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RE: [PATCH lib/overload.pm] Sanaty checking of arguments to overload::constant
[perl5.git] / pod / perldiag.pod
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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
e476b1b5 12 (S) A severe warning (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
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18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
30Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
6df41af2 53=item Allocation too large: %lx
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
f61d411c 57=item '!' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
60See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
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74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
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88(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
6df41af2 92=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 93
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94(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 97
6df41af2 98=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 99
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100(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 105
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106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
107 while (<STDIN>) {
108 print;
109 print OUT;
110 }
111 close OUT;
c9f97d15 112
6df41af2 113=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 114
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115(W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
121alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 122
6df41af2 123=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 124
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125(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 129
6df41af2 130=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 131
6df41af2 132(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 133
8ea97a1e 134=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
a0d0e21e 135
8ea97a1e 136(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
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137
138 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 139 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
a0d0e21e 140
8ea97a1e 141=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 142
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143(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
144such as:
5f05dabc 145
146 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 147 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 148
8ea97a1e 149or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 150
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151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 153
6df41af2 154=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 155
6df41af2 156(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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157name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
158error.
a0d0e21e 159
f86702cc 160=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 161
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162(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
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165
166=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
167
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168(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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170
171=item assertion botched: %s
172
173(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
174
175=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
176
177(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
178
179=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
180
181(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183know which context to supply to the right side.
184
5243b939 185=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
fe58ced6 186
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187(F) When vec is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
188greater than or equal to zero.
fe58ced6 189
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190=item Attempt to bless into a reference
191
192(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
193the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
194supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
195
196 bless $self, $proto;
197
198when you intended
199
200 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
201
202If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
203of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
204example by:
205
206 bless $self, "$proto";
207
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208=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
209
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210(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
211that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
212outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 213
54310121 214=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 215
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216(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
217strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
218strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
219of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 220
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221=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
222
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223(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
224free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
225SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
226free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
227try to free it.
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228
229=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
230
e476b1b5 231(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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232
233=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
234
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235(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
236see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
237earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
238This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
239that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
240mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
241corrupted.
a0d0e21e 242
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243=item Attempt to join self
244
245(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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246impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
247to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 248
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249=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
250
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251(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
252function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
253means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
254invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
255literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
256avoid this warning.
84902520 257
b7a902f4 258=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
259
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260(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
261used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
262dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 263
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264=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
265
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266(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
267or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 268S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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269S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
270
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271=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
272
273(F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
274substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
275most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
276
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277=item Bad filehandle: %s
278
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279(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
280symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
281open(), or did it in another package.
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282
283=item Bad free() ignored
284
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285(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
286been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 287setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 288
9ea8bc6d 289This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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290dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
291which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 292
aa689395 293=item Bad hash
294
295(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
296
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297=item Bad index while coercing array into hash
298
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299(F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
300pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
301See L<perlref>.
57079c46 302
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303=item Badly placed ()'s
304
305(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
306of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
307Perl yourself.
308
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309=item Bad name after %s::
310
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311(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
312didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
313of quotes, so
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314
315 $var = 'myvar';
316 $sym = mypack::$var;
317
318is not the same as
319
320 $var = 'myvar';
321 $sym = "mypack::$var";
322
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323=item Bad realloc() ignored
324
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325(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
326never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
327by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 328
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329=item Bad symbol for array
330
331(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
332wasn't a symbol table entry.
333
334=item Bad symbol for filehandle
335
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336(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
337that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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338
339=item Bad symbol for hash
340
341(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
342wasn't a symbol table entry.
343
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344=item Bareword found in conditional
345
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346(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
347conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
348of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
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349
350 open FOO || die;
351
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352It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
353a bareword:
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354
355 use constant TYPO => 1;
356 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
357
358The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
359
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360=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
361
362(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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363subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
364symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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365
366=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
367
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368(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
369compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
370you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 371
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372=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
373
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374(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
375subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
376exited.
a0d0e21e 377
68dc0745 378=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
379
380(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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381implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
382occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
383be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
384depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 385
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386=item \1 better written as $1
387
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388(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
389The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
390substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
391because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
392there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 393
252aa082
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394=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
395
e476b1b5 396(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
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397(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
398L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 399
69282e91 400=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 401
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402(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
403check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 404
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405=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
406
e476b1b5 407(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 408
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409=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
410
be771a83 411(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 412copyable.
