056a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
1057you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
1058See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 1059
5a25739d
FC
1060=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
1061
1062(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
1063"string" or block.
1064
9850bf21 1065=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 1066
9850bf21
RH
1067(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
1068comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
1069as the reduce() function in List::Util).
1070
6df41af2
GS
1071=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
1072
be771a83
GS
1073(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
1074subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
1075cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
1076routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 1077
0b5b802d
GS
1078=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
1079
be771a83
GS
1080(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
1081signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
1082signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
1083processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
1084situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
1085may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 1086
e2c0f81f
DG
1087=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
1088
1089(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
1090attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
1091process identifier.
1092
6df41af2 1093=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 1094
6df41af2 1095(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
1096except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
1097block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
1098block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
1099usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
1100inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
1101L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 1102
2c7d6b9c
RGS
1103=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
1104
1105(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
1106package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
1107
b8170e59
JB
1108=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
1109
6903afa2
FC
1110(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
1111This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
1112that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
1113to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
1114dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
1115that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
1116dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 1117
748a9306
LW
1118=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
1119
2ba9eb46 1120(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
1121lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
1122want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
1123the package name.
748a9306 1124
6df41af2 1125=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 1126
6df41af2
GS
1127(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
1128handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 1129pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 1130that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 1131
ea071790 1132=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a 1133
fa816bf3
FC
1134(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
1135Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
1136the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
1137to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
1138extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
be771a83
GS
1139to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
1140L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 1141
6df41af2
GS
1142=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
1143
be771a83
GS
1144(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
1145autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
1146are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
1147the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 1148
b8170e59
JB
1149=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
1150
1151(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 1152for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
1153unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
1154
a0d0e21e
LW
1155=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
1156
1157(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
1158functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 1159method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 1160
8af56b9d
FC
1161=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
1162to load "%s"?)
1163
1164(F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
1165could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
1166requires a package that has not been loaded.
1167
a0d0e21e
LW
1168=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
1169
be771a83
GS
1170(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
1171doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 1172
2f7da168
RK
1173=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1174
1175(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1176e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1177
f4ad53f4 1178=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 1179
be771a83
GS
1180(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1181VMS.
3e3baf6d 1182
cd40cd58
NC
1183=item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1184
ff9c1ae8 1185(S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
cd40cd58
NC
1186that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1187process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1188the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1189from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1190functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1191
a0d0e21e
LW
1192=item Can't modify %s in %s
1193
be771a83
GS
1194(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1195to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 1196
54310121 1197=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
1198
1199(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1200a NULL.
1201
0f948285 1202=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s
6df41af2 1203
8d9d0498
FC
1204=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s in %s
1205
6df41af2 1206(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 1207such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 1208
cf6e1fa1
FC
1209=item Can't modify reference to %s in %s assignment
1210
1211(F) Only a limited number of constructs can be used as the argument to a
1212reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment, and what
1213you used was not one of them. See L<perlref/Assigning to References>.
1214
1215=item Can't modify reference to localized parenthesized array in list
1216assignment
1217
1218(F) Assigning to C<\local(@array)> or C<\(local @array)> is not supported, as
1219it is not clear exactly what it should do. If you meant to make @array
1220refer to some other array, use C<\@array = \@other_array>. If you want to
1221make the elements of @array aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1222right-hand side, use C<\(@array) = @scalar_refs>.
1223
1224=item Can't modify reference to parenthesized hash in list assignment
1225
1226(F) Assigning to C<\(%hash)> is not supported. If you meant to make %hash
1227refer to some other hash, use C<\%hash = \%other_hash>. If you want to
1228make the elements of %hash into aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1229right-hand side, use a hash slice: C<\@hash{@keys} = @those_scalar_refs>.
1230
5f05dabc 1231=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 1232
5f05dabc 1233(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1234buffer.
1235
6df41af2
GS
1236=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1237
1238(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1239there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1240count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1241grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1242though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1243once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1244
a0d0e21e
LW
1245=item Can't open %s: %s
1246
c47ff5f1 1247(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e 1248filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
46fa9b26
FC
1249switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1250this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1251you named on the command line.
1252
1253(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1254your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
a0d0e21e 1255
9a869a14
RGS
1256=item Can't open a reference
1257
1258(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1259using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1260
1261 open FH, '>', $ref;
1262
1263but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1264open is not supported.
1265
a0d0e21e
LW
1266=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1267
be771a83
GS
1268(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1269You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1270as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1271">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1272
748a9306
LW
1273=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1274
be771a83
GS
1275(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1276redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1277the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1278
1279=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1280
be771a83
GS
1281(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1282redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1283command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1284
1285=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1286
be771a83
GS
1287(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1288redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1289the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1290
1291=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1292
be771a83
GS
1293(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1294redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1295for stdout.
748a9306 1296
3b1cf97d 1297=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1298
1299(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1300
fa3aa65a
JC
1301If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1302shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1303you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1304
6df41af2
GS
1305=item Can't read CRTL environ
1306
1307(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1308from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1309missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1310or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1311searched.
6df41af2 1312
f3106bc8
LM
1313=item Can't redeclare "%s" in "%s"
1314
1315(F) A "my", "our" or "state" declaration was found within another declaration,
1316such as C<my ($x, my($y), $z)> or C<our (my $x)>.
1317
6df41af2
GS
1318=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1319
1320(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1321there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1322count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1323or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1324though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1325loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1326
64977eb6 1327=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1328
be771a83
GS
1329(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1330file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1331the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1332
e0d4aead
TC
1333=item Can't rename in-place work file '%s' to '%s': %s
1334
1335(F) When closed implicitly, the temporary file for in-place editing
1336couldn't be renamed to the original filename.
1337
ecc6274e
FC
1338=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1339
1340(F) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1341probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1342
748a9306
LW
1343=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1344
be771a83
GS
1345(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1346to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1347
9415f659
KW
1348=item Can't represent character for Ox%X on this platform
1349
1350(F) There is a hard limit to how big a character code point can be due
1351to the fundamental properties of UTF-8, especially on EBCDIC
1352platforms. The given code point exceeds that. The only work-around is
1353to not use such a large code point.
1354
4f12ec0e
FC
1355=item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1356
1357(F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1358all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1359the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1360supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1361
fe13d51d 1362=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1363
1fa582fa
FC
1364(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1365opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1366package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1367
cd06dffe
GS
1368=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1369
be771a83
GS
1370(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1371temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1372is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1373
96ebfdd7
RK
1374=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1375
1376(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1377there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1378
78f9721b
SM
1379=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1380
6903afa2
FC
1381(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1382subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1383think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1384write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1385Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1386
a0d0e21e
LW
1387=item Can't stat script "%s"
1388
be771a83
GS
1389(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1390open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1391
a0d0e21e
LW
1392=item Can't take log of %g
1393
fb73857a 1394(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1395negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1396standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1397negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1398
1399=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1400
1401(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1402negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1403with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1404
1405=item Can't undef active subroutine
1406
1407(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1408however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1409redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1410
ecc6274e
FC
1411=item Can't unweaken a nonreference
1412
1413(F) You attempted to unweaken something that was not a reference. Only
1414references can be unweakened.
1415
c81225bc 1416=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1417
be771a83
GS
1418(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1419into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1420specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1421indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1422
6651ba0b
FC
1423=item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1424
1425(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1426other than "=" after the module name.
1427
1f1ec7b5
KW
1428=item Can't use a hash as a reference
1429
1430(F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1431C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1432<= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1433have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5
KW
1434
1435=item Can't use an array as a reference
1436
1437(F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1438C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1439used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1440was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5 1441
1db89ea5
BS
1442=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1443
e27ad1f2 1444(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1445table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1446for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1447
96ebfdd7
RK
1448=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1449
1450(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1451be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1452
6df41af2
GS
1453=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1454
be771a83
GS
1455(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1456references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1457
90b75b61 1458=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1459
20561843 1460(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1461Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1462provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1463
1109a392
MHM
1464=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1465
1466(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1467byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1468allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1469
e35475de
KW
1470=item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1471
1472(F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1473checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1474array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1475
1476=item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1477
1478(F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1479
1480Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1481becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1482weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1483These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1484generates a fatal error.
1485
1486If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1487context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1488
1489 if (%hash) {
1490 # not empty
1491 }
1492
1493If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1494variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1495a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1496it's loaded, etc.
1497
6df41af2
GS
1498=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1499
c1f06047 1500(P) The parser got confused when trying to parse a C<foreach> loop.
6df41af2 1501
f27832e7 1502=item Can't use global %s in %s
6df41af2 1503
be771a83
GS
1504(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1505is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1506(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1507have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1508weren't.
1509
6d3b25aa
RGS
1510=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1511
1512(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1513that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1514For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1515is inside a big-endian group.
1516
c07a80fd 1517=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1518
1519(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1520You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1521and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1522Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1523lexical variable.
1524
a0d0e21e
LW
1525=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1526
1527(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1528reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1529test the type of the reference, if need be.
1530
748a9306 1531=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1532
5e634d20
FC
1533=item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1534
b41bf23f
FC
1535(F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1536C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1537L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1538in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1539for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1540of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1541symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
a0d0e21e 1542
748a9306
LW
1543=item Can't use subscript on %s
1544
1545(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1546subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1547didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1548
6df41af2
GS
1549=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1550
75b44862
GS
1551(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1552creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1553backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1554expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1555value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1556instead.
6df41af2 1557
810b8aa5
GS
1558=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1559
1560(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1561references can be weakened.
1562
7896dde7
Z
1563=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1564
1565(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1566loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1567from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1568or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1569
5f05dabc 1570=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1571
be771a83
GS
1572(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1573with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1574Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1575
a04e6aad 1576=item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
f9d13529 1577
7357bd17 1578(F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
17a3df4c 1579
727b6379 1580Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
7357bd17 1581discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
d4360efa 1582L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
f9d13529 1583
163a633c
KW
1584=item Character following \%c must be '{' or a single-character Unicode property name in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1585
1586(F) (In the above the C<%c> is replaced by either C<p> or C<P>.) You
1587specified something that isn't a legal Unicode property name. Most
1588Unicode properties are specified by C<\p{...}>. But if the name is a
1589single character one, the braces may be omitted.
1590
f337b084 1591=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1592
1593(W pack) You said
1594
1595 pack("C", $x)
1596
1597where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1598only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1599and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1600
1601 pack("C", $x & 255)
1602
1603If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1604instead.
1605
f337b084 1606=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1607
1608(W pack) You said
1609
1610 pack("c", $x)
1611
1612where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1613is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1614and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1615
1616 pack("c", $x & 255);
1617
1618If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1619instead.
1620
f337b084
TH
1621=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1622
1623(W unpack) You tried something like
1624
1625 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1626
1a147d38 1627where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1628below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1629value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1630
1631 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1632
5a25739d
FC
1633=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1634
1635(W pack) You said
1636
1637 pack("U0W", $x)
1638
1639where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1640expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1641as if you meant:
1642
1643 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1644
f337b084
TH
1645=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1646
1647(W pack) You tried something like
1648
1649 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1650
1a147d38 1651where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1652value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1653uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1654
1655 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1656
1657=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1658
1659(W unpack) You tried something like
1660
1661 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1662
1a147d38 1663where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1664value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1665uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1666
1667 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1668
8d9d0498
FC
1669=item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple
1670spaces; marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
f51551f7
FC
1671
1672(F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1673in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1674defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1675could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1676L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1677
8d9d0498
FC
1678=item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space;
1679marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
f51551f7
FC
1680
1681(F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1682character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1683defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1684could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1685See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1686
60121127
TC
1687=item chdir() on unopened filehandle %s
1688
1689(W unopened) You tried chdir() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1690
d4360efa 1691=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
f866a7cd 1692
d4360efa
S
1693(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1694non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1695is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1696for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1697between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
f866a7cd 1698
6651ba0b
FC
1699=item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1700
1701(F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1702
abc7ecad
SP
1703=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1704
1705(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1706a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1707
5a25739d
FC
1708=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1709
1710(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1711
541ed3a9
FC
1712=item Closure prototype called
1713
1714(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1715handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1716This subroutine cannot be called.
1717
74d1b2e4
FC
1718=item \C no longer supported in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1719
1720(F) The \C character class used to allow a match of single byte
1721within a multi-byte utf-8 character, but was removed in v5.24 as
1722it broke encapsulation and its implementation was extremely buggy.
1723If you really need to process the individual bytes, you probably
1724want to convert your string to one where each underlying byte is
1725stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1726
49704364
WL
1727=item Code missing after '/'
1728
6903afa2
FC
1729(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1730another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1731
c0236afe
KW
1732=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, and not portable
1733
dc4a6683 1734(S non_unicode portable) You had a code point that has never been in any
c0236afe 1735standard, so it is likely that languages other than Perl will NOT
dc4a6683
KW
1736understand it. This code point also will not fit in a 32-bit word on
1737ASCII platforms and therefore is non-portable between systems.
1738
1739At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
17400x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher, and this code point is higher.
c0236afe
KW
1741
1742Acceptance of these code points is a Perl extension, and you should
1743expect that nothing other than Perl can handle them; Perl itself on
1744EBCDIC platforms before v5.24 does not handle them.
1745
c0236afe
KW
1746Perl also makes no guarantees that the representation of these code
1747points won't change at some point in the future, say when machines
1748become available that have larger than a 64-bit word. At that time,
aaa9d2b4
KW
1749files containing any of these, written by an older Perl might require
1750conversion before being readable by a newer Perl.
c0236afe 1751
5a25739d
FC
1752=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1753
2d88a86a 1754(S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1b64326b
FC
1755of U+10FFFF.
1756
c0236afe
KW
1757Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, but
1758these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. Further, even if
1759these languages/systems accept these large code points, they may have
1760chosen a different representation for them than the UTF-8-like one that
1761Perl has, which would mean files are not exchangeable between them and
1762Perl.
1763
1764On EBCDIC platforms, code points above 0x3FFF_FFFF have a different
1765representation in Perl v5.24 than before, so any file containing these
1766that was written before that version will require conversion before
1767being readable by a later Perl.
0876b9a0 1768
6df41af2
GS
1769=item %s: Command not found
1770
a892b81a 1771(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
66a1f5ec
FC
1772instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1773Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
8f721816 1774
3bcfc7b3
LM
1775 #!/usr/bin/perl
1776
1777=item %s: command not found
1778
1779(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<bash> or another shell
1780instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1781Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1782
1783 #!/usr/bin/perl
1784
1785=item %s: command not found: %s
1786
1787(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<zsh> or another shell
1788instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1789Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1790
1791 #!/usr/bin/perl
6df41af2 1792
7a2e2cd6 1793=item Compilation failed in require
1794
1795(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1796Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1797encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1798
c3464db5
DD
1799=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1800
be771a83
GS
1801(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1802situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1803to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1804arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1805recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1806under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1807in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1808that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1809on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1810
69282e91 1811=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1812
be771a83
GS
1813(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1814to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1815L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1816
e21e7c6a
FC
1817=item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1818
1819(F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1820(see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1821L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1822
1823=item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1824
1825(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1826overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
f738a371 1827L<overload> pragma?
e21e7c6a 1828
779c5bc9
GS
1829=item Constant is not %s reference
1830
1831(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1832is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1833The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1834usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1835See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1836
30fc7a28 1837=item Constants from lexical variables potentially modified elsewhere are no longer permitted
0ac016fc 1838
30fc7a28 1839(F) You wrote something like
0ac016fc
FC
1840
1841 my $var;
1842 $sub = sub () { $var };
1843
1844but $var is referenced elsewhere and could be modified after the C<sub>
1845expression is evaluated. Either it is explicitly modified elsewhere
1846(C<$var = 3>) or it is passed to a subroutine or to an operator like
1847C<printf> or C<map>, which may or may not modify the variable.
1848
1849Traditionally, Perl has captured the value of the variable at that
1850point and turned the subroutine into a constant eligible for inlining.
1851In those cases where the variable can be modified elsewhere, this
1852breaks the behavior of closures, in which the subroutine captures
1853the variable itself, rather than its value, so future changes to the
1854variable are reflected in the subroutine's return value.
1855
30fc7a28 1856This usage was deprecated, and as of Perl 5.32 is no longer allowed,
9840d1d6 1857making it possible to change the behavior in the future.
0ac016fc
FC
1858
1859If you intended for the subroutine to be eligible for inlining, then
1860make sure the variable is not referenced elsewhere, possibly by
1861copying it:
1862
1863 my $var2 = $var;
1864 $sub = sub () { $var2 };
1865
1866If you do want this subroutine to be a closure that reflects future
1867changes to the variable that it closes over, add an explicit C<return>:
1868
1869 my $var;
1870 $sub = sub () { return $var };
1871
4cee8e80
CS
1872=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1873
aeb94125
FC
1874(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1875been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1876for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1877
9607fc9c 1878=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1879
be771a83
GS
1880(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1881for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1882workarounds.
9607fc9c 1883
5a25739d
FC
1884=item Constant(%s) unknown
1885
1886(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1887to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1888character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
3ee1a09c 1889forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?
5a25739d 1890
4a873d7a
FC
1891=item :const is experimental
1892
1893(S experimental::const_attr) The "const" attribute is experimental.
1894If you want to use the feature, disable the warning with C<no warnings
1895'experimental::const_attr'>, but know that in doing so you are taking
1896the risk that your code may break in a future Perl version.
1897
b77472f9
FC
1898=item :const is not permitted on named subroutines
1899
1900(F) The "const" attribute causes an anonymous subroutine to be run and
465068b9 1901its value captured at the time that it is cloned. Named subroutines are
b77472f9
FC
1902not cloned like this, so the attribute does not make sense on them.
1903
e7ea3e70
IZ
1904=item Copy method did not return a reference
1905
6903afa2 1906(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1907L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1908
4aaa4757
FC
1909=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1910
1911(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1912with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1913in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1914called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1915
1916 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1917 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1918
6798c92b
GS
1919=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1920
1921(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1922
675fa9ff
FC
1923=item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1924
1925(P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1926one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
8166b4e0 1927latter, report the problem to L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
675fa9ff 1928
a0d0e21e
LW
1929=item corrupted regexp pointers
1930
1931(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1932expression compiler gave it.
1933
1934=item corrupted regexp program
1935
be771a83
GS
1936(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1937valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1938
de42a5a9 1939=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1940
1941(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1942
49704364
WL
1943=item Count after length/code in unpack
1944
1945(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1946you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1947L<perlfunc/pack>.
1948
3f645a4e
FC
1949=item Declaring references is experimental
1950
1951(S experimental::declared_refs) This warning is emitted if you use
1952a reference constructor on the right-hand side of C<my>, C<state>, C<our>, or
1953C<local>. Simply suppress the warning if you want to use the feature, but
1954know that in doing so you are taking the risk of using an experimental
1955feature which may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
1956
1957 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
1958 use feature "declared_refs";
1959 $fooref = my \$foo;
1960
f2cccb4c
KW
1961=for comment
1962The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1963share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1964
6651ba0b
FC
1965=item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1966
a0d0e21e
LW
1967=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1968
be771a83
GS
1969(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1970100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1971infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1972which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1973
aad1d01f
NC
1974This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1975setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1976
e0e4a6e3
FC
1977=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1978S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
bcb95744 1979
6903afa2 1980(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1981most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1982of the C<....> part.
1983
6e8a73f2 1984The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
bcb95744
FC
1985discovered.
1986
62658f4d
PM
1987=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1988
1989(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1990there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1991
0ffcbc25
FC
1992=item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1993
4a0af295 1994(F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
0ffcbc25
FC
1995such as:
1996
1997 $foo{$bar}
1998 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
1999
2000or a hash or array slice, such as:
2001
2002 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
2003 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2004
cc0776d6
DIM
2005or a hash key/value or array index/value slice, such as:
2006
2007 %foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
2008 %{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2009
fc36a67e 2010=item Delimiter for here document is too long
2011
be771a83
GS
2012(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
2013long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
2014that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 2015
c437f7ac 2016=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30
6d3b25aa 2017
fa816bf3
FC
2018(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
2019has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6d3b25aa 2020not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 2021conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
fa816bf3 2022static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 2023relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 2024declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 2025
6d3b25aa
RGS
2026 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
2027
2028becomes
2029
2030 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
2031
ea9d9ebc 2032Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
fa816bf3 2033lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
36fb85f3
RGS
2034
2035 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
2036
c437f7ac
A
2037This use of C<my()> in a false conditional has been deprecated since
2038Perl 5.10, and it will become a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
2039
500ab966
RGS
2040=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
2041
2042(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
2043just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
2044than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 2045
3cdd684c
TP
2046=item Did not produce a valid header
2047
3de20fbe 2048See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 2049
6df41af2
GS
2050=item %s did not return a true value
2051
2052(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
2053it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
2054traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
2055do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
2056
cc507455 2057=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 2058
413ff9f6
FC
2059(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
2060some such.