4633a7c4 413
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414=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
415
416(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
417which provides a race condition that breaks security.
418
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419=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
420
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421(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
422iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
423which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 424
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425=item Callback called exit
426
4929bf7b 427(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
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428exited by calling exit.
429
6df41af2 430=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 431
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432(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
433parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
434that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
435early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
436subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
437checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
438function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
439the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 440
6df41af2 441=item / cannot take a count
a0d0e21e 442
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443(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
444you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
445L<perlfunc/pack>.
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446
447=item Can't bless non-reference value
448
449(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
450encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
451
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452=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
453
454(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
455functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
456in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
457
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458=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
459
460(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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461object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
462like this will reproduce the error:
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463
464 $BADREF = undef;
465 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
466 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
467
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468=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
469
54310121 470(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
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471ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
472didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
473object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
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474
475=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
476
477(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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478object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
479defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
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480Something like this will reproduce the error:
481
482 $BADREF = 42;
483 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
484 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
485
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486=item Can't chdir to %s
487
488(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
489that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
490
0545a864 491=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 492
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493(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
494nosuid.
104d25b7 495
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496=item Can't coerce array into hash
497
498(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
499information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
500only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
501
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502=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
503
504(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 505(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
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506say things like:
507
508 *foo += 1;
509
510You CAN say
511
512 $foo = *foo;
513 $foo += 1;
514
515but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
516
517=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
518
519(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 520(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
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521
522=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
523
524(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 525(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
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526
527=item Can't create pipe mailbox
528
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529(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
530quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 531
eb64745e 532=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 533
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534(S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
535qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
536for other types of variables in future.
537
538=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
539
540(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
541"our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 542
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543=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
544
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545(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
546a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 547
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548=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
549
be771a83
GS
550(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
551reason.
a0d0e21e 552
54310121 553=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 554
be771a83
GS
555(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
556reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
557C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 558
10f9c03d 559=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 560
e476b1b5 561(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
562characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
563inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 564
79eeca27 565=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m before << HERE in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 566
b45f050a 567(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
79eeca27 568regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The << HERE shows in the
b45f050a 569regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e
LW
570
571=item Can't do setegid!
572
be771a83
GS
573(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
574suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
575
576=item Can't do seteuid!
577
578(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
579
580=item Can't do setuid
581
be771a83
GS
582(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
583setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
584sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
585the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
586file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
587sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
a0d0e21e
LW
588
589=item Can't do waitpid with flags
590
be771a83
GS
591(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
592waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 593
a0d0e21e
LW
594=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
595
be771a83
GS
596(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
597point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
598line.
a0d0e21e
LW
599
600=item Can't exec "%s": %s
601
be771a83
GS
602(W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
603named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
604permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
605C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
606architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
607can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
608#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
609
610=item Can't exec %s
611
be771a83
GS
612(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
613that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
614need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
615
616=item Can't execute %s
617
be771a83
GS
618(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
619found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 620
6df41af2 621=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 622
be771a83
GS
623(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
624is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2
GS
625
626=item Can't find label %s
627
be771a83
GS
628(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
629possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
630
631=item Can't find %s on PATH
632
be771a83
GS
633(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
634found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 635
6df41af2 636=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 637
be771a83
GS
638(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
639found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
640script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
641
642=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
643
be771a83
GS
644(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
645that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
646nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 647
fb73857a 648 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
649
be771a83
GS
650If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
651unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
652editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e
LW
653
654=item Can't fork
655
be771a83
GS
656(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
657pipeline.
a0d0e21e 658
748a9306
LW
659=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
660
be771a83
GS
661(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
662between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
663Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
664the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
665account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
666the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
667the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
668the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
669if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
670because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
671appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
672and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
673routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
674shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
675only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 676
a0d0e21e
LW
677=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
678
be771a83
GS
679(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
680pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
681
682=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
683
748a9306
LW
684(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
685mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 686
6df41af2 687=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 688
be771a83
GS
689(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
690loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
691
692=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
693
be771a83
GS
694(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
695a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
696you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
697See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 698
b150fb22
RH
699=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
700
be771a83
GS
701(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
702"string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
703probably don't want to.)
b150fb22 704
6df41af2
GS
705=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
706
be771a83
GS
707(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
708subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
709cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
710routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 711
0b5b802d
GS
712=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
713
be771a83
GS
714(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
715signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
716signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
717processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
718situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
719may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 720
6df41af2 721=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 722
6df41af2 723(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
724except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
725block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
726block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
727usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
728inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
729L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 730
748a9306
LW
731=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
732
2ba9eb46 733(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306
LW
734lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
735localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
736package name.
737
0ebe0038
SM
738=item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
739
be771a83
GS
740(F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
741reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
742can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
743directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
0ebe0038 744
6df41af2 745=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 746
6df41af2
GS
747(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
748handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83
GS
749pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
750that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 751
ec889f3a
GS
752=item Can't locate %s
753
754(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
755found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
756unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
757need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
758the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
759to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
760L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 761
6df41af2
GS
762=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
763
be771a83
GS
764(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
765autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
766are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
767the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 768
a0d0e21e
LW
769=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
770
771(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
772functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 773method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 774
c1899e02
GS
775=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
776
777(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
778"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
779that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
780
a0d0e21e
LW
781=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
782
be771a83
GS
783(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
784doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 785
3e3baf6d
TB
786=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
787
be771a83
GS
788(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
789VMS.
3e3baf6d 790
a0d0e21e
LW
791=item Can't modify %s in %s
792
be771a83
GS
793(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
794to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 795
54310121 796=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
797
798(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
799a NULL.
800
6df41af2
GS
801=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
802
803(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
804such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
805
5f05dabc 806=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 807
5f05dabc 808(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
809buffer.
810
6df41af2
GS
811=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
812
813(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
814there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
815count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
816grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
817though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
818once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 819
a0d0e21e
LW
820=item Can't open %s: %s
821
c47ff5f1 822(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
823filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
824switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
825is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
826the command line.
a0d0e21e
LW
827
828=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
829
be771a83
GS
830(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
831You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
832as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
833">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 834
748a9306
LW
835=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
836
be771a83
GS
837(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
838redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
839the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
840
841=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
842
be771a83
GS
843(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
844redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
845command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
846
847=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
848
be771a83
GS
849(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
850redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
851the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
852
853=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
854
be771a83
GS
855(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
856redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
857for stdout.
748a9306 858
a0d0e21e
LW
859=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
860
861(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
862
6df41af2
GS
863=item Can't read CRTL environ
864
865(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
866from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
867missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
868or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
869searched.
6df41af2 870
7bac28a0 871=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
872
873(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
be771a83
GS
874pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
875it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
7bac28a0 876this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
877
6df41af2
GS
878=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
879
880(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
881there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
882count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
883or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
884though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
885loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
886
10f9c03d
CK
887=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
888
be771a83
GS
889(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
890file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
891the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 892
a0d0e21e
LW
893=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
894
e476b1b5 895(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 896probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 897
748a9306
LW
898=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
899
be771a83
GS
900(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
901to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 902
6df41af2
GS
903=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
904
be771a83
GS
905(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
906to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
907method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 908
a0d0e21e
LW
909=item Can't reswap uid and euid
910
be771a83
GS
911(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
912suidperl.
a0d0e21e 913
cd06dffe
GS
914=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
915
be771a83
GS
916(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
917temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
918is not allowed.
cd06dffe 919
6df41af2
GS
920=item Can't return outside a subroutine
921
922(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
923there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
924
a0d0e21e
LW
925=item Can't stat script "%s"
926
be771a83
GS
927(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
928open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
929
930=item Can't swap uid and euid
931
be771a83
GS
932(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
933suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
934
935=item Can't take log of %g
936
fb73857a 937(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
938negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
939standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
940negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
941
942=item Can't take sqrt of %g
943
944(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 945negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
946with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
947
948=item Can't undef active subroutine
949
950(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
951however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
952redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
953
954=item Can't unshift
955
956(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
957as the main Perl stack.
958
959=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
960
be771a83
GS
961(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
962into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
963specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
964indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e
LW
965
966=item Can't upgrade to undef
967
be771a83
GS
968(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
969upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
970calling sv_upgrade.
a0d0e21e 971
6df41af2
GS
972=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
973
974(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
975be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
976
977=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
978
be771a83
GS
979(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
980references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 981
1d2dff63
GS
982=item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
983
984(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
985Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
986provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
987
6df41af2
GS
988=item Can't use %s for loop variable
989
be771a83
GS
990(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
991foreach.