4633a7c4 2061
cc507455 2062=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 2063
52e3acf8 2064(W shadow) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
be771a83
GS
2065variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
2066seems superfluous.
33633739 2067
cc507455 2068=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 2069
be771a83
GS
2070(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
2071@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
2072carried away.
748a9306 2073
7e1af8bc 2074=item Died
5f05dabc 2075
2076(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 2077you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 2078
3cdd684c
TP
2079=item Document contains no data
2080
3de20fbe 2081See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 2082
62658f4d
PM
2083=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
2084
2085(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
943fc58e 2086define a C<$VERSION>.
62658f4d 2087
49704364
WL
2088=item '/' does not take a repeat count
2089
2090(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
2091See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2092
1c99110e 2093=item do "%s" failed, '.' is no longer in @INC; did you mean do "./%s"?
2a0461a3 2094
b28683c9 2095(D deprecated) Previously C< do "somefile"; > would search the current
1c99110e
DM
2096directory for the specified file. Since perl v5.26.0, F<.> has been
2097removed from C<@INC> by default, so this is no longer true. To search the
2098current directory (and only the current directory) you can write
2099C< do "./somefile"; >.
2a0461a3 2100
95cb0d72
FC
2101=item Don't know how to get file name
2102
2103(P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
2104somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
2105
4021c788 2106=item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
a0d0e21e
LW
2107
2108(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
2109
2110=item do_study: out of memory
2111
2112(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
2113
6df41af2
GS
2114=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
2115
56da5a46
RGS
2116(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2117"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
2118name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
2119because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
2120"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
2121something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
2122subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
2123"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 2124
d8ff3e95 2125=item dump() must be written as CORE::dump() as of Perl 5.30
ac206dc8 2126
d8ff3e95
JK
2127(F) You used the obsolete C<dump()> built-in function. That was deprecated in
2128Perl 5.8.0. As of Perl 5.30 it must be written in fully qualified format:
2129C<CORE::dump()>.
30b17cc1
A
2130
2131See L<perlfunc/dump>.
ac206dc8 2132
84d78eb7
YO
2133=item dump is not supported
2134
2135(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
2136
a0d0e21e
LW
2137=item Duplicate free() ignored
2138
be771a83
GS
2139(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
2140already been freed.
a0d0e21e 2141
1109a392
MHM
2142=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
2143
35f0cd76
FC
2144(W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
2145type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1109a392 2146
4633a7c4
LW
2147=item elseif should be elsif
2148
fa816bf3
FC
2149(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
2150it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
2151named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
2152unlikely to be what you want.
2153
c30c479a
KW
2154=item Empty \%c in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2155
ccad8842
KW
2156=item Empty \%c{}
2157
e0e4a6e3 2158=item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 2159
e750debb
KW
2160(F) You used something like C<\b{}>, C<\B{}>, C<\o{}>, C<\p>, C<\P>, or
2161C<\x> without specifying anything for it to operate on.
2162
2163Unfortunately, for backwards compatibility reasons, an empty C<\x> is
2164legal outside S<C<use re 'strict'>> and expands to a NUL character.
ab13f0c7 2165
d9a91485
KW
2166=item Empty (?) without any modifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2167
2168(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>>)
2169C<(?)> does nothing, so perhaps this is a typo.
2170
fd503f5c 2171=item ${^ENCODING} is no longer supported
a15a3d9b 2172
fd503f5c 2173(F) The special variable C<${^ENCODING}>, formerly used to implement
a15a3d9b
FC
2174the C<encoding> pragma, is no longer supported as of Perl 5.26.0.
2175
fd503f5c
DIM
2176Setting it to anything other than C<undef> is a fatal error as of Perl
21775.28.
ac641426 2178
85ab1d1d 2179=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2180
85ab1d1d 2181(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2182effective uids or gids failed.
2183
c038024b
RGS
2184=item %ENV is aliased to %s
2185
2186(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
2187aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 2188program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 2189
748a9306
LW
2190=item Error converting file specification %s
2191
5f05dabc 2192(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 2193specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
2194single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
2195an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
2196conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 2197
ad19ef22 2198=item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
e4d48cc9 2199
be771a83
GS
2200(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2201expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
2202is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 2203
ad19ef22 2204=item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
e4d48cc9 2205
be771a83
GS
2206(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
2207C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
2208pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
2209it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
2210C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
2211interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
2212L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 2213
ad19ef22 2214=item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 2215
be771a83
GS
2216(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
2217assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
2218pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 2219
e0e4a6e3
FC
2220=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
2221S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
2222
2223(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 2224any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38 2225
6e8a73f2 2226The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
2227discovered.
2228
fc36a67e 2229=item Excessively long <> operator
2230
2231(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
2232Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
2233filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
2234variable and glob that.
2235
ed9aa3b7
SG
2236=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
2237
af8bb25a 2238(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 2239OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 2240
c77da5ff 2241=item %sExecution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
2242
2243(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
2244
0ffcbc25
FC
2245=item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
2246
4a0af295 2247(F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
0ffcbc25
FC
2248subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
2249
2250 $foo{$bar}
2251 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
2252 &do_something
2253
2254=item exists argument is not a subroutine name
2255
ccfc2567
FC
2256(F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
2257and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
0ffcbc25 2258
a0d0e21e
LW
2259=item Exiting eval via %s
2260
be771a83
GS
2261(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
2262goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
2263
2264=item Exiting format via %s
2265
9a2ff54b 2266(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 2267goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 2268
0a753a76 2269=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
2270
be771a83
GS
2271(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
2272sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
2273loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 2274
a0d0e21e
LW
2275=item Exiting subroutine via %s
2276
be771a83
GS
2277(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
2278as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2279
2280=item Exiting substitution via %s
2281
be771a83
GS
2282(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
2283as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 2284
e0e4a6e3 2285=item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2286
675fa9ff 2287(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2288
2289 (?13
2290
2291to denote a capturing group of the form
2292L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
2293but omitted the C<")">.
2294
d8d1dede
KW
2295=item Expecting interpolated extended charclass in regex; marked by <--
2296HERE in m/%s/
c9ffefcc 2297
d8d1dede
KW
2298(F) It looked like you were attempting to interpolate an
2299already-compiled extended character class, like so:
c9ffefcc 2300
d8d1dede
KW
2301 my $thai_or_lao = qr/(?[ \p{Thai} + \p{Lao} ])/;
2302 ...
2303 qr/(?[ \p{Digit} & $thai_or_lao ])/;
c9ffefcc 2304
d8d1dede
KW
2305But the marked code isn't syntactically correct to be such an
2306interpolated class.
27350048 2307
baabe3fb 2308=item Experimental aliasing via reference not enabled
1f8155a2 2309
baabe3fb 2310(F) To do aliasing via references, you must first enable the feature:
1f8155a2 2311
baabe3fb
FC
2312 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
2313 use feature "refaliasing";
1f8155a2
FC
2314 \$x = \$y;
2315
74d1b2e4
FC
2316=item Experimental %s on scalar is now forbidden
2317
2318(F) An experimental feature added in Perl 5.14 allowed C<each>, C<keys>,
2319C<push>, C<pop>, C<shift>, C<splice>, C<unshift>, and C<values> to be called with a
2320scalar argument. This experiment is considered unsuccessful, and
2321has been removed. The C<postderef> feature may meet your needs better.
2322
30d9c59b
Z
2323=item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
2324
2325(F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
2326
caa35032 2327 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
30d9c59b
Z
2328 use feature "signatures";
2329 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
2330
7b8d334a
GS
2331=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
2332
be771a83
GS
2333(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
2334the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
2335usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
2336e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 2337
6df41af2
GS
2338=item %s: Expression syntax
2339
be771a83
GS
2340(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
2341Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2342
2343=item %s failed--call queue aborted
2344
3c10abe3
AG
2345(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
2346CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
2347queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 2348
e0d4aead 2349=item Failed to close in-place work file %s: %s
502aca56
TC
2350
2351(F) Closing an output file from in-place editing, as with the C<-i>
2352command-line switch, failed.
2353
e0e4a6e3 2354=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
73b437c8 2355
98d31c73 2356(W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3 2357character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
3c6ca74a
FC
2358in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
2359construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
e0e4a6e3 2360the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
3c6ca74a 2361the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 2362
1b1ee2ef 2363=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 2364
be771a83
GS
2365(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
2366system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
2367details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
2368you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
2369
2370=item fcntl is not implemented
2371
2372(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2373PDP-11 or something?
2374
22846ab4
AB
2375=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2376
2377(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2378is not possible.
2379
f337b084
TH
2380=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2381
d8b5cc61 2382(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
2383which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2384a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 2385C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 2386
a0e213fc
A
2387=item File::Glob::glob() will disappear in perl 5.30. Use File::Glob::bsd_glob() instead.
2388
2389(D deprecated) C<< File::Glob >> has a function called C<< glob >>, which
2390just calls C<< bsd_glob >>. However, its prototype is different from the
2391prototype of C<< CORE::glob >>, and hence, C<< File::Glob::glob >> should
2392not be used.
2393
2394C<< File::Glob::glob() >> was deprecated in perl 5.8.0. A deprecation
2395message was issued from perl 5.26.0 onwards, and the function will
2396disappear in perl 5.30.0.
2397
2398Code using C<< File::Glob::glob() >> should call
2399C<< File::Glob::bsd_glob() >> instead.
2400
af8c498a 2401=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 2402
6c8d78fb
HS
2403(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2404it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2405"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2406write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 2407
af8c498a 2408=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 2409
6c8d78fb
HS
2410(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2411you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
2412with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2413read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2414is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2415output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
2416
2417=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2418
2419(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 2420as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
2421previously.
2422
2423=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2424
2425(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
fa816bf3 2426as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
2427
2428=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2429
2430(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
2431a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2432happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2433name.
a0d0e21e 2434
56e90b21
GS
2435=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2436
be771a83 2437(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 2438some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
2439filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2440same name?
56e90b21 2441
6df41af2
GS
2442=item Format not terminated
2443
2444(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2445to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2446
a0d0e21e
LW
2447=item Format %s redefined
2448
e476b1b5 2449(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
2450
2451 {
271595cc 2452 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
2453 eval "format NAME =...";
2454 }
2455
a0d0e21e
LW
2456=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2457
e476b1b5 2458(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
2459
2460 if ($foo = 123)
2461
2462when you meant
2463
2464 if ($foo == 123)
2465
2466(or something like that).
2467
6df41af2
GS
2468=item %s found where operator expected
2469
56da5a46
RGS
2470(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2471If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
2472operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2473operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 2474
a0d0e21e
LW
2475=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2476
2477(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2478
2479=item gethostent not implemented
2480
2481(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2482because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2483on the Internet.
2484
69282e91 2485=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2486
be771a83
GS
2487(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2488socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 2489
748a9306
LW
2490=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2491
2492(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2493C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2494
6df41af2
GS
2495=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2496
be771a83
GS
2497(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2498forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2499L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2500
0f539b13
BF
2501=item given is experimental
2502
7896dde7
Z
2503(S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2504is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2505in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2506L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 2507
68567d27
FC
2508=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2509declare "my %s"?)
6df41af2 2510
a4edf47d 2511(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 2512that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
2513declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2514which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 2515
e476b1b5
GS
2516=item glob failed (%s)
2517
5ead438e 2518(S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
73c4e9dc
FC
2519for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2520pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 2521nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
2522resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2523is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2524in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2525if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2526all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 2527think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 2528C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 2529
a0d0e21e
LW
2530=item Glob not terminated
2531
2532(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
2533a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2534not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2535earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 2536
b35b96b6
JH
2537=item gmtime(%f) failed
2538
2539(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2540too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2541
bcd05b94 2542=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2543
e9200be3 2544(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2545it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2546date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2547not-a-number value).
2548
bcd05b94 2549=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2550
e9200be3 2551(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2552it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2553
6df41af2 2554=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2555
6df41af2
GS
2556(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2557version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2558
2559=item goto must have label
2560
2561(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2562unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2563
6651ba0b
FC
2564=item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2565
2566(F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2567the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2568has since been undefined.
2569
6fbc9859 2570=item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 2571S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1f4f6bf1
YO
2572
2573(F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
f26c79ba
FC
2574they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2575this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
1f4f6bf1 2576
5a25739d
FC
2577=item ()-group starts with a count
2578
2579(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2580something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2581
fe13d51d 2582=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2583
2584(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2585
a0d0e21e
LW
2586=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2587
be771a83
GS
2588(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2589to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2590created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e 2591
6df41af2
GS
2592=item %s has too many errors
2593
2594(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2595Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2596
61e61fbc
JH
2597=item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2598
d8f2b442 2599(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
61e61fbc
JH
2600than the floating point supports.
2601
2602=item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2603
d8f2b442 2604(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
b6d9b423
JH
2605than the floating point supports. With the IEEE 754 floating point,
2606this may also mean that the subnormals (formerly known as denormals)
2607are being used, which may or may not be an error.
61e61fbc 2608
5488d373 2609=item Hexadecimal float: internal error (%s)
cf4f6003
JH
2610
2611(F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2612
61e61fbc
JH
2613=item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2614
2615(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2616the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2617the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2618
40bca5ae
JH
2619=item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2620
2621(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2622digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2623long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2624(needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2625
2626=item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2627
2628(F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
d8f2b442 2629the internals of the long double format are unknown;
40bca5ae
JH
2630therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2631
252aa082
JH
2632=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2633
e476b1b5 2634(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2635(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2636L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2637
8903cb82 2638=item Identifier too long
2639
2640(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2641about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2642names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2643of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2644
e0e4a6e3
FC
2645=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2646S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
fc8cd66c 2647
f3ba6905 2648(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
0f44b2a5
FC
2649zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character
2650class its behavior is not well defined. Check that the correct
2651escape has been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
fc8cd66c 2652
bcfb98ec 2653=item Illegal %s digit '%c' ignored
f675dbe5 2654
bcfb98ec
KW
2655(W digit) Here C<%s> is one of "binary", "octal", or "hex".
2656You may have tried to use a digit other than one that is legal for the
2657given type, such as only 0 and 1 for binary. For octals, this is raised
2658only if the illegal character is an '8' or '9'. For hex, 'A' - 'F' and
2659'a' - 'f' are legal.
2660Interpretation of the number stopped just before the offending digit or
2661character.
f675dbe5 2662
bcfb98ec 2663=item Illegal binary digit '%c'
a0d0e21e 2664
bcfb98ec 2665(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
a0d0e21e 2666
6597eb22
FC
2667=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2668
e4d150f1
FC
2669(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2670declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2671indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2672or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
6597eb22 2673
b913d0b8
FC
2674=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2675
2676(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as
2677it would any other whitespace, which means you should never see
2678this error when Perl was built using standard options. For some
2679reason, your version of Perl appears to have been built without
2680this support. Talk to your Perl administrator.
2681
bb6b75cd 2682=item Illegal character following sigil in a subroutine signature
d3d9da4a
DM
2683
2684(F) A parameter in a subroutine signature contained an unexpected character
d4e5761f
FC
2685following the C<$>, C<@> or C<%> sigil character. Normally the sigil
2686should be followed by the variable name or C<=> etc. Perhaps you are
d3d9da4a
DM
2687trying use a prototype while in the scope of C<use feature 'signatures'>?
2688For example:
2689
2690 sub foo ($$) {} # legal - a prototype
2691
2692 use feature 'signatures;
2693 sub foo ($$) {} # illegal - was expecting a signature
2694 sub foo ($a, $b)
2695 :prototype($$) {} # legal
2696
2697
d37a9538
ST
2698=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2699
197afce1 2700(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2701Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
30d9c59b
Z
2702Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2703that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2704instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
d37a9538 2705
904d85c5
RGS
2706=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2707
2708(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2709you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2710
8e742a20
MHM
2711=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2712
6903afa2 2713(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2714
a0d0e21e
LW
2715=item Illegal division by zero
2716
be771a83
GS
2717(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2718your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2719meaningless input.
a0d0e21e
LW
2720
2721=item Illegal modulus zero
2722
be771a83
GS
2723(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2724numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2725
6df41af2 2726=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2727
6df41af2
GS
2728(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2729two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4 2730
283151b7 2731=item Illegal octal digit '%c'
a0d0e21e 2732
d1be9408 2733(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2734
ecc6274e
FC
2735=item Illegal operator following parameter in a subroutine signature
2736
2737(F) A parameter in a subroutine signature, was followed by something
2738other than C<=> introducing a default, C<,> or C<)>.
2739
2740 use feature 'signatures';
2741 sub foo ($=1) {} # legal
2742 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
2743 sub foo ($a += 1) {} # illegal
2744 sub foo ($a == 1) {} # illegal
2745
e0e4a6e3 2746=item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2747
675fa9ff 2748(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2749
2750 (?+foo)
2751
2752The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2753capturing group. See
2754L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2755
375ed12a
JH
2756=item Illegal suidscript
2757
2758(F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2759
fe13d51d 2760=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2761
6df41af2 2762(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2763following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2764
4003ea29
KW
2765=item Illegal user-defined property name
2766
2767(F) You specified a Unicode-like property name in a regular expression
2768pattern (using C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>) that Perl knows isn't an official
2769Unicode property, and was likely meant to be a user-defined property
2770name, but it can't be one of those, as they must begin with either C<In>
2771or C<Is>. Check the spelling. See also
2772L</Can't find Unicode property definition "%s">.
2773
6df41af2 2774=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2775
75b44862 2776(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2777internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2778delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2779
6df41af2 2780=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2781
be771a83
GS
2782(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2783name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2784didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2785ignored.
54310121 2786
6df41af2 2787=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2788
be771a83
GS
2789(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2790the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2791system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2792times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2793would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2794
be771a83
GS
2795Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2796also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2797
e0e4a6e3
FC
2798=item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2799in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 2800
675fa9ff 2801(F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
0d0b4b3b
KW
2802expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2803too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2804enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2805
6fbc9859
MH
2806=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2807parent '%s'
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2808
2809(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2810C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2811documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2812
cdd6375d
MH
2813=item Indentation on line %d of here-doc doesn't match delimiter
2814
2815(F) You have an indented here-document where one or more of its lines
2816have whitespace at the beginning that does not match the closing
2817delimiter.
2818
2819For example, line 2 below is wrong because it does not have at least
28202 spaces, but lines 1 and 3 are fine because they have at least 2:
2821
2822 if ($something) {
2823 print <<~EOF;
2824 Line 1
2825 Line 2 not
2826 Line 3
2827 EOF
2828 }
2829
2830Note that tabs and spaces are compared strictly, meaning 1 tab will
2831not match 8 spaces.
2832
6a2ed79a 2833=item Infinite recursion in regex
1a147d38
YO
2834
2835(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2836text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2837either consume text or fail.
2838
714f94d1
FC
2839=item Infinite recursion via empty pattern
2840
2841(F) You tried to use the empty pattern inside of a regex code block,
2842for instance C</(?{ s!!! })/>, which resulted in re-executing
2843the same pattern, which is an infinite loop which is broken by
2844throwing an exception.
2845
f99042c8 2846=item Initialization of state variables in list currently forbidden
6dbe9451 2847
f99042c8
Z
2848(F) C<state> only permits initializing a single variable, specified
2849without parentheses. So C<state $a = 42> and C<state @a = qw(a b c)> are
2850allowed, but not C<state ($a) = 42> or C<(state $a) = 42>. To initialize
2851more than one C<state> variable, initialize them one at a time.
6dbe9451 2852
2186f873
FC
2853=item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2854
2855(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2856(indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2857it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2858is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2859returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2860a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2861expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2862returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2863
2864=item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2865
2866(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2867(indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2868better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2869is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2870it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2871provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2872if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2873it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2874
a0d0e21e
LW
2875=item Insecure dependency in %s
2876
8b1a09fc 2877(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2878The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2879setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2880tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2881from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2882such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2883L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2884
2885=item Insecure directory in %s
2886
be771a83
GS
2887(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2888setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2889the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2890See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2891
62f468fc 2892=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2893
2894(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2895setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2896C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2897supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2898the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2899
0e9be77f
DM
2900=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2901
2902(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2903expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2904function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2905See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2906
b9ef414d
FC
2907=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2908
2909(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2910or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2911integers for your architecture.
2912
a7ae9550
GS
2913=item Integer overflow in %s number
2914
35928bc5 2915(S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2916either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2917your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2918On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2919representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
29200b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2921transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2922internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2923operations.
bbce6d69 2924
fc89ca81
FC
2925=item Integer overflow in srand
2926
2927(S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2928in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2929replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2930architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2931you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2932return the same sequence of random numbers.
2933
46314c13
JP
2934=item Integer overflow in version
2935
18da5252
FC
2936=item Integer overflow in version %d
2937
784d71ed
FC
2938(W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2939the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
f084e84f 2940because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
784d71ed
FC
2941element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2942to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
46314c13 2943
e0e4a6e3 2944=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2945
2946(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
e0e4a6e3 2947The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2948discovered.
2949
748a9306
LW
2950=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2951
be771a83
GS
2952(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2953you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2954to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2955L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2956Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2957terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2958
870978ae
FC
2959=item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2960
2961(S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2962formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2963C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2964by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2965message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2966reserved format.
2967
e0e4a6e3 2968=item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 2969
fa816bf3 2970(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
e0e4a6e3 2971S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
7253e4e3 2972discovered.
a0d0e21e 2973
6df41af2
GS
2974=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2975
75b44862 2976(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2977followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2978operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2979L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2980
f51551f7
FC
2981=item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2982marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2983
2984(F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2985expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2986intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2987with whitespace.
2988
d9790612 2989=item In '(*...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
edf23316
FC
2990marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2991
d9790612 2992(F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in this context in a regular
edf23316 2993expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
d9790612
KW
2994intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
2995Fix the pattern and retry.
edf23316 2996
09bef843
SB
2997=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2998
a4a4c9e2 2999(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
3000by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
3001
3002=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
3003
a4a4c9e2 3004(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 3005recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 3006
e0e4a6e3
FC
3007=item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
3008S<<-- HERE> in '%s
225fb84f
KW
3009
3010(F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
3011the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
3012the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3013
c8028aa6
TC
3014=item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
3015
fa3234e3
FC
3016(W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
3017arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
3018formerly ignored by system calls.
c8028aa6 3019
e0e4a6e3 3020=item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
a690c7c4
FC
3021
3022(F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
3023indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3024
c635e13b 3025=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
3026
be771a83
GS
3027(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
3028L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 3029
e0e4a6e3
FC
3030=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
3031S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9e08bc66 3032
98d31c73 3033(W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
9e08bc66
TS
3034didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
3035from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
98d31c73
FC
3036The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
3037instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
e0e4a6e3 3038The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
9e08bc66
TS
3039escape was discovered.
3040
8149aa9f
FC
3041=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
3042
e0e4a6e3
FC
3043=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
3044S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3045
8149aa9f 3046(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
3047number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
30480 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 3049
6651ba0b
FC
3050=item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
3051
3052(F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
3053cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
3054arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
3055B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
3056
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3057=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
3058
162a3e34
FC
3059(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
3060where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
3061the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
3062a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 3063
40e4140b
FC
3064=item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
3065
3066(W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
abc0aa9d 3067not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
40e4140b
FC
3068character (U+FFFD).
3069
74d1b2e4
FC
3070=item Invalid number '%s' for -C option.
3071
3072(F) You supplied a number to the -C option that either has extra leading
3073zeroes or overflows perl's unsigned integer representation.
3074
6651ba0b
FC
3075=item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
3076
8ff21bfe
FC
3077(S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
3078with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
982c4ecb 3079See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
6651ba0b 3080
6e8a73f2 3081=item Invalid quantifier in {,} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
35cd12d1
HS
3082
3083(F) The pattern looks like a {min,max} quantifier, but the min or max
3084could not be parsed as a valid number - either it has leading zeroes,
3085or it represents too big a number to cope with. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3086where in the regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3087
e0e4a6e3 3088=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3089
3090(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
3091greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
3092C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
e0e4a6e3 3093up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 3094problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 3095
d1573ac7 3096=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
3097
3098(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
3099character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
3100
09bef843
SB
3101=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
3102
0120eecf 3103(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
3104elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
3105parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
3106See L<attributes>.
09bef843 3107
b4581f09
JH
3108=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
3109
2bfc5f71
FC
3110(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
3111than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
3112If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
3113list was terminated too soon.
3114
2c86d456
DG
3115=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
3116
fa816bf3 3117(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
3118A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3119decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
3120v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 3121The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
3122See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
3123
49704364 3124=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 3125
49704364
WL
3126(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
3127See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 3128
49704364 3129(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 3130silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 3131
2c86d456
DG
3132=item Invalid version format (%s)
3133
fa816bf3 3134(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
3135A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3136decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
fa816bf3
FC
3137v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
3138must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
3139optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
3140trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
3141after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
3142text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
3143for more details on allowed version formats.
46314c13 3144
798ae1b7
DG
3145=item Invalid version object
3146
fa816bf3
FC
3147(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
3148Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
3149an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
798ae1b7 3150
cd209d9d 3151=item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
e0e4a6e3 3152marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff 3153
cc06e157
KW
3154=item Inverting a character class which contains a multi-character
3155sequence is illegal in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3156
3157(F) You wrote something like
3158
3159 qr/\P{name=KATAKANA LETTER AINU P}/
3160 qr/[^\p{name=KATAKANA LETTER AINU P}]/
3161
3162This name actually evaluates to a sequence of two Katakana characters,
3163not just a single one, and it is illegal to try to take the complement
3164of a sequence. (Mathematically it would mean any sequence of characters
3165from 0 to infinity in length that weren't these two in a row, and that
3166is likely not of any real use.)
3167
edf23316
FC
3168(F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in this context in a regular
3169expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
3170intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
675fa9ff 3171
a0d0e21e
LW
3172=item ioctl is not implemented
3173
3174(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
3175strange for a machine that supports C.
3176
c289d2f7
JH
3177=item ioctl() on unopened %s
3178
3179(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 3180Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 3181
fe13d51d 3182=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
3183
3184(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 3185you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
3186with 'useperlio'.
3187
80cbd5ad
JH
3188=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
3189
3190(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 3191neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 3192
6e8a73f2 3193=item '%s' is an unknown bound type in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
64935bc6
KW
3194
3195(F) You used C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}> and the C<...> is not known to
3196Perl. The current valid ones are given in
3197L<perlrebackslash/\b{}, \b, \B{}, \B>.
3198
ac3afc4b
YO
3199=item %s is forbidden - matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3200m/%s/
3201
3202(F) The pattern you've specified might cause the regular expression to
3203infinite loop so it is forbidden. The S<<-- HERE>
3204shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3205See L<perlre>.
3206
1ed4b776 3207=item %s() isn't allowed on :utf8 handles
74d1b2e4 3208
1ed4b776
TC
3209(F) The sysread(), recv(), syswrite() and send() operators are
3210not allowed on handles that have the C<:utf8> layer, either explicitly, or
74d1b2e4
FC
3211implicitly, eg., with the C<:encoding(UTF-16LE)> layer.
3212
1ed4b776
TC
3213Previously sysread() and recv() currently use only the C<:utf8> flag for the stream,
3214ignoring the actual layers. Since sysread() and recv() did no UTF-8
74d1b2e4
FC
3215validation they can end up creating invalidly encoded scalars.
3216
1ed4b776
TC
3217Similarly, syswrite() and send() used only the C<:utf8> flag, otherwise ignoring
3218any layers. If the flag is set, both wrote the value UTF-8 encoded, even if
74d1b2e4
FC
3219the layer is some different encoding, such as the example above.
3220
3221Ideally, all of these operators would completely ignore the C<:utf8> state,
3222working only with bytes, but this would result in silently breaking existing
1972ac5c
A
3223code.
3224
d4360efa 3225=item "%s" is more clearly written simply as "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
acdfc3b6 3226
d4360efa 3227(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
30b17cc1 3228
3f673807
FC
3229You specified a character that has the given plainer way of writing it, and
3230which is also portable to platforms running with different character sets.
acdfc3b6 3231
dcb414ac 3232=item $* is no longer supported as of Perl 5.30
a678626e 3233
dcb414ac
JK
3234(F) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, was removed in
32355.10.0, is no longer supported and is a fatal error as of Perl 5.30. In
a678626e
A
3236previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
3237matching within a string.
3238
3239Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
3240modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
3241with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
3242then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
3243
37398dc1
A
3244Use of this variable will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
3245
dcb414ac 3246=item $# is no longer supported as of Perl 5.30
a678626e 3247
dcb414ac
JK
3248(F) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, was removed as of
32495.10.0, is no longer supported and is a fatal error as of Perl 5.30. You
a678626e
A
3250should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
3251
ccf3535a 3252=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 3253
6903afa2
FC
3254(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
3255overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
3256an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 3257
ccf3535a 3258=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 3259
04a80ee0
RGS
3260(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
3261unaware of.
6ad11d81 3262
813e85a0
PE
3263=item isa is experimental
3264
3265(S experimental::isa) This warning is emitted if you use the (C<isa>)
3266operator. This operator is currently experimental and its behaviour may
3267change in future releases of Perl.
3268
5a25739d
FC
3269=item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
3270
3271(S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
3272that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
3273given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
3274make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
3275it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
3276should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
028611fa 3277line. See L<perlrun|perlrun/-i[extension]> for more details.
5a25739d 3278
aec0ef10 3279=item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
3280
3281(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
3282
105c827d
TC
3283=item \K not permitted in lookahead/lookbehind in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3284
3285(F) Your regular expression used C<\K> in a lookhead or lookbehind
3286assertion, which isn't permitted.
3287
a0d0e21e
LW
3288=item Label not found for "last %s"
3289
be771a83
GS
3290(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
3291of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3292L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3293
3294=item Label not found for "next %s"
3295
3296(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
3297that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3298L<perlfunc/last>.
3299
3300=item Label not found for "redo %s"
3301
3302(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
3303that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3304L<perlfunc/last>.
3305
85ab1d1d 3306=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 3307
85ab1d1d 3308(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
3309effective uids or gids failed.
3310
49704364
WL
3311=item length/code after end of string in unpack
3312
d7f8936a 3313(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
3314length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
3315an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 3316
25e26107 3317=item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
e508c8a4 3318
0d46a4e7
FC
3319(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
3320probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
3321
3322Array size can be obtained by doing:
3323
3324 scalar(@array);
3325
3326The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
3327
3328 scalar(keys %hash);
3329
f0e67a1d
Z
3330=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
3331
d4fe7078
RS
3332(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
3333(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
3334couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
3335of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
6903afa2 3336it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
3337
3338=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
3339
3340(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
3341detectable way.
3342
69282e91 3343=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3344
be771a83
GS
3345(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
3346to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3347L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 3348
6651ba0b
FC
3349=item List form of piped open not implemented
3350
3351(F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
3352form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
3353Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
3354
2a6971a9
KW
3355=item Literal vertical space in [] is illegal except under /x in regex;
3356marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3357
3358(F) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
3359
3360Likely you forgot the C</x> modifier or there was a typo in the pattern.
3361For example, did you really mean to match a form-feed? If so, all the
3362ASCII vertical space control characters are representable by escape
3363sequences which won't present such a jarring appearance as your pattern
3364does when displayed.
3365
3366 \r carriage return
3367 \f form feed
3368 \n line feed
3369 \cK vertical tab
3370
dc6bb7ba
FC
3371=item %s: loadable library and perl binaries are mismatched (got handshake key %p, needed %p)
3372
3373(P) A dynamic loading library C<.so> or C<.dll> was being loaded into the
3374process that was built against a different build of perl than the
3375said library was compiled against. Reinstalling the XS module will
3376likely fix this error.
3377
8b7358b9 3378=item Locale '%s' contains (at least) the following characters which
f03e1e3a 3379have unexpected meanings: %s The Perl program will use the expected
8b7358b9
KW
3380meanings
3381
3382(W locale) You are using the named UTF-8 locale. UTF-8 locales are
578a6a87
KW
3383expected to have very particular behavior, which most do. This message
3384arises when perl found some departures from the expectations, and is
3385notifying you that the expected behavior overrides these differences.
3386In some cases the differences are caused by the locale definition being
3387defective, but the most common causes of this warning are when there are
3388ambiguities and conflicts in following the Standard, and the locale has
3389chosen an approach that differs from Perl's.
3390
3391One of these is because that, contrary to the claims, Unicode is not
a2d13ee0
FC
3392completely locale insensitive. Turkish and some related languages
3393have two types of C<"I"> characters. One is dotted in both upper- and
578a6a87
KW
3394lowercase, and the other is dotless in both cases. Unicode allows a
3395locale to use either the Turkish rules, or the rules used in all other
3396instances, where there is only one type of C<"I">, which is dotless in
3397the uppercase, and dotted in the lower. The perl core does not (yet)
3398handle the Turkish case, and this message warns you of that. Instead,
8b7358b9
KW
3399the L<Unicode::Casing> module allows you to mostly implement the Turkish
3400casing rules.
3401
578a6a87
KW
3402The other common cause is for the characters
3403
3404 $ + < = > ^ ` | ~
3405
3406These are probematic. The C standard says that these should be
3407considered punctuation in the C locale (and the POSIX standard defers to
a2d13ee0
FC
3408the C standard), and Unicode is generally considered a superset of
3409the C locale. But Unicode has added an extra category, "Symbol", and
578a6a87
KW
3410classifies these particular characters as being symbols. Most UTF-8
3411locales have them treated as punctuation, so that L<ispunct(2)> returns
a2d13ee0
FC
3412non-zero for them. But a few locales have it return 0. Perl takes
3413the first approach, not using C<ispunct()> at all (see L<Note [5] in
3414perlrecharclass|perlrecharclass/[5]>), and this message is raised to notify you that you
3415are getting Perl's approach, not the locale's.
8b7358b9 3416
8c6180a9
KW
3417=item Locale '%s' may not work well.%s
3418
780fcc9f 3419(W locale) You are using the named locale, which is a non-UTF-8 one, and
dae67c56
KW
3420which perl has determined is not fully compatible with what it can
3421handle. The second C<%s> gives a reason.
8c6180a9
KW
3422
3423By far the most common reason is that the locale has characters in it
3424that are represented by more than one byte. The only such locales that
3425Perl can handle are the UTF-8 locales. Most likely the specified locale
3426is a non-UTF-8 one for an East Asian language such as Chinese or
3427Japanese. If the locale is a superset of ASCII, the ASCII portion of it
780fcc9f 3428may work in Perl.
8c6180a9
KW
3429
3430Some essentially obsolete locales that aren't supersets of ASCII, mainly
3431those in ISO 646 or other 7-bit locales, such as ASMO 449, can also have
3432problems, depending on what portions of the ASCII character set get
3433changed by the locale and are also used by the program.
3434The warning message lists the determinable conflicting characters.
3435
780fcc9f
KW
3436Note that not all incompatibilities are found.
3437
3438If this happens to you, there's not much you can do except switch to use a
3439different locale or use L<Encode> to translate from the locale into
3440UTF-8; if that's impracticable, you have been warned that some things
3441may break.
3442
3443This message is output once each time a bad locale is switched into
3444within the scope of C<S<use locale>>, or on the first possibly-affected
3445operation if the C<S<use locale>> inherits a bad one. It is not raised
3446for any operations from the L<POSIX> module.
3447
a2162cd9
FC
3448=item localtime(%f) failed
3449
3450(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
3451too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
3452
3453=item localtime(%f) too large
3454
3455(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
3456than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3457wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
3458not-a-number value).
3459
3460=item localtime(%f) too small
3461
3462(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
3463than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3464wrong date.
3465
58e23c8d 3466=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3467
3468(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 3469handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 3470
b88df990
NC
3471=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
3472
e63e8a91
FC
3473(W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
3474is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
3475accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
3476warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
3477when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
3478insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
b88df990 3479
93fad930 3480=item lstat() on filehandle%s
2f7da168
RK
3481
3482(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
3483by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
3484instead on the filehandle.)
3485
345d70e3 3486=item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
bb3abb05 3487
345d70e3
FC
3488(W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
3489attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
3490does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
3491want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
3492details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
3493if you really know what you are doing.
bb3abb05 3494
885ef6f5
GG
3495=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
3496
345d70e3
FC
3497(W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
3498subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
3499not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
3500add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
3501foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
3502
3503See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
885ef6f5 3504
6f1b3ab0
FC
3505=item Magical list constants are not supported
3506
3507(F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
3508to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
3509something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
3510
2db62bbc 3511=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 3512
2db62bbc 3513(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
3514are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3515
3516=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
3517
2db62bbc 3518(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
3519are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3520
6df41af2
GS
3521=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3522
3523(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3524
3525 prefix1;prefix2
3526
3527or
6df41af2
GS
3528 prefix1 prefix2
3529
be771a83
GS
3530with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
3531a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
3532appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 3533"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3534
2f758a16
ST
3535=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
3536
d37a9538
ST
3537(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
3538syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
3539obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
3540when the function is called.
30d9c59b
Z
3541Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
3542but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
3543so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2f758a16 3544
2b5e7bc2 3545=item Malformed UTF-8 character%s
ba210ebe 3546
7cf8d05d
KW
3547(S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that should be UTF-8, but didn't
3548comply with UTF-8 encoding rules, or represents a code point whose
3549ordinal integer value doesn't fit into the word size of the current
3550platform (overflows). Details as to the exact malformation are given in
3551the variable, C<%s>, part of the message.
ba210ebe 3552
2575c402 3553One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
3f673807
FC
3554you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit
3555data). To guard against this, you can use C<Encode::decode('UTF-8', ...)>.
2575c402
JW
3556
3557If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
3f673807
FC
3558sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is set
3559without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error message.
2575c402
JW
3560
3561See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 3562
bde9e88d 3563=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
ff3f963a
KW
3564
3565(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
3566
714f94d1
FC
3567=item Malformed UTF-8 string in "%s"
3568
3569(F) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl core or in XS
3570code. Such code was trying to find out if a character, allegedly
3571stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such as
3572being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded
3573in legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used
3574by knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked
3575against was.
3576
3577Passing malformed strings was deprecated in Perl 5.18, and
3578became fatal in Perl 5.26.
3579
4a5d3a93
FC
3580=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
3581
3582(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3583rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3584
f337b084
TH
3585=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
3586
3587(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3588rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3589
3590=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
3591
3592(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3593rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3594
4a5d3a93 3595=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 3596
4a5d3a93
FC
3597(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
3598doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
3599
30d9c59b
Z
3600=item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
3601
3602(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
3603$b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
3604Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
3605caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
3606as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
3607optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
3608
2d88a86a
KW
3609=item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
3610not be portable
3611
3612(S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
3613Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
0202c428 3614in a signed integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
2d88a86a
KW
3615other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3616containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3617the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3618C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3619so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3620in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3621unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3622given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3623L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3624
3625This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3626immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3627not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3628the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3629Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3630every code point except these 22.)
3631
3632Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3633should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3634that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3635category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3636off this category.
3637
3638See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3639
e0e4a6e3
FC
3640=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3641m/%s/
4a5d3a93
FC
3642
3643(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
e0e4a6e3 3644regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 3645shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4a5d3a93 3646See L<perlre>.
f337b084 3647
de42a5a9 3648=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 3649
6903afa2 3650(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
3651usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3652too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3653resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 3654safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 3655
25f58aea
PN
3656=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3657
3658(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3659interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3660"use" or "my".
3661
0d2487cd 3662=item '%' may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
3663
3664(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
3665checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3666See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 3667
a0d0e21e
LW
3668=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3669
3670(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 3671doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3672
3cdd684c
TP
3673=item Method %s not permitted
3674
3de20fbe 3675See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 3676
a0d0e21e
LW
3677=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3678
3679(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3680by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3681ended earlier on the current line.
3682
3683=item Misplaced _ in number
3684
d4ced10d
JH
3685(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3686separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 3687
0ea23158
DM
3688=item Missing argument for %n in %s
3689
3690(F) A C<%n> was used in a format string with no corresponding argument for
3691perl to write the current string length to.
3692
7baa4690
HS
3693=item Missing argument in %s
3694
3664866e
AB
3695(W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3696arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3697
3698Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3699arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3700other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3701functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
7baa4690 3702
9e81e6a1
RGS
3703=item Missing argument to -%c
3704
3705(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3706immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3707
ff3f963a 3708=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 3709
e0e4a6e3 3710=item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3711
4a2d328f 3712(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
3713double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3714(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3715This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3716follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 3717
f0a2b745
KW
3718=item Missing braces on \o{}
3719
3720(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3721
a0d0e21e
LW
3722=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3723
3724(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3725"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3726
06eaf0bc
GS
3727=item Missing command in piped open
3728
be771a83
GS
3729(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3730C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3731blank.