6df41af2
GS
992
993=item Can't use global %s in "my"
994
be771a83
GS
995(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
996is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
997(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
998have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
999weren't.
1000
c07a80fd 1001=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1002
1003(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1004You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1005and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1006Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1007lexical variable.
1008
a0d0e21e
LW
1009=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1010
1011(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1012reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1013test the type of the reference, if need be.
1014
748a9306 1015=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1016
be771a83
GS
1017(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1018references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1019
748a9306
LW
1020=item Can't use subscript on %s
1021
1022(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1023subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1024didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1025
6df41af2
GS
1026=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1027
75b44862
GS
1028(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1029creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1030backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1031expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1032value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1033instead.
6df41af2 1034
810b8aa5
GS
1035=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1036
1037(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1038references can be weakened.
1039
5f05dabc 1040=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1041
be771a83
GS
1042(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1043with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1044Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1045
5a211162 1046=item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
a0d0e21e 1047
e476b1b5 1048(W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
a0d0e21e
LW
1049
1050 chmod 777, $filename
1051
be771a83
GS
1052not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1053equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1054Perl, as in C.
a0d0e21e 1055
9ddeeac9 1056=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 1057
e476b1b5 1058(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
a0d0e21e 1059
6df41af2
GS
1060=item %s: Command not found
1061
be771a83
GS
1062(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1063Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1064
7a2e2cd6 1065=item Compilation failed in require
1066
1067(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1068Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1069encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1070
c3464db5
DD
1071=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1072
be771a83
GS
1073(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1074situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1075to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1076arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1077recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1078under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1079in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1080that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1081on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1082
69282e91 1083=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1084
be771a83
GS
1085(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1086to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1087L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1088
6df41af2
GS
1089=item constant(%s): %s
1090
be771a83
GS
1091(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1092an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1093specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1094corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1095L<overload>.
6df41af2 1096
779c5bc9
GS
1097=item Constant is not %s reference
1098
1099(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1100is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1101The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1102usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1103See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1104
4cee8e80
CS
1105=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1106
be771a83
GS
1107(S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1108eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1109commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1110
9607fc9c 1111=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1112
be771a83
GS
1113(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1114for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1115workarounds.
9607fc9c 1116
e7ea3e70
IZ
1117=item Copy method did not return a reference
1118
be771a83
GS
1119(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy
1120Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1121
6798c92b
GS
1122=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1123
1124(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1125
a0d0e21e
LW
1126=item corrupted regexp pointers
1127
1128(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1129expression compiler gave it.
1130
1131=item corrupted regexp program
1132
be771a83
GS
1133(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1134valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1135
6df41af2
GS
1136=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1137
1138(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1139
1140=item C<-p> destination: %s
1141
1142(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1143command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1144redirected it with select().)
1145
1146=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1147
1148(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1149know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1150
a0d0e21e
LW
1151=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1152
be771a83
GS
1153(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1154100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1155infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1156which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1157
f10b0346 1158=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1159
be771a83
GS
1160(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1161checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1162array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1163
f10b0346 1164=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1165
be771a83
GS
1166(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1167checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1168is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1169
fc36a67e 1170=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1171
be771a83
GS
1172(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1173long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1174that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1175
3cdd684c
TP
1176=item Did not produce a valid header
1177
1178See Server error.
1179
6df41af2
GS
1180=item %s did not return a true value
1181
1182(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1183it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1184traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1185do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1186
cc507455 1187=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1188
be771a83
GS
1189(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1190such.
4633a7c4 1191
cc507455 1192=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1193
be771a83
GS
1194(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1195variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1196seems superfluous.
33633739 1197
cc507455 1198=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1199
be771a83
GS
1200(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1201@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1202carried away.
748a9306 1203
7e1af8bc 1204=item Died
5f05dabc 1205
1206(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1207you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1208
3cdd684c
TP
1209=item Document contains no data
1210
1211See Server error.