06eaf0bc 3732
961ce445
RGS
3733=item Missing control char name in \c
3734
3735(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3736character name.
3737
591f5ca2
FC
3738=item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3739
bfe11873 3740(W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
591f5ca2 3741
8767b1ab 3742=item Missing name in "%s sub"
6df41af2 3743
87444db5 3744(F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
be771a83 3745they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
3746
3747=item Missing $ on loop variable
3748
be771a83
GS
3749(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3750are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3751can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 3752
cc507455 3753=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 3754
56da5a46
RGS
3755(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3756"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 3757
33fe1955 3758=item Missing or undefined argument to %s
f51551f7 3759
33fe1955 3760(F) You tried to call require or do with no argument or with an undefined
f51551f7 3761value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
33fe1955
LM
3762file-specification as an argument; do expects a filename. See
3763L<perlfunc/require EXPR> and L<perlfunc/do EXPR>.
f51551f7 3764
e0e4a6e3 3765=item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 3766
ff3f963a
KW
3767(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3768
605eee60 3769=item Missing right brace on \N{}
faad849d 3770
4a68bf9d 3771=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 3772
d32207c9
FC
3773(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3774
3775The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3776meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
fa816bf3 3777name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
d32207c9
FC
3778double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3779it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3780
3781Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3782in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3783for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3784
3785This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3786by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3787form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3788means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
37893; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3790C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3791
3792However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3793mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3794If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3795escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 3796
d98d5fff 3797=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 3798
be771a83
GS
3799(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3800ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3801were last editing.
a0d0e21e 3802
6df41af2
GS
3803=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3804
56da5a46
RGS
3805(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3806"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
3807the previous line just because you saw this message.
3808
a0d0e21e
LW
3809=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3810
3811(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 3812constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
3813catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3814
3815 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3816 mod(2);
3817
3818Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3819
c5674021
PDF
3820Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3821is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3822
b7e4ecc1
FC
3823 $x = 1;
3824 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3825 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3826 } # modify the 2
c5674021 3827
7a4340ed 3828=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3829
3830(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3831subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3832backwards.
3833
7a4340ed 3834=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 3835
be771a83
GS
3836(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3837couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
3838
3839=item Module name must be constant
3840
3841(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3842
be98fb35 3843=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 3844
be98fb35 3845(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
028611fa
DB
3846you omitted the name of the module. Consult
3847L<perlrun|perlrun/-m[-]module> for full details about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 3848
fe13d51d 3849=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 3850
6903afa2 3851(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
3852can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3853list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3854See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3855
85396b18
FC
3856=item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3857
3858(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3859L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3860could not be made read-only.
3861
92951bce
FC
3862=item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3863
85396b18
FC
3864(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3865but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3866
3867=item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3868
3869(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3870L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3871buffer could not be made mutable.
3872
92951bce
FC
3873=item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3874
3875(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
85396b18
FC
3876L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3877mutable before freeing the ops.
92951bce 3878
a0d0e21e
LW
3879=item msg%s not implemented
3880
3881(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3882
3883=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3884
75b44862
GS
3885(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3886They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 3887
d3d9da4a
DM
3888=item Multiple slurpy parameters not allowed
3889
3890(F) In subroutine signatures, a slurpy parameter (C<@> or C<%>) must be
3891the last parameter, and there must not be more than one of them; for
3892example:
3893
3894 sub foo ($a, @b) {} # legal
3895 sub foo ($a, @b, %) {} # invalid
3896
49704364 3897=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 3898
49704364
WL
3899(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3900follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3901See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2 3902
c869951c 3903=item %s must not be a named sequence in transliteration operator
f4240379
KW
3904
3905(F) Transliteration (C<tr///> and C<y///>) transliterates individual
3906characters. But a named sequence by definition is more than an
dabde021 3907individual character, and hence doing this operation on it doesn't make
f4240379
KW
3908sense.
3909
6df41af2
GS
3910=item "my sub" not yet implemented
3911
be771a83
GS
3912(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3913that yet.
6df41af2 3914
a21eb52b
FC
3915=item "my" subroutine %s can't be in a package
3916
3917(F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3918sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
3919
5a25739d
FC
3920=item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3921
3922(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3923You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3924sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3925lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3926name, or rename the lexical variable.
3927
fd1b7234 3928=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 3929
be771a83
GS
3930(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3931sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3932local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 3933
8149aa9f
FC
3934=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3935
c59aba6c
FC
3936(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3937names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3938just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
08a33b6b 3939declaration is also provided for this purpose.
c59aba6c 3940
66a1f5ec
FC
3941NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3942only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3943warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3944%c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
c59aba6c
FC
3945format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3946but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3947Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3948identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
8149aa9f 3949
e0e4a6e3 3950=item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b
KW
3951
3952(F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3953exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3954constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3955
3956 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3957 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3958 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3959
3960The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
675fa9ff
FC
3961need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3962two separate things, you need to separate them:
0d0b4b3b
KW
3963
3964 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3965 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3966 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3967 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3968
49704364
WL
3969=item Negative '/' count in unpack
3970
3971(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3972negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3973
a0d0e21e
LW
3974=item Negative length
3975
be771a83
GS
3976(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3977length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 3978
ed9aa3b7
SG
3979=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3980
3981(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3982greater than or equal to zero.
3983
b3211734
KW
3984=item Negative repeat count does nothing
3985
3986(W numeric) You tried to execute the
3987L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3988times, which doesn't make sense.
3989
e0e4a6e3 3990=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3991
6903afa2 3992(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
e0e4a6e3 3993So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 3994whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 3995
7253e4e3 3996Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 3997C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3998
6df41af2 3999=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 4000
be771a83
GS
4001(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
4002scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 4003
2c7d6b9c
RGS
4004=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
4005
4006(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
4007real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
4008See L<mro>.
4009
5a25739d 4010=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
e0e4a6e3 4011marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5a25739d 4012
32a77fbe
FC
4013(F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
4014bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
4015class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
4016probably not what you want.
5a25739d 4017
1a7108fe 4018=item \N{} here is restricted to one character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
0b4ce96d 4019
f3ba6905
FC
4020(F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
4021multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
4022supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
bc035eed
KW
4023whole thing correctly, except under certain conditions. These currently
4024are
4025
4026=over 4
4027
4028=item When the class is inverted (C<[^...]>)
4029
4030The mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
f3ba6905 4031is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
bc035eed
KW
4032forbid it.
4033
4034=item The escape is the beginning or final end point of a range
4035
4036Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
f3ba6905 4037C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
8f0cd35a
KW
4038
4039 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
4040
f3ba6905
FC
4041What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
4042of code points, so this is made an error.
0b4ce96d 4043
bc035eed
KW
4044=item In a regex set
4045
4046The syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression yields a list of
4047single code points, none can be a sequence.
4048
4049=back
4050
a0d0e21e
LW
4051=item No %s allowed while running setuid
4052
be771a83
GS
4053(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
4054setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
4055will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
4056securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 4057
6651ba0b
FC
4058=item No code specified for -%c
4059
4060(F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
4061you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
4062argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
4063
4064 perl -e ""
4065 perl -e0
4066 perl -e1
4067
a0d0e21e
LW
4068=item No comma allowed after %s
4069
6903afa2
FC
4070(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
4071not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
4072Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
4073
6903afa2
FC
4074One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
4075a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
4076importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
4077system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
4078use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
4079please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
4080explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
4081it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
4082still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
4083the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
4084constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 4085
748a9306
LW
4086=item No command into which to pipe on command line
4087
be771a83
GS
4088(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4089redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
4090doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 4091
a0d0e21e
LW
4092=item No DB::DB routine defined
4093
be771a83 4094(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 4095for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
4096module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
4097statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
4098
4099=item No dbm on this machine
4100
4101(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 4102supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 4103
ccafdc96 4104=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 4105
ccafdc96
RGS
4106(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
4107for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
4108module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
4109of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 4110
1ef28cc3
TC
4111=item No digits found for %s literal
4112
4113(F) No hexadecimal digits were found following C<0x> or no binary digits
4114were found following C<0b>.
4115
6651ba0b
FC
4116=item No directory specified for -I
4117
4118(F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
4119I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
4120
c47ff5f1 4121=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 4122
be771a83
GS
4123(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4124redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
4125find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 4126
49704364
WL
4127=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
4128
4129(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 4130matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 4131
c47ff5f1 4132=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 4133
be771a83
GS
4134(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4135redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
4136name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 4137
2c7d6b9c
RGS
4138=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
4139
4140(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
4141in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
4142it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
fa816bf3 4143or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2c7d6b9c 4144
02a7a248
JH
4145=item Non-finite repeat count does nothing
4146
4147(W numeric) You tried to execute the
8a737443
FC
4148L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator C<Inf> (or
4149C<-Inf>) or C<NaN> times, which doesn't make sense.
02a7a248 4150
e0e4a6e3 4151=item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4152
4153(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
4154a hex one was expected, like
4155
4156 (?[ [ \xDG ] ])
4157 (?[ [ \x{DEKA} ] ])
4158
8d1e72f0
KW
4159=item Non-hex character '%c' terminates \x early. Resolved as "%s"
4160
4161(W digit) In parsing a hexadecimal numeric constant, a character was
4162unexpectedly encountered that isn't hexadecimal. The resulting value
4163is as indicated.
4164
4165Note that, within braces, every character starting with the first
4166non-hexadecimal up to the ending brace is ignored.
4167
e0e4a6e3 4168=item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4169
4170(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
4171an octal one was expected, like
4172
4173 (?[ [ \o{1278} ] ])
4174
8d1e72f0 4175=item Non-octal character '%c' terminates \o early. Resolved as "%s"
675fa9ff
FC
4176
4177(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
4178unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
4179is as indicated.
4180
fcc04d73
KW
4181When not using C<\o{...}>, you wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179>
4182in a double-quotish string. The resolution is as indicated, with all
4183but the last digit treated as a single character, specified in octal.
4184The last digit is the next character in the string. To tell Perl that
4185this is indeed what you want, you can use the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use
4186exactly three digits to specify the octal for the character.
4187
8d1e72f0
KW
4188Note that, within braces, every character starting with the first
4189non-octal up to the ending brace is ignored.
4190
6df41af2
GS
4191=item "no" not allowed in expression
4192
be771a83
GS
4193(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4194returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 4195
675fa9ff
FC
4196=item Non-string passed as bitmask
4197
4198(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
4199Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
4200select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4201
c47ff5f1 4202=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 4203
be771a83
GS
4204(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4205redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
4206doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 4207
c47ff5f1 4208=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 4209
be771a83
GS
4210(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4211redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
4212find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 4213
8d9d0498
FC
4214=item No package name allowed for subroutine %s in "our"
4215
1ec3e8de
GS
4216=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
4217
8d9d0498
FC
4218(F) Fully qualified subroutine and variable names are not allowed in "our"
4219declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing rules.
4220Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 4221
a0d0e21e
LW
4222=item No Perl script found in input
4223
4224(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
4225with #! and containing the word "perl".
4226
4227=item No setregid available
4228
4229(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
4230your system.
4231
4232=item No setreuid available
4233
4234(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
4235your system.
4236
5a25739d
FC
4237=item No such class %s
4238
4239(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
4240declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
4241
e75d1f10
RD
4242=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
4243
b7e4ecc1
FC
4244(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
4245variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
4246The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
4247L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 4248
3c20a832
SP
4249=item No such hook: %s
4250
dc7e5945
FC
4251(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
4252Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 4253
6df41af2
GS
4254=item No such pipe open
4255
4256(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
4257close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
4258earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 4259
a0d0e21e
LW
4260=item No such signal: SIG%s
4261
be771a83
GS
4262(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
4263not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
4264names on your system.
a0d0e21e 4265
1532347b
KW
4266=item No Unicode property value wildcard matches:
4267
4268(W regexp) You specified a wildcard for a Unicode property value, but
4269there is no property value in the current Unicode release that matches
4270it. Check your spelling.
4271
a0d0e21e
LW
4272=item Not a CODE reference
4273
4274(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4275subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
4276use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4277also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4278
a0d0e21e
LW
4279=item Not a GLOB reference
4280
be771a83
GS
4281(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
4282symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
4283something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
4284kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4285
4286=item Not a HASH reference
4287
be771a83
GS
4288(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
4289reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
4290find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4291
b913d0b8
FC
4292=item '#' not allowed immediately following a sigil in a subroutine signature
4293
4294(F) In a subroutine signature definition, a comment following a sigil
dabde021 4295(C<$>, C<@> or C<%>), needs to be separated by whitespace or a comma etc., in
b913d0b8
FC
4296particular to avoid confusion with the C<$#> variable. For example:
4297
4298 # bad
4299 sub f ($# ignore first arg
4300 , $b) {}
4301 # good
4302 sub f ($, # ignore first arg
4303 $b) {}
4304
6df41af2
GS
4305=item Not an ARRAY reference
4306
be771a83
GS
4307(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
4308a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4309to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 4310
a0d0e21e
LW
4311=item Not a SCALAR reference
4312
be771a83
GS
4313(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
4314a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4315to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4316
4317=item Not a subroutine reference
4318
4319(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4320subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
4321use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4322also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4323
e7ea3e70 4324=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
4325
4326(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 4327doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 4328
a0d0e21e
LW
4329=item Not enough arguments for %s
4330
4331(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
4332
6df41af2
GS
4333=item Not enough format arguments
4334
be771a83
GS
4335(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
4336supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
4337
4338=item %s: not found
4339
be771a83
GS
4340(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4341of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4342yourself.
6df41af2
GS
4343
4344=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 4345
6df41af2
GS
4346(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
4347timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
4348to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
4349F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
4350need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 4351
6df41af2
GS
4352=item NULL OP IN RUN
4353
f84fe999 4354(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 4355pointer.
6df41af2 4356
55497cff 4357=item Null picture in formline
4358
4359(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
4360specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
4361supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
4362
a0d0e21e
LW
4363=item Null realloc
4364
4365(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
4366
4367=item NULL regexp argument
4368
5f05dabc 4369(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
4370
4371=item NULL regexp parameter
4372
4373(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
4374
fc36a67e 4375=item Number too long
4376
be771a83 4377(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 4378about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
4379versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
4380the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
4381"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 4382
f0a2b745
KW
4383=item Number with no digits
4384
1043934d 4385(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 4386a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 4387the braces.
f0a2b745 4388
027471cf
TC
4389=item Numeric format result too large
4390
4391(F) The length of the result of a numeric format supplied to sprintf()
4392or printf() would have been too large for the underlying C function to
4393report. This limit is typically 2GB.
4394
60267e1d
YO
4395=item Numeric variables with more than one digit may not start with '0'
4396
4397(F) The only numeric variable which is allowed to start with a 0 is C<$0>,
4398and you mentioned a variable that starts with 0 that has more than one
4399digit. You probably want to remove the leading 0, or if the intent was
4400to express a variable name in octal you should convert to decimal.
4401
252aa082
JH
4402=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
4403
75b44862 4404(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
4405(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
4406L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 4407
ac7609e4 4408=item Odd name/value argument for subroutine '%s'
30d9c59b
Z
4409
4410(F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
4411received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
4412the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
35e5ce67 4413The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
30d9c59b 4414
ac7609e4
AC
4415The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
4416subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
4417regardless of what name the caller used.
4418
6ad11d81
JH
4419=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
4420
04a80ee0 4421(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 4422arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 4423
b21befc1
MG
4424=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
4425
4426(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4427which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4428
1930e939 4429=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 4430
be771a83
GS
4431(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4432which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 4433
bbce6d69 4434=item Offset outside string
4435
1fa582fa 4436(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 4437with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
4438imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
4439take place when going past the end of the string when either
4440C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
0f44b2a5 4441for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behavior
1a7a2554 4442with real files).
bbce6d69 4443
2cb35ee0
FC
4444=item Old package separator used in string
4445
4446(W syntax) You used the old package separator, "'", in a variable
4447named inside a double-quoted string; e.g., C<"In $name's house">. This
4448is equivalent to C<"In $name::s house">. If you meant the former, put
4449a backslash before the apostrophe (C<"In $name\'s house">).
4450
c289d2f7 4451=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
4452
4453(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
4454never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
4455call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
4456
96ebfdd7
RK
4457=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
4458
4459(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
4460that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
4461
a0d0e21e
LW
4462=item oops: oopsAV
4463
e476b1b5 4464(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
4465
4466=item oops: oopsHV
4467
e476b1b5 4468(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 4469
e0e4a6e3
FC
4470=item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4471m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 4472
675fa9ff 4473(F) You wrote something like
0d0b4b3b
KW
4474
4475 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
4476
4477There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
4478them.
4479
a0288114 4480=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 4481
be771a83
GS
4482(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
4483handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
4484of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 4485the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 4486
5ff1373f 4487=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 4488
52d1f2c9 4489(S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode rules
b5af3ad2
FC
4490on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
4491defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
4492
4493If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4494matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4495
4496If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 4497C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 4498
5ff1373f 4499=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 4500
4c2e59a0 4501(S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
52d1f2c9 4502rules on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
ad94bb39 4503of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
52d1f2c9 4504rules are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
ad94bb39
FC
4505they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
4506surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
4507
4508If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4509matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4510
4511If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 4512C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 4513
748a9306
LW
4514=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
4515
be771a83
GS
4516(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
4517was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
4518use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
4519example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
4520"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 4521
30d9c59b
Z
4522=item Optional parameter lacks default expression
4523
4524(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
4525named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
4526parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
4527have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
4528
6df41af2
GS
4529=item "our" variable %s redeclared
4530
52e3acf8 4531(W shadow) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
be771a83 4532in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 4533
a80b8354
GS
4534=item Out of memory!
4535
4536(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
4537remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
4538no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 4539
19a52907
JH
4540At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
4541process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
4542C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
4543the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
4544and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
4545
6d3b25aa
RGS
4546=item Out of memory during %s extend
4547
4548(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
4549the largest possible memory allocation.
4550
6df41af2 4551=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 4552
6df41af2 4553(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
6903afa2 4554remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
4555the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
4556possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 4557
1b979e0a 4558=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 4559
1fa582fa 4560(X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
be771a83
GS
4561insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
4562request.
eff9c6e2
CS
4563
4564The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
4565depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
4566However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
4567emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
4568is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
4569where the failed request happened.
55497cff 4570
1b979e0a
IZ
4571=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
4572
4573(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
4574is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
4575C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 4576
6df41af2
GS
4577=item Out of memory for yacc stack
4578
be771a83
GS
4579(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
4580parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
4581otherwise.
6df41af2 4582
28be1210
TH
4583=item '.' outside of string in pack
4584
4585(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
4586position to before the start of the packed string being built.
4587
49704364 4588=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 4589
49704364 4590(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
4591the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4592
f337b084
TH
4593=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
4594
4595(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6903afa2 4596the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
fa816bf3 4597UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
f337b084 4598
7778d804
FC
4599=item overload arg '%s' is invalid
4600
4601(W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
4602recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
4603
7cb0cfe6
BM
4604=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
4605
4606(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
6903afa2 4607but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
7cb0cfe6
BM
4608L<overload>.
4609
4610=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
4611
4612(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
6903afa2 4613overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
7cb0cfe6 4614
6df41af2
GS
4615=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
4616
be771a83
GS
4617(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
4618package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
4619some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
4620mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 4621
96ebfdd7
RK
4622=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
4623
4624(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
4625signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4626
a0d0e21e
LW
4627=item page overflow
4628
be771a83
GS
4629(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
4630page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 4631
6df41af2
GS
4632=item panic: %s
4633
4634(P) An internal error.
4635
c99a1475
NC
4636=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
4637
4638(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
4639an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
4640platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
4641enter this branch on this platform.
4642
d5e473ac
SH
4643=item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
4644
4645(P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
4646was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
4647able to initialize properly.
4648
5637ef5b 4649=item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4650
4651(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
4652
5637ef5b 4653=item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
a0d0e21e 4654
be771a83
GS
4655(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
4656there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 4657
810b8aa5
GS
4658=item panic: del_backref
4659
4660(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4661reference.
4662
a0d0e21e
LW
4663=item panic: do_subst
4664
be771a83
GS
4665(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4666data.
a0d0e21e 4667
2269b42e 4668=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 4669
2269b42e 4670(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 4671data.
a0d0e21e 4672
b7f7fd0b
NC
4673=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4674
10203f38 4675(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
4676failure was caught.
4677
255abbe7 4678=item panic: frexp: %f
c635e13b 4679
4680(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4681
5637ef5b 4682=item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
a0d0e21e
LW
4683
4684(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4685and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4686
b0d55c99
FC
4687=item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4688
4689(P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
6903afa2
FC
4690repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4691Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4692the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
b0d55c99 4693
5637ef5b 4694=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4695
4696(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4697
5637ef5b 4698=item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4699
4700(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4701
e446cec8
IZ
4702=item panic: kid popen errno read
4703
1f91b9f5 4704(F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
e446cec8 4705
5637ef5b 4706=item panic: last, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4707
4708(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4709it wasn't a block context.
4710
4711=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4712
be771a83
GS
4713(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4714scope.
a0d0e21e 4715
5637ef5b 4716=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
a0d0e21e
LW
4717
4718(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4719invalid enum on the top of it.
4720
810b8aa5
GS
4721=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4722
4723(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4724references to an object.
4725
5637ef5b 4726=item panic: malloc, %s
6df41af2
GS
4727
4728(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4729
27d5b266
JH
4730=item panic: memory wrap
4731
46f9c2c2
FC
4732(P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4733negative amount.
27d5b266 4734
5637ef5b 4735=item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4736
4737(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4738and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4739
5637ef5b 4740=item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4741
4742(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4743and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4744
4745=item panic: pad_free po
4746
c1bd5aaa 4747(P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. An attempt was
61a9f070 4748made to free a target that had not been allocated to begin with.
a0d0e21e 4749
5637ef5b 4750=item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4751
4752(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4753and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4754
4755=item panic: pad_sv po
4756
61a9f070
FC
4757(P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. Most likely
4758an operator needed a target but that target had not been allocated
4759for whatever reason.
a0d0e21e 4760
5637ef5b 4761=item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4762
4763(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4764and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4765
4766=item panic: pad_swipe po
4767
4768(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4769
5637ef5b 4770=item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4771
4772(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4773
96ebfdd7
RK
4774=item panic: pp_match%s
4775
4776(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4777data.
4778
5637ef5b 4779=item panic: realloc, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4780
4781(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4782
ccfb6d2e
FC
4783=item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4784
4785(P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4786reference count other than 1.
4787
5637ef5b 4788=item panic: restartop in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4789
4790(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4791didn't supply the destination.
4792
5637ef5b 4793=item panic: return, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4794
4795(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4796then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4797
5637ef5b 4798=item panic: scan_num, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4799
4800(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4801
4599db5f 4802=item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
d24ca0c5 4803
1f91b9f5 4804(P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
d24ca0c5
DM
4805blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4806seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4807
5a25739d
FC
4808=item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4809
4810(P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4811In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4812is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4813
6c65d5f9
NC
4814=item panic: sv_chop %s
4815
4816(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4817scalar's string buffer.
4818
5637ef5b 4819=item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4820
4821(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4822was string.
4823
4824=item panic: top_env
4825
6224f72b 4826(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 4827
65bca31a
NC
4828=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4829
a1efa96e
FC
4830(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4831permitted at run time.
65bca31a 4832
01bbc29f
FC
4833=item panic: unknown OA_*: %x
4834
4835(P) The internal routine that handles arguments to C<&CORE::foo()>
4836subroutine calls was unable to determine what type of arguments
4837were expected.
4838
dea0fc0b
JH
4839=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4840
4841(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 4842to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 4843
e0ea5e2d
NC
4844=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4845
4846(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4847to even) byte length.
4848
5637ef5b 4849=item panic: yylex, %s
2f7da168
RK
4850
4851(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4852
78181aa9
KW
4853=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4854
4855(W parenthesis) You said something like
4856
4857 my $foo, $bar = @_;
4858
4859when you meant
4860
4861 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4862
4863Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4864
28ac2b49
Z
4865=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4866
4867(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4868a detectable way.
4869
b9bd8d8c 4870=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
1a147d38
YO
4871
4872(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
6903afa2
FC
4873consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4874the nesting limit is exceeded.
1a147d38 4875
96ebfdd7
RK
4876=item C<-p> destination: %s
4877
4878(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4879command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4880redirected it with select().)
4881
0ae4a328
FC
4882=item Perl API version %s of %s does not match %s
4883
d792985a 4884(F) The XS module in question was compiled against a different incompatible
0ae4a328
FC
4885version of Perl than the one that has loaded the XS module.
4886
8954b91a 4887=item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
e0e4a6e3 4888utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
d50a4f90 4889
6014bd26
JK
4890(S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4891and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4892folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
8166b4e0 4893Please report this as a bug to L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
d50a4f90 4894
f51551f7
FC
4895=item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4896
4897(S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4898experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4899simply disable this warning:
4900
4901 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4902
1109a392
MHM
4903=item Perl_my_%s() not available
4904
4905(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4906so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4907conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4908'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4909
6651ba0b
FC
4910=item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4911
4912(F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4913Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4914of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4915interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4916decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4917is equivalent to v5.100.
4918
6903f24f 4919=item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
6d3b25aa
RGS
4920
4921(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4922recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4923you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4924
6df41af2
GS
4925=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4926
fa816bf3 4927(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 4928C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 4929
96ebfdd7
RK
4930=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4931
806b6d07 4932(X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
96ebfdd7 4933
6651ba0b
FC
4934=item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4935
4936(F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4937on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4938Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4939wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4940
675fa9ff
FC
4941=item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4942
ff9c1ae8 4943(S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
675fa9ff
FC
4944contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4945hash seed you think you are.
6a5b4183 4946
6df41af2
GS
4947=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4948
4949(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4950
4951 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4952 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4953 LC_ALL = "En_US",
4954 LANG = (unset)
4955 are supported and installed on your system.
4956 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4957
4958Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4959settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
4960This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4961system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4962locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4963dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4b07a369
FC
4964Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4965fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4966time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
0ea6b70f 4967L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 4968
6a5b4183
YO
4969=item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4970
ff9c1ae8 4971(S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
675fa9ff 4972but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
6a5b4183
YO
4973are as follows.
4974
4975 Numeric | String | Result
4976 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4977 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4978 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
555bd962
BG
4979 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4980 | | randomization
6a5b4183
YO
4981
4982Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
675fa9ff 4983case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
aac486f1 4984
bd3fa61c 4985=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 4986
be771a83
GS
4987(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4988process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4989fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 4990
49704364 4991=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
4992
4993(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4994
6e8a73f2 4995=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
96ebfdd7 4996
e0e4a6e3 4997(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 4998shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
96ebfdd7
RK
4999Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
5000the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
5001not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
5002
5003=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
5004
5005(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
5006the BSD version, which takes a pid.
5007
46d34d0e 5008=item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes%s in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5009S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5010
46d34d0e
KW
5011(W regexp) Perl thinks that you intended to write a POSIX character
5012class, but didn't use enough brackets. These POSIX class constructs [:
5013:], [= =], and [. .] go I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of
5014the construct, for example: C<qr/[012[:alpha:]345]/>. What the regular
5015expression pattern compiled to is probably not what you were intending.
5016For example, C<qr/[:alpha:]/> compiles to a regular bracketed character
5017class consisting of the four characters C<":">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
5018C<"h">, and C<"p">. To specify the POSIX class, it should have been
5019written C<qr/[[:alpha:]]/>.
5020
5021Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
9e3ec65c 5022implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
e0e4a6e3 5023will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5024expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5025
46d34d0e
KW
5026If the specification of the class was not completely valid, the message
5027indicates that.
5028
6fbc9859 5029=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5030S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5031
a125938c
FC
5032(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
5033with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
5034need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
5035character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
e0e4a6e3 5036and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
a125938c 5037problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5038
6fbc9859 5039=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5040S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5041
7253e4e3
RK
5042(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
5043with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
5044need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
5045character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
e0e4a6e3 5046and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 5047problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5048
bbce6d69 5049=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
5050
e476b1b5 5051(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 5052strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
5053literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
5054parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 5055
774d564b 5056You probably wrote something like this:
5057
54310121 5058 @list = qw(
774d564b 5059 a # a comment
bbce6d69 5060 b # another comment
774d564b 5061 );
bbce6d69 5062
5063when you should have written this:
5064
774d564b 5065 @list = qw(
54310121 5066 a
5067 b
774d564b 5068 );
5069
5070If you really want comments, build your list the
5071old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
5072
5073 @list = (
5074 'a', # a comment
5075 'b', # another comment
5076 );
bbce6d69 5077
5078=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
5079
be771a83
GS
5080(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
5081commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
5082different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
5083frequently used.)
bbce6d69 5084
54310121 5085You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 5086
774d564b 5087 qw! a, b, c !;
5088
5089which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
5090commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 5091
774d564b 5092 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 5093
a0d0e21e
LW
5094=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
5095
5096(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
5097Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
5098end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
5099Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
5100
9da2d046
NT
5101=item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
5102
5103(W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
5104flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
5105C<or>. Consider:
5106
5107 sub { return $a or $b; }
5108
5109This is parsed as:
5110
5111 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
5112
5113Which is effectively just:
5114
5115 sub { return $a; }
5116
5117Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
5118
5119Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
5120
5121 sub { 1 if die; }
5122
8823cb89 5123=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %s operator
a690c7c4
FC
5124
5125(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
5126with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
5127
5128 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
5129
5130This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
5131higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
5132really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
5133parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
5134
77772344
B
5135=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
5136
5137(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
5138The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 5139record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
5140followed by the word 'bar'.
5141
5142If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
5143C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
5144
5145If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
5146followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
5147C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
5148
e5035638
FC
5149=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
5150
ccf3535a 5151(W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
6903afa2 5152but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
e5035638
FC
5153literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
5154to the array you apparently lost track of.
5155
a0d0e21e
LW
5156=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
5157
e476b1b5 5158(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 5159
a0d0e21e
LW
5160 open FOO || die;
5161
5162is now misinterpreted as
5163
5164 open(FOO || die);
5165
be771a83
GS
5166because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
5167list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
5168parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
5169of "||".
a0d0e21e 5170
3cdd684c
TP
5171=item Premature end of script headers
5172
3de20fbe 5173See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 5174
6df41af2
GS
5175=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
5176
be771a83 5177(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5178before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 5179
9a7dcd9c 5180=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5181
be771a83 5182(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5183before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5184
6df41af2 5185=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 5186
6df41af2
GS
5187(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
5188applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
5189port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
5190L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 5191in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 5192
327323c1
RGS
5193=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
5194
fa816bf3
FC
5195(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
5196useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
327323c1 5197
3fe9a6f1 5198=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 5199
9a0b3859 5200(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 5201declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 5202
ed9aa3b7
SG
5203=item Prototype not terminated
5204
2a6fd447 5205(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
5206definition.
5207
eedb00fa
PM
5208=item Prototype '%s' overridden by attribute 'prototype(%s)' in %s
5209
5210(W prototype) A prototype was declared in both the parentheses after
5211the sub name and via the prototype attribute. The prototype in
5212parentheses is useless, since it will be replaced by the prototype
5213from the attribute before it's ever used.
5214
6e8a73f2 5215=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
96ebfdd7 5216
6903afa2 5217(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
e0e4a6e3 5218you meant it literally. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5219expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 5220
6e8a73f2 5221=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9baa0206 5222
6903afa2 5223(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
e0e4a6e3 5224the {min,max} construct. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5225expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 5226
675fa9ff
FC
5227=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex
5228
e0e4a6e3
FC
5229=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex; marked by
5230S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
5231
5232(W regexp) Minima should be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
5233want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}.
5234
e1729dc6 5235=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 5236
b45f050a
JF
5237(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
5238it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
5239quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
5240"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
5241C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 5242
89ea2908
GA
5243=item Range iterator outside integer range
5244
5245(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
5246are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
5247One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
5248by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 5249
ad513756 5250=item Ranges of ASCII printables should be some subset of "0-9", "A-Z", or
6e8a73f2 5251"a-z" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ad513756
FC
5252
5253(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
5254
5255Stricter rules help to find typos and other errors. Perhaps you didn't
5256even intend a range here, if the C<"-"> was meant to be some other
5257character, or should have been escaped (like C<"\-">). If you did
5258intend a range, the one that was used is not portable between ASCII and
5259EBCDIC platforms, and doesn't have an obvious meaning to a casual
5260reader.
5261
5262 [3-7] # OK; Obvious and portable
5263 [d-g] # OK; Obvious and portable
5264 [A-Y] # OK; Obvious and portable
5265 [A-z] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5266 [a-Z] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5267 [%-.] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5268 [\x41-Z] # WRONG; Not portable; not obvious to non-geek
5269
5270(You can force portability by specifying a Unicode range, which means that
5271the endpoints are specified by
5272L<C<\N{...}>|perlrecharclass/Character Ranges>, but the meaning may
5273still not be obvious.)
5274The stricter rules require that ranges that start or stop with an ASCII
5275character that is not a control have all their endpoints be the literal
5276character, and not some escape sequence (like C<"\x41">), and the ranges
5277must be all digits, or all uppercase letters, or all lowercase letters.
5278
5279=item Ranges of digits should be from the same group in regex; marked by
6e8a73f2 5280S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ad513756
FC
5281
5282(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
5283
5284Stricter rules help to find typos and other errors. You included a
5285range, and at least one of the end points is a decimal digit. Under the
5286stricter rules, when this happens, both end points should be digits in
5287the same group of 10 consecutive digits.
5288
3b7fbd4a
SP
5289=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5290
1a147d38 5291(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
5292a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5293
96ebfdd7
RK
5294=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
5295
5296(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
5297before now. Check your control flow.
5298
b5fe5ca2
SR
5299=item read() on closed filehandle %s
5300
5301(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
5302
5303=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
5304
5305(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
5306
de42a5a9 5307=item Reallocation too large: %x
6df41af2
GS
5308
5309(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
5310
4ad56ec9
IZ
5311=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
5312
be771a83
GS
5313(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
5314already been freed.
4ad56ec9 5315
a0d0e21e
LW
5316=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
5317
19b29141 5318(S debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
be771a83 5319the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
5320which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
5321
6651ba0b
FC
5322=item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
5323
5324(P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
5325a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
5326$fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
5327loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
5328
3e0ccd42 5329=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 5330
2c7d6b9c
RGS
5331(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
5332believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
5333crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 5334
f51551f7
FC
5335=item Redundant argument in %s
5336
5337(W redundant) You called a function with more arguments than other
3617dbb6 5338arguments you supplied indicated would be needed. Currently only
f51551f7
FC
5339emitted when a printf-type format required fewer arguments than were
5340supplied, but might be used in the future for e.g. L<perlfunc/pack>.
5341
12605ff9
FC
5342=item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
5343
2e0cfa16
FC
5344=item refcnt: fd %d%s
5345
12605ff9
FC
5346=item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
5347
fa816bf3 5348(P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
2e0cfa16
FC
5349you see this message, something is very wrong.
5350
1930e939
TP
5351=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
5352
be771a83 5353(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
6903afa2
FC
5354with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
5355usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
5356to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
5357
5358 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
5359 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
5360 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
5361 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
5362
810b8aa5
GS
5363=item Reference is already weak
5364
e476b1b5 5365(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
5366Doing so has no effect.
5367
ae2cf9f6
DIM
5368=item Reference is not weak
5369
5370(W misc) You have attempted to unweaken a reference that is not weak.
5371Doing so has no effect.
5372
e0e4a6e3 5373=item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b72d83b2 5374
6903afa2
FC
5375(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
5376to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
5377(normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
5378backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
b72d83b2 5379
e0e4a6e3
FC
5380=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5381m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
5382
5383(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
6903afa2 5384not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
bbaee129
FC
5385you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
5386expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 5387
6e8a73f2 5388The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a 5389discovered.
9baa0206 5390
e0e4a6e3
FC
5391=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
5392in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
5393
5394(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
9381611c 5395expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
6903afa2 5396such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
9381611c 5397spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
1a147d38 5398
6e8a73f2 5399The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
5400discovered.
5401
e0e4a6e3
FC
5402=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by
5403S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38 5404
bcb95744
FC
5405(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
5406are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
5407expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
1a147d38 5408
6e8a73f2 5409The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
5410discovered.
5411
a0d0e21e
LW
5412=item regexp memory corruption
5413
5414(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
5415expression compiler gave it.
5416
ff3f26d2
KW
5417=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
5418
4d910168 5419=item Regexp modifier "%c" may appear a maximum of twice in regex; marked
e0e4a6e3 5420by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 5421
ce170e67 5422(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
ff3f26d2 5423of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
3955e1a9 5424
6fbc9859
MH
5425=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <--
5426HERE in m/%s/
9442e3b8 5427
f8b5bc72
FC
5428(F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
5429another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
9442e3b8
KW
5430expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
5431the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
5432
591f5ca2
FC
5433=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
5434
4d910168
FC
5435=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear twice in regex; marked by <--
5436HERE in m/%s/
5437
ce170e67 5438(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
591f5ca2
FC
5439of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
5440
3955e1a9
KW
5441=item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
5442
4d910168 5443=item Regexp modifiers "%c" and "%c" are mutually exclusive in regex;
e0e4a6e3 5444marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 5445
ce170e67 5446(F) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
3955e1a9
KW
5447mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
5448supposed to be there.
5449
aec0ef10 5450=item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5451
be771a83
GS
5452(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
5453earlier.
a0d0e21e 5454
a7f533cb 5455=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @#)
a1b95068 5456
d7f8936a 5457(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068 5458numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
6903afa2 5459terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
a1b95068 5460
b08e453b
RB
5461=item Replacement list is longer than search list
5462
5463(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
fa816bf3 5464search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
b08e453b
RB
5465are meaningless.
5466
d9790612
KW
5467=item '(*%s' requires a terminating ':' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5468
5469(F) You used a construct that needs a colon and pattern argument.
5470Supply these or check that you are using the right construct.
5471
5e0a247b
KW
5472=item '%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'
5473
fcc04d73
KW
5474As of Perl 5.32, this message is no longer generated. Instead, see
5475L</Non-octal character '%c' terminates \o early. Resolved as "%s">.
5e0a247b
KW
5476(W misc, regexp) You wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179> in a
5477double-quotish string. All but the last digit is treated as a single
5478character, specified in octal. The last digit is the next character in
5479the string. To tell Perl that this is indeed what you want, you can use
5480the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use exactly three digits to specify the octal
5481for the character.
5482
a0d0e21e
LW
5483=item Reversed %s= operator
5484
be771a83 5485(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
964742a1 5486always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 5487
abc7ecad
SP
5488=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5489
1b303a7d
FC
5490(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed
5491or not really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
abc7ecad 5492
96ebfdd7
RK
5493=item Scalars leaked: %d
5494
7bd1381d 5495(S internal) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping
4f5966a5
FC
5496of scalars: not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time
5497Perl exited. What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which
5498is of course bad, especially if the Perl program is intended to be
5499long-running.
96ebfdd7 5500
a0d0e21e
LW
5501=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
5502
be771a83
GS
5503(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
5504single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
5505value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
5506behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
5507argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
5508and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
5509if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 5510
748a9306 5511On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 5512element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
5513Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
5514L<perlref>.
5515
a6006777 5516=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
5517
75b44862 5518(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
5519element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
5520(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
5521like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
5522argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
5523and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
5524if you're expecting only one subscript.
5525
5526On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
5527as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
5528not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 5529L<perlref>.
5530
a0d0e21e
LW
5531=item Search pattern not terminated
5532
5533(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
5534construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5535Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 5536
ea9d9ebc 5537Note that since Perl 5.10.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd 5538construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
ea9d9ebc
FC
5539in Perl 5.10.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
5540misparsed by pre-5.10.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
5d9c98cd 5541
abc7ecad
SP
5542=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5543
5544(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
5545really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5546
3257ea4f
FC
5547=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
5548
5549(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
5550filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
5551
a0d0e21e
LW
5552=item select not implemented
5553
5554(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
5555
ae21d580 5556=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 5557
ae21d580
JH
5558(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
5559the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 5560
6df41af2 5561=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 5562
75b44862
GS
5563(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
5564semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
5565
5566=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
5567
be771a83
GS
5568(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
5569scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 5570
6df41af2 5571=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 5572
6df41af2 5573(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 5574
69282e91 5575=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5576
be771a83 5577(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5578before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5579
0ae4a328
FC
5580=item Sequence "\c{" invalid
5581
5582(F) These three characters may not appear in sequence in a
5583double-quotish context. This message is raised only on non-ASCII
5584platforms (a different error message is output on ASCII ones). If you
5585were intending to specify a control character with this sequence, you'll
5586have to use a different way to specify it.