1212
a0d0e21e
LW
1213=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1214
1215(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1216
1217=item do_study: out of memory
1218
1219(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1220
6df41af2
GS
1221=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1222
1223(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1224found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1225name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1226because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1227"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1228something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1229subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1230"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1231
a0d0e21e
LW
1232=item Duplicate free() ignored
1233
be771a83
GS
1234(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1235already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1236
4633a7c4
LW
1237=item elseif should be elsif
1238
be771a83
GS
1239(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1240Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1241"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1242unlikely to be what you want.
1243
85ab1d1d 1244=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1245
85ab1d1d 1246(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1247effective uids or gids failed.
1248
748a9306
LW
1249=item Error converting file specification %s
1250
5f05dabc 1251(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1252specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1253single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1254an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1255conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1256
e4d48cc9
GS
1257=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1258
be771a83
GS
1259(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1260expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1261is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1262
e4d48cc9
GS
1263=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1264
be771a83
GS
1265(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1266C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1267pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1268is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1269building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1270that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1271
6df41af2
GS
1272=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1273
be771a83
GS
1274(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1275assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1276pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1277
fc36a67e 1278=item Excessively long <> operator
1279
1280(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1281Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1282filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1283variable and glob that.
1284
f86702cc 1285=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1286
1287(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1288
1289=item Exiting eval via %s
1290
be771a83
GS
1291(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1292goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1293
1294=item Exiting format via %s
1295
be771a83
GS
1296(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1297goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1298
0a753a76 1299=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1300
be771a83
GS
1301(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1302sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1303loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1304
a0d0e21e
LW
1305=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1306
be771a83
GS
1307(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1308as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1309
1310=item Exiting substitution via %s
1311
be771a83
GS
1312(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1313as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1314
7b8d334a
GS
1315=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1316
be771a83
GS
1317(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1318the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1319usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1320e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1321
6df41af2
GS
1322=item %s: Expression syntax
1323
be771a83
GS
1324(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1325Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1326
1327=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1328
1329(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1330END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1331routines has been prematurely ended.
1332
73b437c8
JH
1333=item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1334
be771a83
GS
1335(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1336character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1337"-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1338quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1339
748a9306 1340=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1341
be771a83
GS
1342(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1343system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1344details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1345you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1346
1347=item fcntl is not implemented
1348
1349(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1350PDP-11 or something?
1351
af8c498a 1352=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1353
be771a83
GS
1354(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1355to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1356or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1357the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1358
af8c498a 1359=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1360
be771a83
GS
1361(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1362you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1363with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1364intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1365
1366=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1367
1368(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1369a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1370happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1371name.
a0d0e21e
LW
1372
1373=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1374
1375(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1376a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1377happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1378name.
a0d0e21e 1379
56e90b21
GS
1380=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1381
be771a83
GS
1382(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1383some time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on
1384filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1385same name?
56e90b21 1386
79eeca27 1387=item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 1388
b45f050a 1389(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
79eeca27 1390meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
b45f050a 1391problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1392
1393=item Format not terminated
1394
1395(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1396to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1397
a0d0e21e
LW
1398=item Format %s redefined
1399
e476b1b5 1400(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1401
1402 {
4438c4b7 1403 no warnings;
a0d0e21e
LW
1404 eval "format NAME =...";
1405 }
1406
a0d0e21e
LW
1407=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1408
e476b1b5 1409(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1410
1411 if ($foo = 123)
1412
1413when you meant
1414
1415 if ($foo == 123)
1416
1417(or something like that).
1418
6df41af2
GS
1419=item %s found where operator expected
1420
1421(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
be771a83
GS
1422sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1423operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1424operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1425
a0d0e21e
LW
1426=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1427
1428(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1429
1430=item gethostent not implemented
1431
1432(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1433because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1434on the Internet.
1435
69282e91 1436=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1437
be771a83
GS
1438(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1439socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1440
748a9306
LW
1441=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1442
1443(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1444C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1445
6df41af2
GS
1446=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1447
be771a83
GS
1448(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1449forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1450L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1451
1452=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1453
1454(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1455must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1456"our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1457is in (using "::").