5587
e0e4a6e3 5588=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7b8d334a 5589
6903afa2 5590(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
e0e4a6e3 5591S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6903afa2 5592discovered. See L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 5593
e0e4a6e3
FC
5594=item Sequence (?%c...) not implemented in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5595m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5596
6903afa2 5597(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
e0e4a6e3 5598but has not yet been written. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 5599regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5600
e0e4a6e3
FC
5601=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5602m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5603
d921c7bf 5604(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
e0e4a6e3 5605The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
d921c7bf 5606discovered. This may happen when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
fb85c044 5607Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9442e3b8 5608redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
9de15fec 5609causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 5610
aec0ef10 5611=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
5612
5613(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
aec0ef10 5614parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See
7253e4e3 5615L<perlre>.
6df41af2 5616
07ea66ee
FC
5617=item Sequence (?&... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5618m/%s/
5619
5620(F) A named reference of the form C<(?&...)> was missing the final
5621closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
5622in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5623
e0e4a6e3 5624=item Sequence (?%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
5625in m/%s/
5626
5627(F) A named group of the form C<(?'...')> or C<< (?<...>) >> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 5628closing quote or angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
4599db5f
FC
5629regular expression the problem was discovered.
5630
e0e4a6e3 5631=item Sequence (?(%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
5632in m/%s/
5633
5634(F) A named reference of the form C<(?('...')...)> or C<< (?(<...>)...) >> was
5635missing the final closing quote or angle bracket after the name. The
e0e4a6e3 5636S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4599db5f
FC
5637discovered.
5638
5b9ce456
KW
5639=item Sequence (?... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5640m/%s/
5641
5642(F) There was no matching closing parenthesis for the '('. The
5643S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
5644discovered.
5645
e0e4a6e3
FC
5646=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5647m/%s/
5a25739d
FC
5648
5649(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
5650sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
5651
9da1dd8f
DM
5652=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
5653
be149b43
DM
5654(F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
5655followed immediately by a ')'.
9da1dd8f 5656
74d1b2e4 5657=item Sequence (?PE<gt>... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4599db5f 5658
74d1b2e4 5659(F) A named reference of the form C<(?PE<gt>...)> was missing the final
cfbef7dc
KW
5660closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
5661in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5662
5663=item Sequence (?PE<lt>... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5664
5665(F) A named group of the form C<(?PE<lt>...E<gt>')> was missing the final
5666closing angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
5667regular expression the problem was discovered.
5668
74d1b2e4
FC
5669=item Sequence ?P=... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5670m/%s/
cfbef7dc 5671
74d1b2e4 5672(F) A named reference of the form C<(?P=...)> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 5673closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
4599db5f
FC
5674in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5675
5676=item Sequence (?R) not terminated in regex m/%s/
5677
5678(F) An C<(?R)> or C<(?0)> sequence in a regular expression was missing the
5679final parenthesis.
5680
3de20fbe 5681=item Z<>500 Server error
a5f75d66 5682
6903afa2
FC
5683(A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
5684when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
5685actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
5686frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
5687not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
5688headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 5689
5690B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
5691
6903afa2
FC
5692You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
5693the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
5694user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
5695variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
5696in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
5697less. Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 5698
71c89d21 5699 https://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
06a5f41f
JH
5700 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
5701 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 5702
be94a901
GS
5703You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
5704
a0d0e21e
LW
5705=item setegid() not implemented
5706
be771a83
GS
5707(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
5708support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5709didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5710
5711=item seteuid() not implemented
5712
be771a83
GS
5713(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
5714support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5715didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5716
81777298
GS
5717=item setpgrp can't take arguments
5718
be771a83
GS
5719(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
5720arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
5721group ID.
81777298 5722
a0d0e21e
LW
5723=item setrgid() not implemented
5724
be771a83
GS
5725(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
5726support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5727didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5728
5729=item setruid() not implemented
5730
be771a83
GS
5731(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
5732support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5733didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5734
6df41af2
GS
5735=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
5736
be771a83
GS
5737(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
5738forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
5739L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
5740
520b6fb6 5741=item Setting $/ to a reference to %s is forbidden
6da34ecb 5742
3f673807
FC
5743(F) You assigned a reference to a scalar to C<$/> where the referenced item is
5744not a positive integer. In older perls this B<appeared> to work the same as
5745setting it to C<undef> but was in fact internally different, less efficient
5746and with very bad luck could have resulted in your file being split by a
5747stringified form of the reference.
6da34ecb 5748
ea9d9ebc 5749In Perl 5.20.0 this was changed so that it would be B<exactly> the same as
3f673807 5750setting C<$/> to undef, with the exception that this warning would be thrown.
6da34ecb 5751
3f673807
FC
5752You are recommended to change your code to set C<$/> to C<undef> explicitly if
5753you wish to slurp the file. As of Perl 5.28 assigning C<$/> to a reference
5754to an integer which isn't positive is a fatal error.
6da34ecb 5755
ee0ba734 5756=item Setting $/ to %s reference is forbidden
a48e4205
FC
5757
5758(F) You tried to assign a reference to a non integer to C<$/>. In older
5759Perls this would have behaved similarly to setting it to a reference to
5760a positive integer, where the integer was the address of the reference.
5761As of Perl 5.20.0 this is a fatal error, to allow future versions of Perl
5762to use non-integer refs for more interesting purposes.
5763
a0d0e21e
LW
5764=item shm%s not implemented
5765
5766(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
5767
984200d0
YST
5768=item !=~ should be !~
5769
5770(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
5771interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
5772operators: probably not what you intended.
5773
6df41af2
GS
5774=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
5775
5776(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
5777as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
5778result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
5779probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 5780
69282e91 5781=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5782
75b44862
GS
5783(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
5784superfluous.
a0d0e21e 5785
f86702cc 5786=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 5787
be771a83
GS
5788(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
5789Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 5790
efc859fb
FC
5791=item Slab leaked from cv %p
5792
5793(S) If you see this message, then something is seriously wrong with the
5794internal bookkeeping of op trees. An op tree needed to be freed after
5795a compilation error, but could not be found, so it was leaked instead.
5796
3b9aea04
SH
5797=item sleep(%u) too large
5798
5799(W overflow) You called C<sleep> with a number that was larger than
5800it can reliably handle and C<sleep> probably slept for less time than
5801requested.
5802
30d9c59b
Z
5803=item Slurpy parameter not last
5804
5805(F) In a subroutine signature, you put something after a slurpy (array or
5806hash) parameter. The slurpy parameter takes all the available arguments,
5807so there can't be any left to fill later parameters.
5808
7896dde7
Z
5809=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
5810
5811(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
5812overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure
5813for the smart match.
5814
0f539b13
BF
5815=item Smartmatch is experimental
5816
5817(S experimental::smartmatch) This warning is emitted if you
5818use the smartmatch (C<~~>) operator. This is currently an experimental
5819feature, and its details are subject to change in future releases of
7896dde7
Z
5820Perl. Particularly, its current behavior is noticed for being
5821unnecessarily complex and unintuitive, and is very likely to be
5822overhauled.
0f539b13 5823
b02f3645
AC
5824=item Sorry, hash keys must be smaller than 2**31 bytes
5825
5826(F) You tried to create a hash containing a very large key, where "very
5827large" means that it needs at least 2 gigabytes to store. Unfortunately,
5828Perl doesn't yet handle such large hash keys. You should
5829reconsider your design to avoid hashing such a long string directly.
5830
714f94d1
FC
5831=item sort is now a reserved word
5832
5833(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
5834But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
5835
f1c31c52
FC
5836=item Source filters apply only to byte streams
5837
5838(F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
5839source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
5840not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
5841C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
5842
8cbc2e3b
JH
5843=item splice() offset past end of array
5844
5845(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
fa816bf3
FC
5846the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
5847end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
5848try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
5849See L<perlfunc/splice>.
8cbc2e3b 5850
a0d0e21e
LW
5851=item Split loop
5852
be771a83
GS
5853(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
5854iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
6903afa2 5855happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 5856
a0d0e21e
LW
5857=item Statement unlikely to be reached
5858
be771a83
GS
5859(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
5860die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
5861unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
5862instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
5863a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 5864
a21eb52b
FC
5865=item "state" subroutine %s can't be in a package
5866
5867(F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5868sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
5869
a2e39214
FC
5870=item "state %s" used in sort comparison
5871
5872(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
5873You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
5874sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
5875lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
5876name, or rename the lexical variable.
5877
5a25739d
FC
5878=item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
5879
5880(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5881sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
5882local() if you want to localize a package variable.
5883
9ddeeac9 5884=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 5885
355b1299
JH
5886(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
5887was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 5888
5a25739d
FC
5889=item Strings with code points over 0xFF may not be mapped into in-memory file handles
5890
5891(W utf8) You tried to open a reference to a scalar for read or append
5892where the scalar contained code points over 0xFF. In-memory files
5893model on-disk files and can only contain bytes.
5894
fe13d51d 5895=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 5896
be771a83
GS
5897(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
5898stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
5899C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 5900
a8c56356
DM
5901=item Subroutine attributes must come before the signature
5902
5903(F) When subroutine signatures are enabled, any subroutine attributes must
5904come before the signature. Note that this order was the opposite in
3b980406 5905versions 5.22..5.26. So:
a8c56356 5906
3b980406
Z
5907 sub foo :lvalue ($a, $b) { ... } # 5.20 and 5.28 +
5908 sub foo ($a, $b) :lvalue { ... } # 5.22 .. 5.26
a8c56356 5909
4e85e1b4
FC
5910=item Subroutine "&%s" is not available
5911
5912(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5913attempting to capture an outer lexical subroutine that is not currently
5914available. This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the lexical
c387a7d0
FC
5915subroutine may be declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has
5916not yet been created. (Remember that named subs are created at compile
5917time, while anonymous subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5918
5919 sub { my sub a {...} sub f { \&a } }
5920
c387a7d0 5921At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current "a" sub,
4e85e1b4
FC
5922since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely, the
5923following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by now
5924been created and is live:
5925
5926 sub { my sub a {...} eval 'sub f { \&a }' }->();
5927
c387a7d0
FC
5928The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a lexical subroutine
5929that has gone out of scope, for example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5930
5931 sub f {
5932 my sub a {...}
5933 sub { eval '\&a' }
5934 }
5935 f()->();
5936
5937Here, when the '\&a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
5938being executed, so its &a is not available for capture.
5939
4eb94d7c
FC
5940=item "%s" subroutine &%s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5941
52e3acf8 5942(W shadow) A "my" or "state" subroutine has been redeclared in the
4eb94d7c
FC
5943current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to
5944the previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error.
5945Note that the earlier subroutine will still exist until the end of
20d33786 5946the scope or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
4eb94d7c 5947
9d92fedb
FC
5948=item Subroutine %s redefined
5949
5950(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
5951
5952 {
5953 no warnings 'redefine';
5954 eval "sub name { ... }";
5955 }
5956
2a9203e9
FC
5957=item Subroutine "%s" will not stay shared
5958
5959(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a "my"
5960subroutine defined in an outer named subroutine.
5961
5962When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of the outer
5963subroutine's lexical subroutine as it was before and during the *first*
5964call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5965outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5966longer share a common value for the lexical subroutine. In other words,
5967it will no longer be shared. This will especially make a difference
5968if the lexical subroutines accesses lexical variables declared in its
5969surrounding scope.
5970
5971This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5972anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5973reference lexical subroutines in outer subroutines are created, they
5974are automatically rebound to the current values of such lexical subs.
5975
a0d0e21e
LW
5976=item Substitution loop
5977
be771a83
GS
5978(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
5979shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
5980is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 5981L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
5982
5983=item Substitution pattern not terminated
5984
d1be9408 5985(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5986construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5987Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5988
5989=item Substitution replacement not terminated
5990
d1be9408 5991(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5992construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5993Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5994
5995=item substr outside of string
5996
8a9eb13d 5997(W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
be771a83
GS
5998a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
5999length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
6000substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
6001assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 6002
bf1320bf
RGS
6003=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
6004
9d277376 6005(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
bf1320bf
RGS
6006inferior to its current type.
6007
6fbc9859 6008=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 6009S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 6010
fa816bf3
FC
6011(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
6012two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
6013both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
6014it in clustering parentheses:
b45f050a
JF
6015
6016 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
6017
e0e4a6e3 6018The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem
fa816bf3 6019was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 6020
e0e4a6e3
FC
6021=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6022m/%s/
b45f050a 6023
9f57786a
FC
6024(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6025is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
6026
6027 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
6028 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
6029 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
6030 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
6031 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
6032 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
6033 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
6034 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
6035 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
6036
6e8a73f2 6037The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9f57786a 6038discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 6039
a1244175
FC
6040=item Switch (?(condition)... not terminated in regex; marked by
6041S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6042
99775d13
FC
6043(F) You omitted to close a (?(condition)...) block somewhere
6044in the pattern. Add a closing parenthesis in the appropriate
6045position. See L<perlre>.
a1244175 6046
85ab1d1d
JH
6047=item switching effective %s is not implemented
6048
be771a83
GS
6049(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
6050and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 6051
a0d0e21e
LW
6052=item syntax error
6053
6054(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
6055
6056 A keyword is misspelled.
6057 A semicolon is missing.
6058 A comma is missing.
6059 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
6060 An opening or closing brace is missing.
6061 A closing quote is missing.
6062
6063Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
6064error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
6065The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
6066it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 6067before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
6068Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
6069the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
6070C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
524e9188 6071if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
a0d0e21e 6072
ccf3535a 6073=item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
cb1a09d0 6074
be771a83
GS
6075(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
6076of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
6077yourself.
cb1a09d0 6078
25f58aea
PN
6079=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
6080
6081(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
6082a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
6083or "my $var" or "our $var".
6084
19a498a4 6085=item Syntax error in (?[...]) in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6086
6087(F) Perl could not figure out what you meant inside this construct; this
6088notifies you that it is giving up trying.
6089
591f5ca2
FC
6090=item %s syntax OK
6091
6092(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
6093
b5fe5ca2
SR
6094=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
6095
6096(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
6097
6098=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
6099
6100(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
6101
6087ac44 6102=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 6103
6087ac44
JH
6104(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
6105"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
6106machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
6107unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 6108
69282e91 6109=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 6110
be771a83 6111(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 6112before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 6113
96ebfdd7
RK
6114=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
6115
6116(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
6117know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
6118
fc36a67e 6119=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
6120
be771a83
GS
6121(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
6122for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 6123
abc7ecad
SP
6124=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
6125
6126(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
6127a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
6128
c2771421
FC
6129=item tell() on unopened filehandle
6130
6131(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
6132was either never opened or has since been closed.
6133
67b16946 6134=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
a0d0e21e
LW
6135
6136(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
6137probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 6138think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
6139will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
6140will deny it.
6141
3f645a4e
FC
6142=item The experimental declared_refs feature is not enabled
6143
6144(F) To declare references to variables, as in C<my \%x>, you must first enable
6145the feature:
6146
6147 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
6148 use feature "declared_refs";
6149
675fa9ff
FC
6150=item The %s function is unimplemented
6151
6152(F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture,
6153according to the probings of Configure.
6154
21c34e97
KW
6155=item The private_use feature is experimental
6156
6157(S experimental::private_use) This feature is actually a hook for future
6158use.
6159
0d0b4b3b
KW
6160=item The regex_sets feature is experimental
6161
6162(S experimental::regex_sets) This warning is emitted if you
6163use the syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression.
6164The details of this feature are subject to change.
27169d38 6165If you want to use it, but know that in doing so you
0d0b4b3b
KW
6166are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which may
6167change in a future Perl version, you can do this to silence the
6168warning:
6169
6170 no warnings "experimental::regex_sets";
6171
30d9c59b
Z
6172=item The signatures feature is experimental
6173
6174(S experimental::signatures) This warning is emitted if you unwrap a
6175subroutine's arguments using a signature. Simply suppress the warning
6176if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
6177the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be removed
6178in a future Perl version:
6179
6180 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
6181 use feature "signatures";
6182 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
6183
5e1c7ca2 6184=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 6185
be771a83
GS
6186(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
6187linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
6188past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
6189instead.
a0d0e21e 6190
1532347b
KW
6191=item The Unicode property wildcards feature is experimental
6192
6193(S experimental::uniprop_wildcards) This feature is experimental
6194and its behavior may in any future release of perl. See
6195L<perlunicode/Wildcards in Property Values>.
6196
371fce9b
DM
6197=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
6198
1108974d 6199(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 6200
437784d6 6201=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
6202
6203=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
6204
75b44862 6205(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
6206element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
6207wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
6208need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
6209F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
6210target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
6211%ENV which produced the warning.
6212
6a5b4183
YO
6213=item This Perl has not been built with support for randomized hash key traversal but something called Perl_hv_rand_set().
6214
6215(F) Something has attempted to use an internal API call which
6216depends on Perl being compiled with the default support for randomized hash
f26c79ba 6217key traversal, but this Perl has been compiled without it. You should
6a5b4183
YO
6218report this warning to the relevant upstream party, or recompile perl
6219with default options.
6220
1f692f6a
JK
6221=item This use of my() in false conditional is no longer allowed
6222
6223(F) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
6224has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6225not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6226conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
6227static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6228relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6229declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
6230
6231 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
6232
6233becomes
6234
6235 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
6236
6237Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
6238lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
6239
6240 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
6241
6242This use of C<my()> in a false conditional was deprecated beginning in
6243Perl 5.10 and became a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
6244
a0d0e21e
LW
6245=item times not implemented
6246
be771a83
GS
6247(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
6248suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 6249
6d3b25aa
RGS
6250=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
6251
b7e4ecc1
FC
6252(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
6253the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
6254B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
6255Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
6256everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
6d3b25aa
RGS
6257
6258If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
b7e4ecc1
FC
6259mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
6260fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
6261Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
6262
6263If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 6264B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 6265
3a2263fe
RGS
6266=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
6267
6268(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
6269uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
6270specified an illegal mapping.
6271See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
6272
49704364
WL
6273=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
6274
1a147d38 6275(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 6276
a0d0e21e
LW
6277=item Too few args to syscall
6278
6279(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
6280system call to call, silly dilly.
6281
ac7609e4 6282=item Too few arguments for subroutine '%s'
bb6b75cd 6283
3f673807
FC
6284(F) A subroutine using a signature fewer arguments than required by the
6285signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
bb6b75cd 6286
3f673807
FC
6287The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If
6288the subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be
6289shown, regardless of what name the caller used.
ac7609e4 6290
96ebfdd7
RK
6291=item Too late for "-%s" option
6292
6293(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
6294B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
6295
6903afa2
FC
6296In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
6297are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4ba71d51 6298
6903afa2
FC
6299The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
6300well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
6301specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
6302it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
6303it to perl.
96ebfdd7 6304
ddda08b7
GS
6305=item Too late to run %s block
6306
6307(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
6308when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
6309loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
6310instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
6311BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 6312
a0d0e21e
LW
6313=item Too many args to syscall
6314
5f05dabc 6315(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
6316
6317=item Too many arguments for %s
6318
6319(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
6320
ac7609e4 6321=item Too many arguments for subroutine '%s'
bb6b75cd 6322
3f673807
FC
6323(F) A subroutine using a signature received more arguments than permitted
6324by the signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
bb6b75cd 6325
ac7609e4
AC
6326The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
6327subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
6328regardless of what name the caller used.
bb6b75cd 6329
6ef7fe53
KW
6330=item Too many nested open parens in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6331
6332(F) You have exceeded the number of open C<"("> parentheses that haven't
6333been matched by corresponding closing ones. This limit prevents eating
6334up too much memory. It is initially set to 1000, but may be changed by
6335setting C<${^RE_COMPILE_RECURSION_LIMIT}> to some other value. This may
6336need to be done in a BEGIN block before the regular expression pattern
6337is compiled.
6338
6df41af2
GS
6339=item Too many )'s
6340
49704364
WL
6341(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6342Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6343
8c40cb74
NC
6344=item Too many ('s
6345
be771a83
GS
6346(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6347Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 6348
7253e4e3 6349=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 6350
be771a83
GS
6351(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
6352Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 6353
2c268ad5 6354=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
6355
6356(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 6357or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
6358C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 6359
2c268ad5 6360=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 6361
6a36df5d
YST
6362(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
6363y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 6364
96ebfdd7
RK
6365=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
6366
6367(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
6903afa2 6368disallowed. See L<Safe>.
96ebfdd7 6369
a0d0e21e
LW
6370=item truncate not implemented
6371
6372(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
6373Configure knows about.
6374
19c481f4
FC
6375=item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
6376
6377(F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
6378to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
6379ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
6380nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
6381
a0d0e21e
LW
6382=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
6383
6384(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 6385certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
6386%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
6387{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
6388
eec2d3df
GS
6389=item umask not implemented
6390
be771a83
GS
6391(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
6392use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e
LW
6393
6394=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
6395
c632e777 6396(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6397many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
6398
6399=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
6400
4a983e45 6401(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6402many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
6403
6404=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
6405
090cebb2 6406(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6407many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e 6408
6651ba0b
FC
6409=item Unbalanced string table refcount: (%d) for "%s"
6410
31ff3bd2 6411(S internal) On exit, Perl found some strings remaining in the shared
6651ba0b
FC
6412string table used for copy on write and for hash keys. The entries
6413should have been freed, so this indicates a bug somewhere.
6414
a0d0e21e
LW
6415=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
6416
2092d7c1 6417(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6418many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
6419
6420=item Undefined format "%s" called
6421
6422(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
6423another package? See L<perlform>.
6424
6425=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
6426
be771a83
GS
6427(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
6428Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6429
6430=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
6431
be771a83
GS
6432(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
6433since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
6434
6435=item Undefined subroutine called
6436
6437(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
6438or if it was, it has since been undefined.
6439
6440=item Undefined subroutine in sort
6441
be771a83
GS
6442(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
6443to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 6444
4633a7c4
LW
6445=item Undefined top format "%s" called
6446
6447(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
6448another package? See L<perlform>.
6449
20408e3c
GS
6450=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
6451
be771a83
GS
6452(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
6453C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
6454C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 6455
6df41af2
GS
6456=item %s: Undefined variable
6457
be771a83
GS
6458(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6459Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 6460
76416d1a
KW
6461=item Unescaped left brace in regex is passed through in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6462
6463(W regexp) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
6464match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
6465regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6466some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
6467C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6468delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
6469also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6470
6471 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6472
6473Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
6474language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6475needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6476contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
6477conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6478not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6479non-deprecation warning.
6480
6481In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
6482still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
6483literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
6484v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6485now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
6486The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
6487
6488The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6489
6490=over 4
6491
6492=item *
6493
6494as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
6495anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6496
6497=item *
6498
6499as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
6500
6501=item *
6502
6503as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6504
6505 /foo({bar)/
6506 /foo(?:{bar)/
6507
6508=item *
6509
6510as the first character following a quantifier
6511
6512 /\s*{/
6513
6514=back
6515
6516=for comment
6517The text of the message above is duplicated below to allow splain (and
6518'use diagnostics') to work. Since one is deprecated, and one not, khw
6519thinks they can't be combined as one message.
8e84dec2 6520
0367231c
KW
6521=item Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated here (and will be fatal in Perl 5.32), passed through in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6522
8e84dec2 6523(D deprecated, regexp) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
21792e61 6524match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
8e84dec2
KW
6525regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6526some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
21792e61
KW
6527C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6528delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
8e84dec2
KW
6529also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6530
6531 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6532
21792e61 6533Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
8e84dec2
KW
6534language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6535needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6536contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
76416d1a
KW
6537conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6538not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6539non-deprecation warning.
8e84dec2 6540
21792e61 6541In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
8e84dec2 6542still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
21792e61 6543literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
8e84dec2
KW
6544v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6545now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
76416d1a 6546The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
8e84dec2
KW
6547
6548The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6549
6550=over 4
6551
6552=item *
6553
21792e61 6554as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
8e84dec2
KW
6555anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6556
6557=item *
6558
21792e61 6559as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
8e84dec2
KW
6560
6561=item *
6562
6563as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6564
6565 /foo({bar)/
6566 /foo(?:{bar)/
6567
6568=item *
6569
6570as the first character following a quantifier
6571
6572 /\s*{/
6573
6574=back
6575
6576=for comment
6577The text of the message above is duplicated below to allow splain (and
6578'use diagnostics') to work. Since one is fatal, and one not, they can't
76416d1a
KW
6579be combined as one message. Perhaps perldiag could be enhanced to
6580handle this case.
8e84dec2
KW
6581
6582=item Unescaped left brace in regex is illegal here in regex;
6e8a73f2 6583marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
412f55bb 6584
8e84dec2
KW
6585(F) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
6586match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
6587regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6588some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
6589C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6590delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
6591also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6592
6593 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6594
6595Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
6596language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6597needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6598contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
76416d1a
KW
6599conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6600not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6601non-deprecation warning.
8e84dec2
KW
6602
6603In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
6604still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
6605literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
6606v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6607now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
76416d1a 6608The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
8e84dec2
KW
6609
6610The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6611
6612=over 4
6613
6614=item *
6615
6616as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
6617anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6618
6619=item *
6620
6621as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
6622
6623=item *
6624
6625as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6626
6627 /foo({bar)/
6628 /foo(?:{bar)/
6629
6630=item *
6631
6632as the first character following a quantifier
412f55bb 6633
8e84dec2 6634 /\s*{/
412f55bb 6635
8e84dec2 6636=back
1656665e 6637
a4368cc3
KW
6638=item Unescaped literal '%c' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6639
6640(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>>)
6641
6642Within the scope of C<S<use re 'strict'>> in a regular expression
6643pattern, you included an unescaped C<}> or C<]> which was interpreted
6644literally. These two characters are sometimes metacharacters, and
6645sometimes literals, depending on what precedes them in the
6646pattern. This is unlike the similar C<)> which is always a
6647metacharacter unless escaped.
6648
6649This action at a distance, perhaps a large distance, can lead to Perl
6650silently misinterpreting what you meant, so when you specify that you
6651want extra checking by C<S<use re 'strict'>>, this warning is generated.
6652If you meant the character as a literal, simply confirm that to Perl by
6653preceding the character with a backslash, or make it into a bracketed
6654character class (like C<[}]>). If you meant it as closing a
6655corresponding C<[> or C<{>, you'll need to look back through the pattern
6656to find out why that isn't happening.
6657
a0d0e21e
LW
6658=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
6659
6660(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
6661representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
6662
e0e4a6e3
FC
6663=item Unexpected binary operator '%c' with no preceding operand in regex;
6664marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6665
675fa9ff 6666(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
6667
6668 (?[ | \p{Digit} ])
6669
6670where the C<"|"> is a binary operator with an operand on the right, but
6671no operand on the left.
6672
e0e4a6e3 6673=item Unexpected character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6674
675fa9ff 6675(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
6676
6677 (?[ z ])
6678
6679Within C<(?[ ])>, no literal characters are allowed unless they are
6680within an inner pair of square brackets, like
6681
6682 (?[ [ z ] ])
6683
6684Another possibility is that you forgot a backslash. Perl isn't smart
6685enough to figure out what you really meant.
6686
6651ba0b
FC
6687=item Unexpected constant lvalue entersub entry via type/targ %d:%d
6688
6689(P) When compiling a subroutine call in lvalue context, Perl failed an
6690internal consistency check. It encountered a malformed op tree.
6691
6c341f67
TC
6692=item Unexpected exit %u
6693
6694(S) exit() was called or the script otherwise finished gracefully when
6695C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in C<PL_exit_flags>.
6696
878ce265 6697=item Unexpected exit failure %d
6c341f67
TC
6698
6699(S) An uncaught die() was called when C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in
6700C<PL_exit_flags>.
6701
e0e4a6e3 6702=item Unexpected ')' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6703
6704(F) You had something like this:
6705
6706 (?[ ( \p{Digit} + ) ])
6707
6708The C<")"> is out-of-place. Something apparently was supposed to
6709be combined with the digits, or the C<"+"> shouldn't be there, or
6710something like that. Perl can't figure out what was intended.
6711
c9ffefcc
FC
6712=item Unexpected ']' with no following ')' in (?[... in regex; marked by
6713<-- HERE in m/%s/
6714
6715(F) While parsing an extended character class a ']' character was
6716encountered at a point in the definition where the only legal use of
6717']' is to close the character class definition as part of a '])', you
6718may have forgotten the close paren, or otherwise confused the parser.
6719
e0e4a6e3
FC
6720=item Unexpected '(' with no preceding operator in regex; marked by
6721S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6722
6723(F) You had something like this:
6724
6725 (?[ \p{Digit} ( \p{Lao} + \p{Thai} ) ])
6726
6727There should be an operator before the C<"(">, as there's
6728no indication as to how the digits are to be combined
6729with the characters in the Lao and Thai scripts.
6730
ba707cdc 6731=item Unicode non-character U+%X is not recommended for open interchange
0876b9a0 6732
4c2e59a0 6733(S nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
66a1f5ec
FC
6734defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those
6735are legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so,
6736applications shouldn't attempt to exchange them. An application
6737may not be expecting any of these characters at all, and receiving
6738them may lead to bugs. If you know what you are doing you can
6739turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
6740
6741This is not really a "severe" error, but it is supposed to be
6742raised by default even if warnings are not enabled, and currently
6743the only way to do that in Perl is to mark it as serious.
6a807e21 6744
1532347b
KW
6745=item Unicode property wildcard not terminated
6746
6747(F) A Unicode property wildcard looks like a delimited regular
6748expression pattern (all within the braces of the enclosing C<\p{...}>.
6749The closing delimtter to match the opening one was not found. If the
6750opening one is escaped by preceding it with a backslash, the closing one
6751must also be so escaped.
6752
c794c51b
FC
6753=item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
6754
4c2e59a0 6755(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
c794c51b
FC
6756not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
6757U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
6758internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
6759available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
6760problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
6761came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 6762off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
c794c51b 6763
dcfe9e74
KW
6764=item Unknown charname '%s'
6765
6766(F) The name you used inside C<\N{}> is unknown to Perl. Check the
6767spelling. You can say C<use charnames ":loose"> to not have to be
6768so precise about spaces, hyphens, and capitalization on standard Unicode
6769names. (Any custom aliases that have been created must be specified
6770exactly, regardless of whether C<:loose> is used or not.) This error may
6771also happen if the C<\N{}> is not in the scope of the corresponding
6772C<S<use charnames>>.
6773
d9790612
KW
6774=item Unknown '(*...)' construct '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6775
6776(F) The C<(*> was followed by something that the regular expression
6777compiler does not recognize. Check your spelling.
6778
04177465
FC
6779=item Unknown error
6780
6781(P) Perl was about to print an error message in C<$@>, but the C<$@> variable
6782did not exist, even after an attempt to create it.
6783
7bb2ffc8
KW
6784=item Unknown locale category %d; can't set it to %s
6785
6786(W locale) You used a locale category that perl doesn't recognize, so it
6787cannot carry out your request. Check that you are using a valid
6788category. If so, see L<perllocale/Multi-threaded> for advice on
6789reporting this as a bug, and for modifying perl locally to accommodate
6790your needs.
6791
6170680b
IZ
6792=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
6793
437784d6 6794(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 6795of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 6796C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 6797
b4581f09
JH
6798=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
6799
6800(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
6801system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
6802internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
6803are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
6804explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
6805value of the environment variable PERLIO.
6806
f675dbe5
CB
6807=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
6808
6809(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
6810iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
6811data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
6812subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 6813
283151b7 6814=item Unknown regexp modifier "/%s"
0da72d5e
KW
6815
6816(F) Alphanumerics immediately following the closing delimiter
6817of a regular expression pattern are interpreted by Perl as modifier
6818flags for the regex. One of the ones you specified is invalid. One way
6819this can happen is if you didn't put in white space between the end of
6820the regex and a following alphanumeric operator:
6821
6822 if ($a =~ /foo/and $bar == 3) { ... }
6823
6824The C<"a"> is a valid modifier flag, but the C<"n"> is not, and raises
6825this error. Likely what was meant instead was:
6826
6827 if ($a =~ /foo/ and $bar == 3) { ... }
6828
5a25739d
FC
6829=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
6830
6831(W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
6832
e0e4a6e3
FC
6833=item Unknown switch condition (?(...)) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6834m/%s/
96ebfdd7
RK
6835
6836(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6903afa2 6837is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5fecf430 6838
e7206367
KW
6839 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
6840 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
6841 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
6842 (*pla:...) (*plb:...) true if subpattern matches; also
6843 (*positive_lookahead:...)
6844 (*positive_lookbehind:...)
6845 (*nla:...) (*nlb:...) true if subpattern fails to match; also
6846 (*negative_lookahead:...)
6847 (*negative_lookbehind:...)
6848 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
6849 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
6850 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2,
6851 etc.
6852 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
6853 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
96ebfdd7 6854
6e8a73f2 6855The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
96ebfdd7
RK
6856discovered. See L<perlre>.
6857
a05d7ebb
JH
6858=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
6859
028611fa
DB
6860(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See
6861L<perlrun|perlrun/-C [numberE<sol>list]> documentation of the C<-C> switch
6862for the list of known options.
a05d7ebb 6863
64187737 6864=item Unknown Unicode option value %d
a05d7ebb 6865
028611fa
DB
6866(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See
6867L<perlrun|perlrun/-C [numberE<sol>list]> documentation of the C<-C> switch
6868for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 6869
e0e4a6e3 6870=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1
YO
6871
6872(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
6873after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
6874L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
6875
c2771421
FC
6876=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
6877
6903afa2 6878(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
c2771421
FC
6879category that is unknown to perl at this point.
6880
14ef4c80
FC
6881Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
6882module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
6883module first.
c2771421 6884
e0e4a6e3 6885=item Unmatched [ in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6886
6903afa2 6887(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 6888include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
e0e4a6e3 6889first. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
6903afa2 6890problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 6891
e0e4a6e3 6892=item Unmatched ( in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 6893
e0e4a6e3 6894=item Unmatched ) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
6895
6896(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
6903afa2 6897expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
e0e4a6e3 6898the matching parenthesis. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 6899regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 6900
d98d5fff 6901=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 6902
be771a83
GS
6903(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
6904ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
6905general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
6906you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 6907
a0d0e21e
LW
6908=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
6909
be771a83
GS
6910(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
6911reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
6912somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
6913subroutine.
a0d0e21e 6914
e0e4a6e3
FC
6915=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by S<<-- HERE> after %s near column
6916%d
a0d0e21e 6917
54310121 6918(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
1b303a7d
FC
6919in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you
6920tried to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as
6921a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 6922
e0e4a6e3
FC
6923=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class in regex; marked by
6924S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6925
675fa9ff
FC
6926(F) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6927recognized by Perl inside character classes. This is a fatal
6928error when the character class is used within C<(?[ ])>.
0d0b4b3b 6929
6fbc9859 6930=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex;
e0e4a6e3 6931marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6932
be771a83
GS
6933(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6934recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 6935understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
e0e4a6e3 6936The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2628b4e0 6937escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6938
4a68bf9d 6939=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 6940
2628b4e0 6941(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
6942recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
6943change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 6944
e0e4a6e3
FC
6945=item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by
6946S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6947
be771a83 6948(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b7e4ecc1 6949recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
e0e4a6e3 6950this may change in a future version of Perl. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 6951whereabouts in the regular expression the escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6952
a0d0e21e
LW
6953=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
6954
be771a83
GS
6955(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
6956recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
6957on your system.
a0d0e21e 6958
90248788 6959=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 6960
be771a83
GS
6961(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
6962think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
6963bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
6964
6965=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
6966
be771a83
GS
6967(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
6968operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 6969PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6970
6971=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
6972
6973(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
6974
6df41af2
GS
6975=item Unsupported function %s
6976
6977(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
6978At least, Configure doesn't think so.
6979
54310121 6980=item Unsupported function fork
6981
6982(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
6983
be771a83 6984Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6903afa2 6985of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
be771a83 6986changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 6987
7aa207d6 6988=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
6989
6990(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 6991declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 6992
a0d0e21e
LW
6993=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
6994
6995(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
6996least that's what Configure thought.
6997
d9790612
KW
6998=item Unterminated '(*...' argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6999
7000(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*...:...)> but did not terminate
7001the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
7002
6df41af2 7003=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 7004
be771a83
GS
7005(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
7006start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
7007block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
7008attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 7009
09bef843
SB
7010=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
7011
be771a83
GS
7012(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
7013an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
7014character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
7015character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
7016
f1991046
GS
7017=item Unterminated compressed integer
7018
7019(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
7020compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
7021See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7022
d9790612
KW
7023=item Unterminated '(*...' construct in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7024
7025(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*...)> but did not terminate
7026the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
7027
6f2d7fc9
FC
7028=item Unterminated delimiter for here document
7029
7030(F) This message occurs when a here document label has an initial
7031quotation mark but the final quotation mark is missing. Perhaps
7032you wrote:
7033
7034 <<"foo
7035
7036instead of:
7037
7038 <<"foo"
7039
e0e4a6e3 7040=item Unterminated \g... pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
779fedd7 7041
e0e4a6e3 7042=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2bf803e2 7043
5364049c
KW
7044(F) In a regular expression, you had a C<\g> that wasn't followed by a
7045proper group reference. In the case of C<\g{>, the closing brace is
7046missing; otherwise the C<\g> must be followed by an integer. Fix the
7047pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 7048
6df41af2 7049=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 7050
6df41af2 7051(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
7052a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
7053not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
7054earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 7055
e0e4a6e3
FC
7056=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
7057m/%s/
905fe053
FC
7058
7059(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 7060the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 7061
e0e4a6e3 7062=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
905fe053
FC
7063
7064(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 7065the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 7066
6df41af2 7067=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 7068
be771a83
GS
7069(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
7070still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 7071
8e11cd2b
JC
7072=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
7073
7074(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
7075See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
7076
7077=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
7078
7079(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
7080See L<Win32> for more information.
7081
89474f50
FC
7082=item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
7083
7084(W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
7085
7086 if ($[ > 5.006) {
7087 ...
7088 }
7089
7090You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
7091arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
7092
6da34ecb
FC
7093=item Use "%s" instead of "%s"
7094
7095(F) The second listed construct is no longer legal. Use the first one
7096instead.
7097
8fe85e3f
FC
7098=item Useless assignment to a temporary
7099
7100(W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
7101the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
7102be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
7103
e0e4a6e3
FC
7104=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by
7105S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 7106
96ebfdd7
RK
7107(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
7108meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 7109
96ebfdd7 7110 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
7111
7112must be written as
7113
96ebfdd7 7114 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5 7115
6e8a73f2 7116The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9e3ec65c 7117discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 7118
b4581f09
JH
7119=item Useless localization of %s
7120
6903afa2
FC
7121(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
7122but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
b4581f09
JH
7123some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
7124
e0e4a6e3
FC
7125=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
7126m/%s/
9d1d55b5 7127
96ebfdd7
RK
7128(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
7129meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 7130
96ebfdd7 7131 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
7132
7133must be written as
7134
96ebfdd7 7135 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5 7136
6e8a73f2 7137The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9e3ec65c 7138discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 7139
3108f4df
FC
7140=item Useless use of attribute "const"
7141
796b6530 7142(W misc) The C<const> attribute has no effect except
3108f4df
FC
7143on anonymous closure prototypes. You applied it to
7144a subroutine via L<attributes.pm|attributes>. This is only useful
7145inside an attribute handler for an anonymous subroutine.
7146
b08e453b
RB
7147=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
7148
7149(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6903afa2 7150same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
b08e453b
RB
7151about the /d modifier.
7152
820438b1
FC
7153=item Useless use of \E
7154
7155(W misc) You have a \E in a double-quotish string without a C<\U>,
7156C<\L> or C<\Q> preceding it.
7157
4fa6dd16
KW
7158=item Useless use of greediness modifier '%c' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7159
7160(W regexp) You specified something like these:
7161
7162 qr/a{3}?/
7163 qr/b{1,1}+/
7164
7165The C<"?"> and C<"+"> don't have any effect, as they modify whether to
7166match more or fewer when there is a choice, and by specifying to match
7167exactly a given numer, there is no room left for a choice.
7168
6df41af2 7169=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 7170
75b44862 7171(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
7172nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
7173value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
7174often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
7175to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
7176get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
7177said
a0d0e21e 7178
6df41af2 7179 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 7180
6df41af2
GS
7181when you meant to say
7182
7183 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
7184
7185Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
7186reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
7187example, if you say
7188
7189 $array = (1,2);
7190
7191when you should have said
7192
7193 $array = [1,2];
7194
7195The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
7196while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
7197a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
7198throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
7199L<perlref> for more on this.
7200
65191a1e
BS
7201This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
7202since they are often used in statements like
7203
4358a253 7204 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
7205
7206String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
7207about.
7208
e0e4a6e3 7209=item Useless use of (?-p) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
7210
7211(W regexp) The C<p> modifier cannot be turned off once set. Trying to do
7212so is futile.