1458
e476b1b5
GS
1459=item glob failed (%s)
1460
be771a83
GS
1461(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1462C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1463C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1464nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1465resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1466broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1467config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1468were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1469empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1470think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1471C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1472
a0d0e21e
LW
1473=item Glob not terminated
1474
1475(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1476a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1477not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1478earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1479
6df41af2 1480=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1481
6df41af2
GS
1482(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1483version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1484
1485=item goto must have label
1486
1487(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1488unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1489
6df41af2
GS
1490=item %s had compilation errors
1491
1492(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1493
a0d0e21e
LW
1494=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1495
be771a83
GS
1496(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1497to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1498created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1499
1500=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1501
be771a83
GS
1502(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1503spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1504
6df41af2
GS
1505=item %s has too many errors
1506
1507(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1508Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1509
252aa082
JH
1510=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1511
e476b1b5 1512(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1513(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1514L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1515
8903cb82 1516=item Identifier too long
1517
1518(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1519about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1520names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1521of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1522
6df41af2 1523=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1524
6df41af2 1525(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1526
6df41af2 1527=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1528
be771a83
GS
1529(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1530binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1531offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1532
4fdae800 1533=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1534
d5898338 1535(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1536would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1537when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1538version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1539to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1540
a0d0e21e
LW
1541=item Illegal division by zero
1542
be771a83
GS
1543(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1544your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1545meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1546
6df41af2
GS
1547=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1548
be771a83
GS
1549(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1550A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1551number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1552
a0d0e21e
LW
1553=item Illegal modulus zero
1554
be771a83
GS
1555(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1556numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1557
6df41af2 1558=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1559
6df41af2
GS
1560(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1561two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1562
1563=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1564
1565(F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1566
399388f4 1567=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1568
75b44862
GS
1569(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1570Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1571
6df41af2 1572=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1573
6df41af2
GS
1574(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1575following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
6ff81951 1576
6df41af2 1577=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1578
75b44862 1579(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1580internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1581delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1582
6df41af2 1583=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1584
be771a83
GS
1585(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1586name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1587didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1588ignored.
54310121 1589
6df41af2 1590=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1591
be771a83
GS
1592(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1593the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1594system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1595times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1596would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1597
be771a83
GS
1598Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1599also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1600
a0d0e21e
LW
1601=item Insecure dependency in %s
1602
8b1a09fc 1603(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
1604The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1605setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1606tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1607from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1608such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1609L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
1610
1611=item Insecure directory in %s
1612
be771a83
GS
1613(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1614setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1615the world. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 1616
62f468fc 1617=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1618
1619(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc
MG
1620setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1621C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
a0d0e21e
LW
1622potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1623known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1624
a7ae9550
GS
1625=item Integer overflow in %s number
1626
75b44862 1627(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
1628either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1629your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1630On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
1631representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
16320b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1633transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1634internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1635operations.
bbce6d69 1636
79eeca27 1637=item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
1638
1639(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
79eeca27 1640The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
1641discovered.
1642
6df41af2 1643
748a9306
LW
1644=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1645
be771a83
GS
1646(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1647you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1648to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1649L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1650Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1651terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 1652
79eeca27 1653=item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a 1654
79eeca27 1655(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
b45f050a 1656shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 1657
a0d0e21e 1658
6df41af2
GS
1659=item %s (...) interpreted as function
1660
75b44862 1661(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83
GS
1662followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1663operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms
1664and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 1665
09bef843
SB
1666=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1667
1668The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1669by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1670
1671=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1672
be771a83
GS
1673The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1674recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1675
c635e13b 1676=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1677
be771a83
GS
1678(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1679L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 1680
6df41af2
GS
1681=item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1682
1683(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1684greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1685
c2e66d9e
GS
1686=item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1687
1688(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1689character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1690
09bef843
SB
1691=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1692
0120eecf 1693(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
1694elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1695parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1696See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1697
96e4d5b1 1698=item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1699
8903cb82 1700(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
be771a83
GS
1701(W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1702silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1703
1704=item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1705
be771a83
GS
1706(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1707L<perlfunc/unpack>.
75b44862
GS
1708(W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1709silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1710
a0d0e21e
LW
1711=item ioctl is not implemented
1712
1713(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1714strange for a machine that supports C.
1715
1716=item junk on end of regexp
1717
1718(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1719
1720=item Label not found for "last %s"
1721
be771a83
GS
1722(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1723of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1724L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1725
1726=item Label not found for "next %s"
1727
1728(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1729that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1730L<perlfunc/last>.
1731
1732=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1733
1734(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1735that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1736L<perlfunc/last>.