7213
6df41af2
GS
7214=item Useless use of "re" pragma
7215
6903afa2 7216(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6df41af2 7217
a801c63c
RGS
7218=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
7219
7220(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
7221
7222 my $x = sort @y;
7223
7224This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
7225
de4864e4
JH
7226=item Useless use of %s with no values
7227
f87c3213 7228(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6903afa2
FC
7229apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
7230usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
de4864e4 7231possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6903afa2 7232if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
de4864e4
JH
7233you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
7234
6df41af2
GS
7235=item "use" not allowed in expression
7236
be771a83
GS
7237(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
7238returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 7239
c6e25b09 7240=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is forbidden
4633a7c4 7241
3f673807
FC
7242(F) You are now required to use the explicitly quoted form if you wish
7243to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
83ce3e12 7244
3f673807
FC
7245Use of a bare terminator was deprecated in Perl 5.000, and is a fatal
7246error as of Perl 5.28.
e5aa3f0b 7247
64e578a2
MJD
7248=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
7249
7250(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
7251modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
7252
4ac733c9
MJD
7253=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
7254
7255(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
7256use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
7257used. (This may change in the future.)
7258
5b5e2c03 7259=item Use of code point 0x%s is not allowed; the permissible max is 0x%X
fb7e7255 7260
5b5e2c03 7261=item Use of code point 0x%s is not allowed; the permissible max is 0x%X
fb7e7255 7262in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
113b8661
A
7263
7264(F) You used a code point that is not allowed, because it is too large.
7265Unicode only allows code points up to 0x10FFFF, but Perl allows much
7266larger ones. Earlier versions of Perl allowed code points above IV_MAX
7267(0x7FFFFFF on 32-bit platforms, 0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF on 64-bit platforms),
7268however, this could possibly break the perl interpreter in some constructs,
7269including causing it to hang in a few cases.
2d212e86
KW
7270
7271If your code is to run on various platforms, keep in mind that the upper
7272limit depends on the platform. It is much larger on 64-bit word sizes
7273than 32-bit ones.
7274
fcdb3ac1 7275The use of out of range code points was deprecated in Perl 5.24, and
113b8661 7276became a fatal error in Perl 5.28.
fcdb3ac1 7277
675fa9ff
FC
7278=item Use of each() on hash after insertion without resetting hash iterator results in undefined behavior
7279
f26c79ba
FC
7280(S internal) The behavior of C<each()> after insertion is undefined;
7281it may skip items, or visit items more than once. Consider using
7282C<keys()> instead of C<each()>.
675fa9ff 7283
2dc78664 7284=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
036e1e65 7285
2dc78664
NC
7286(F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
7287C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
7288This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
7289error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
7290
7291If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
7292a space before the C<=>.
036e1e65 7293
fafdadbd
KW
7294=item Use of %s for non-UTF-8 locale is wrong. Assuming a UTF-8 locale
7295
7296(W locale) You are matching a regular expression using locale rules,
7297and the specified construct was encountered. This construct is only
7298valid for UTF-8 locales, which the current locale isn't. This doesn't
7299make sense. Perl will continue, assuming a Unicode (UTF-8) locale, but
7300the results are likely to be wrong.
7301
b6c83531 7302=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 7303
b6c83531
JH
7304(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
7305This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
7306
7307 @a = (3,4);
7308 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
7309
7310You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
7311For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
7312reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
7313middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
7314
96ebfdd7 7315=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 7316
96ebfdd7
RK
7317(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
7318operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
7319repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 7320
dc6e8de0 7321=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
0b98bec9
RGS
7322
7323(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
7324scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
7325
dc6e8de0 7326This was deprecated in Perl 5.12.
9fc8eee0 7327
600c10ce
KW
7328=item Use of '%s' in \p{} or \P{} is deprecated because: %s
7329
7330(D deprecated) Certain properties are deprecated by Unicode, and may
7331eventually be removed from the Standard, at which time Perl will follow
7332along. In the meantime, this message is raised to notify you.
7333
64278e8c
A
7334=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s::%s() is no longer allowed
7335
7336(F) As an accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines were looked up as
7337methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy), even when the subroutines to be
7338autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as
7339methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<< $obj->bar() >>).
7340
7341This was deprecated in Perl 5.004, and was made fatal in Perl 5.28.
d9d53e86 7342
6df41af2
GS
7343=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
7344
7345(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
7346only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
7347
4829f32d
KW
7348=item Use of %s is not allowed in Unicode property wildcard
7349subpatterns in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7350
7351(F) You were using a wildcard subpattern a Unicode property value, and
7352the subpattern contained something that is illegal. Not all regular
7353expression capabilities are legal in such subpatterns, and this is one.
7354Rewrite your subppattern to not use the offending construct.
7355See L<perlunicode/Wildcards in Property Values>.
7356
5840701a 7357=item Use of -l on filehandle%s
5a7abfcc
FC
7358
7359(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
7360it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
7361The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
7362
1f1cc344 7363=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 7364
77b96956 7365(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
7366isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
7367to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 7368
64977eb6 7369If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344 7370C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
54e0f05c 7371however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
c69ca1d4 7372operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 7373
87e05d1a 7374=item Use of strings with code points over 0xFF as arguments to %s
5d09ee1c 7375operator is not allowed
87e05d1a 7376
3f673807
FC
7377(F) You tried to use one of the string bitwise operators (C<&> or C<|> or C<^> or
7378C<~>) on a string containing a code point over 0xFF. The string bitwise
7379operators treat their operands as strings of bytes, and values beyond
73800xFF are nonsensical in this context.
87e05d1a 7381
c8b94fe0 7382Certain instances became fatal in Perl 5.28; others in perl 5.32.
ecbcbef0 7383
da5a0da2 7384=item Use of strings with code points over 0xFF as arguments to vec is forbidden
315f3fc1 7385
da5a0da2 7386(F) You tried to use L<C<vec>|perlfunc/vec EXPR,OFFSET,BITS>
315f3fc1
KW
7387on a string containing a code point over 0xFF, which is nonsensical here.
7388
da5a0da2 7389This became fatal in Perl 5.32.
315f3fc1 7390
bbd7eb8a
RD
7391=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
7392
159f47d9 7393(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
7394arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
7395but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
7396arguments. See L<perlsec>.
7397
94749a5e 7398=item Use of unassigned code point or non-standalone grapheme for a
823c3b2d 7399delimiter is not allowed
94749a5e 7400
823c3b2d 7401(F)
94749a5e
KW
7402A grapheme is what appears to a native-speaker of a language to be a
7403character. In Unicode (and hence Perl) a grapheme may actually be
7404several adjacent characters that together form a complete grapheme. For
7405example, there can be a base character, like "R" and an accent, like a
7406circumflex "^", that appear when displayed to be a single character with
7407the circumflex hovering over the "R". Perl currently allows things like
7408that circumflex to be delimiters of strings, patterns, I<etc>. When
7409displayed, the circumflex would look like it belongs to the character
7410just to the left of it. In order to move the language to be able to
823c3b2d 7411accept graphemes as delimiters, we cannot allow the use of
94749a5e
KW
7412delimiters which aren't graphemes by themselves. Also, a delimiter must
7413already be assigned (or known to be never going to be assigned) to try
7414to future-proof code, for otherwise code that works today would fail to
7415compile if the currently unassigned delimiter ends up being something
7416that isn't a stand-alone grapheme. Because Unicode is never going to
7417assign
7418L<non-character code points|perlunicode/Noncharacter code points>, nor
7419L<code points that are above the legal Unicode maximum|
7420perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points>, those can be delimiters, and
823c3b2d 7421their use is legal.
94749a5e 7422
cc95b072 7423=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 7424
be771a83
GS
7425(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
7426defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
7427To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 7428
6903afa2
FC
7429To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
7430the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
7431it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
7432undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
50a39ba4 7433and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
6903afa2
FC
7434literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
7435optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
7436C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
7437your program.
e5be4a53 7438
67cdf558
KW
7439=item "use re 'strict'" is experimental
7440
7441(S experimental::re_strict) The things that are different when a regular
7442expression pattern is compiled under C<'strict'> are subject to change
7443in future Perl releases in incompatible ways. This means that a pattern
7444that compiles today may not in a future Perl release. This warning is
7445to alert you to that risk.
7446
e0e4a6e3
FC
7447=item Use \x{...} for more than two hex characters in regex; marked by
7448S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
7449
7450(F) In a regular expression, you said something like
7451
7452 (?[ [ \xBEEF ] ])
7453
7454Perl isn't sure if you meant this
7455
7456 (?[ [ \x{BEEF} ] ])
7457
7458or if you meant this
7459
7460 (?[ [ \x{BE} E F ] ])
7461
7462You need to add either braces or blanks to disambiguate.
7463
6fbc9859 7464=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class in
e0e4a6e3 7465regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ff3f963a 7466
f3ba6905
FC
7467(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return
7468a multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
7469supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match
7470the whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted
7471(C<[^...]>), or the escape is the beginning or final end point of
7472a range. For these, what should happen isn't clear at all. In
7473these circumstances, Perl discards all but the first character
7474of the returned sequence, which is not likely what you want.
ff3f963a 7475
6e8a73f2 7476=item Using /u for '%s' instead of /%s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
64935bc6
KW
7477
7478(W regexp) You used a Unicode boundary (C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}>) in a
7479portion of a regular expression where the character set modifiers C</a>
7480or C</aa> are in effect. These two modifiers indicate an ASCII
33f0d962 7481interpretation, and this doesn't make sense for a Unicode definition.
64935bc6
KW
7482The generated regular expression will compile so that the boundary uses
7483all of Unicode. No other portion of the regular expression is affected.
7484
c794c51b
FC
7485=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
7486
7487(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
0f44b2a5 7488currently reserved for future use, as the exact behavior has not
6903afa2 7489been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
c794c51b 7490modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
0876b9a0 7491
949cf498
KW
7492=item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
7493
4c2e59a0 7494(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
949cf498
KW
7495not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
7496U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
7497internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
7498available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
7499problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
7500came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 7501off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9466bab6 7502
68dc0745 7503=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 7504
75b44862 7505(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
7506C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
7507can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
7508false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
7509constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
7510C<defined> operator.
a6006777 7511
f675dbe5
CB
7512=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
7513
be771a83
GS
7514(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
7515%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
7516longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
75171024 characters.
f675dbe5 7518
b5c19bd7 7519=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 7520
b5c19bd7
DM
7521(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
7522attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6903afa2 7523This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
7524declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
7525(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6903afa2 7526subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 7527
b5c19bd7 7528 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 7529
b5c19bd7 7530At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6903afa2 7531since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
b5c19bd7
DM
7532the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
7533now been created and is live:
be771a83 7534
b5c19bd7
DM
7535 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
7536
7537The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
7538gone out of scope, for example,
7539
7540 sub f {
7541 my $a;
7542 sub { eval '$a' }
7543 }
7544 f()->();
7545
1b303a7d
FC
7546Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
7547being executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 7548
b4581f09
JH
7549=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
7550
120b0f81 7551(S misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
413ff9f6 7552that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
7553something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
7554that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
7555front of your variable.
7556
aec0ef10 7557=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex m/%s/
b4581f09 7558
2abbd513
KW
7559(F) B<This message no longer should be raised as of Perl 5.30.> It is
7560retained in this document as a convenience for people using an earlier
7561Perl version.
7562
7563In Perl 5.30 and earlier, lookbehind is allowed
7564only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
d0a29c36
KW
7565known at compile time. For positive lookbehind, you can use the C<\K>
7566regex construct as a way to get the equivalent functionality. See
a8f2f5fa 7567L<(?<=pattern) and \K in perlre|perlre/\K>.
d0a29c36 7568
754dd754
KW
7569Starting in Perl 5.18, there are non-obvious Unicode rules under C</i>
7570that can match variably, but which you might not think could. For
7571example, the substring C<"ss"> can match the single character LATIN
7572SMALL LETTER SHARP S. Here's a complete list of the current ones
7573affecting ASCII characters:
7574
7575 ASCII
7576 sequence Matches single letter under /i
7577 FF U+FB00 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF
7578 FFI U+FB03 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFI
7579 FFL U+FB04 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFL
7580 FI U+FB01 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FI
7581 FL U+FB02 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FL
7582 SS U+00DF LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S
7583 U+1E9E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S
7584 ST U+FB06 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE ST
7585 U+FB05 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE LONG S T
7586
7587This list is subject to change, but is quite unlikely to.
7588Each ASCII sequence can be any combination of upper- and lowercase.
7589
7590You can avoid this by using a bracketed character class in the
7591lookbehind assertion, like
7592
7593 (?<![sS]t)
7594 (?<![fF]f[iI])
7595
7596This fools Perl into not matching the ligatures.
7597
7598Another option for Perls starting with 5.16, if you only care about
7599ASCII matches, is to add the C</aa> modifier to the regex. This will
7600exclude all these non-obvious matches, thus getting rid of this message.
7601You can also say
7602
7603 use if $] ge 5.016, re => '/aa';
7604
d0a29c36
KW
7605to apply C</aa> to all regular expressions compiled within its scope.
7606See L<re>.
b4581f09
JH
7607
7608=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
7609
52e3acf8 7610(W shadow) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
b9cc85ad
FC
7611current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
7612previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
7613that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
20d33786 7614or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
b4581f09 7615
6df41af2
GS
7616=item Variable syntax
7617
7618(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
7619of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
7620Perl yourself.
7621
44a8e56a 7622=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
7623
be771a83 7624(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 7625lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 7626
b5c19bd7 7627When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
7628the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
7629call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
7630outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
7631longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
7632variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 7633
44a8e56a 7634This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
7635anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 7636reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 7637are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 7638
6651ba0b
FC
7639=item vector argument not supported with alpha versions
7640
8b6051f1 7641(S printf) The %vd (s)printf format does not support version objects
6651ba0b
FC
7642with alpha parts.
7643
e0e4a6e3
FC
7644=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by
7645S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 7646
6903afa2
FC
7647(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
7648argument or check that you are using the right verb.
e2e6a0f1 7649
e0e4a6e3
FC
7650=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by
7651S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 7652
6903afa2 7653(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
e2e6a0f1
YO
7654argument or check that you are using the right verb.
7655
9c88bb56 7656=item Version control conflict marker
397c43d8
LM
7657
7658(F) The parser found a line starting with C<E<lt><<<<<<>,
d4e5761f 7659C<E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>>, or C<=======>. These may be left by a
397c43d8
LM
7660version control system to mark conflicts after a failed merge operation.
7661
084610c0
GS
7662=item Version number must be a constant number
7663
7664(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
7665its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
7666the version number.
7667
808ee47e
SP
7668=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
7669
32e998fd
RGS
7670(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
7671are being ignored.
808ee47e 7672
7e1af8bc 7673=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 7674
7675(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 7676you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 7677
f86702cc 7678=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 7679
be771a83
GS
7680(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
7681the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
7682space.
a0d0e21e 7683
96d7c888
FC
7684=item Warning: unable to close filehandle properly: %s
7685
7686=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly: %s
7687
ab7ca7ed
AP
7688(S io) There were errors during the implicit close() done on a filehandle
7689when its reference count reached zero while it was still open, e.g.:
cc4d3128
DM
7690
7691 {
7692 open my $fh, '>', $file or die "open: '$file': $!\n";
7693 print $fh $data or die "print: $!";
7694 } # implicit close here
7695
95032a5b
AP
7696Because various errors may only be detected by close() (e.g. buffering could
7697allow the C<print> in this example to return true even when the disk is full),
d4e5761f
FC
7698it is dangerous to ignore its result. So when it happens implicitly, perl
7699will signal errors by warning.
cc4d3128 7700
ab7ca7ed
AP
7701B<Prior to version 5.22.0, perl ignored such errors>, so the common idiom shown
7702above was liable to cause B<silent data loss>.
96d7c888 7703
5f05dabc 7704=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 7705
be771a83
GS
7706(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
7707looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
7708term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
7709function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
7710
7711 rand + 5;
7712
7713you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
7714
7715 rand() + 5;
7716
7717but in actual fact, you got
7718
7719 rand(+5);
7720
5f05dabc 7721So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 7722
7896dde7 7723=item when is experimental
0f539b13 7724
7896dde7
Z
7725(S experimental::smartmatch) C<when> depends on smartmatch, which is
7726experimental. Additionally, it has several special cases that may
7727not be immediately obvious, and their behavior may change or
7728even be removed in any future release of perl. See the explanation
7729under L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 7730
4b3603a4
JH
7731=item Wide character in %s
7732
479b791b
KW
7733(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (ordinal >255) when it wasn't
7734expecting one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print).
7735
7736If this warning does come from I/O, the easiest
7737way to quiet it is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer, I<e.g.>,
7738S<C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>>. Another way to turn off the warning is
7739to add S<C<no warnings 'utf8';>> but that is often closer to
cd28123a
JH
7740cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
7741filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 7742
479b791b
KW
7743If the warning comes from other than I/O, this diagnostic probably
7744indicates that incorrect results are being obtained. You should examine
7745your code to determine how a wide character is getting to an operation
7746that doesn't handle them.
7747
613abc6d
KW
7748=item Wide character (U+%X) in %s
7749
7750(W locale) While in a single-byte locale (I<i.e.>, a non-UTF-8
7751one), a multi-byte character was encountered. Perl considers this
50ea4745 7752character to be the specified Unicode code point. Combining non-UTF-8
613abc6d
KW
7753locales and Unicode is dangerous. Almost certainly some characters
7754will have two different representations. For example, in the ISO 8859-7
7755(Greek) locale, the code point 0xC3 represents a Capital Gamma. But so
7756also does 0x393. This will make string comparisons unreliable.
7757
7758You likely need to figure out how this multi-byte character got mixed up
7759with your single-byte locale (or perhaps you thought you had a UTF-8
7760locale, but Perl disagrees).
7761
49704364
WL
7762=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
7763
fa816bf3
FC
7764(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]>
7765only if C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that
7766can be determined from the template alone. This is not possible if
7767it contains any of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign
7768the template.
49704364 7769
448aac91
MM
7770=item While trying to resolve method call %s->%s() can not locate package "%s" yet it is mentioned in @%s::ISA (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
7771
ece464a3 7772(W syntax) It is possible that the C<@ISA> contains a misspelled or never loaded
448aac91 7773package name, which can result in perl choosing an unexpected parent
ece464a3 7774class's method to resolve the method call. If this is deliberate you
448aac91
MM
7775can do something like
7776
7777 @Missing::Package::ISA = ();
7778
7779to silence the warnings, otherwise you should correct the package name, or
7780ensure that the package is loaded prior to the method call.
7781
74d1b2e4
FC
7782=item %s() with negative argument
7783
7784(S misc) Certain operations make no sense with negative arguments.
7785Warning is given and the operation is not done.
7786
9a7dcd9c 7787=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 7788
be771a83 7789(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 7790before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 7791
9ae3ac1a 7792=item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
b4581f09 7793
27f95370
FC
7794(S utf8) When reading in different encodings, Perl tries to
7795map everything into Unicode characters. The bytes you read
7796in are not legal in this encoding. For example
b4581f09
JH
7797
7798 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
7799
7800if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
7801
49704364 7802=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 7803
49704364
WL
7804(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
7805the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 7806
49704364 7807=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
7808
7809(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
7810the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7811
a0d0e21e
LW
7812=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
7813
5f05dabc 7814(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 7815sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
b5145c7d
Z
7816about what you want. There is a vulnerability anywhere that you have a
7817set-id script, and to close it you need to remove the set-id bit from
7818the script that you're attempting to run. To actually run the script
7819set-id, your best bet is to put a set-id C wrapper around your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
7820
7821=item You need to quote "%s"
7822
be771a83
GS
7823(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
7824Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
7825which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
7826assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
7827what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 7828
6cfd5ea7
JH
7829=item Your random numbers are not that random
7830
50a39ba4 7831(F) When trying to initialize the random seed for hashes, Perl could
6cfd5ea7
JH
7832not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
7833Something Very Wrong.
7834
e0e4a6e3 7835=item Zero length \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
8a5a438d 7836
f3ba6905 7837(F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a zero-length
8a5a438d 7838sequence. Such an escape was used in an extended character class, i.e.
fe0a3646
KW
7839C<(?[...])>, or under C<use re 'strict'>, which is not permitted. Check
7840that the correct escape has been used, and the correct charnames handler
7841is in scope. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
7842expression the problem was discovered.
8a5a438d 7843
a0d0e21e
LW
7844=back
7845
00eb3f2b
RGS
7846=head1 SEE ALSO
7847
44ecbbd8 7848L<warnings>, L<diagnostics>.
00eb3f2b 7849
56e90b21 7850=cut