1737
85ab1d1d 1738=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1739
85ab1d1d 1740(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1741effective uids or gids failed.
1742
69282e91 1743=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1744
be771a83
GS
1745(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1746to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1747L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 1748
9d837945
TM
1749=item lstat() on filehandle %s
1750
1751(W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1752by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1753instead on the filehandle.)
1754
cd06dffe
GS
1755=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1756
1757(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
be771a83
GS
1758values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1759L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
cd06dffe 1760
79eeca27 1761=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE in reges m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
1762
1763(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
79eeca27 1764handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
b45f050a
JF
1765the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1766
6df41af2
GS
1767=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1768
1769(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1770
1771 prefix1;prefix2
1772
1773or
1774
1775 prefix1 prefix2
1776
be771a83
GS
1777with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1778a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1779appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 1780"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 1781
dea0fc0b
JH
1782=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1783
1784Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1785doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1786
6df41af2
GS
1787=item %s matches null string many times
1788
1789(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
be771a83
GS
1790regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1791L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1792
1793=item % may only be used in unpack
1794
1795(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
1796checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1797See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 1798
a0d0e21e
LW
1799=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1800
1801(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 1802doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 1803
3cdd684c
TP
1804=item Method %s not permitted
1805
1806See Server error.
1807
a0d0e21e
LW
1808=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1809
1810(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1811by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1812ended earlier on the current line.
1813
1814=item Misplaced _ in number
1815
e476b1b5 1816(W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
a0d0e21e 1817
4a2d328f 1818=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 1819
4a2d328f 1820(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
1821double-quotish context.
1822
a0d0e21e
LW
1823=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1824
1825(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1826"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1827
06eaf0bc
GS
1828=item Missing command in piped open
1829
be771a83
GS
1830(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1831C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1832blank.
06eaf0bc 1833
6df41af2
GS
1834=item Missing name in "my sub"
1835
be771a83
GS
1836(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1837they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
1838
1839=item Missing $ on loop variable
1840
be771a83
GS
1841(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1842are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1843can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 1844
cc507455 1845=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306
LW
1846
1847(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1848found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1849
d98d5fff 1850=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 1851
be771a83
GS
1852(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1853ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1854were last editing.
a0d0e21e 1855
6df41af2
GS
1856=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1857
1858(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1859found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1860the previous line just because you saw this message.
1861
a0d0e21e
LW
1862=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1863
1864(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 1865constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
1866catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1867
1868 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1869 mod(2);
1870
1871Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1872
c5674021
PDF
1873Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1874is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1875
1876 $x = 1;
1877 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1878 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1879 }
1880
7a4340ed 1881=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1882
1883(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1884subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1885backwards.
1886
7a4340ed 1887=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 1888
be771a83
GS
1889(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1890couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
1891
1892=item Module name must be constant
1893
1894(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1895
be98fb35 1896=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 1897
be98fb35
GS
1898(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1899you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1900about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 1901
a0d0e21e
LW
1902=item msg%s not implemented
1903
1904(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1905
1906=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1907
75b44862
GS
1908(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1909They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 1910
6df41af2 1911=item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
09bef843 1912
6df41af2 1913(F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
be771a83
GS
1914Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1915or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1916
1917=item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1918
be771a83
GS
1919(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1920must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1921of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1922
1923=item / must follow a numeric type
1924
be771a83
GS
1925(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1926follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1927
1928=item "my sub" not yet implemented
1929
be771a83
GS
1930(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1931that yet.
6df41af2
GS
1932
1933=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1934
be771a83
GS
1935(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1936sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1937local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 1938
8b1a09fc 1939=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1940
e476b1b5 1941(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
1942If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1943again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 1944provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e
LW
1945
1946=item Negative length
1947
be771a83
GS
1948(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1949length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 1950
79eeca27 1951=item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 1952
b45f050a 1953(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
79eeca27 1954things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 1955expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 1956
be771a83
GS
1957Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
1958C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 1959
b45f050a 1960
6df41af2 1961=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 1962
be771a83
GS
1963(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
1964scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e
LW
1965
1966=item No %s allowed while running setuid
1967
be771a83
GS
1968(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
1969setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
1970will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
1971securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1972
1973=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1974
1975(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1976
1977=item No comma allowed after %s
1978
1979(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1980allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1981Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1982
0a753a76 1983One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1984constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1985importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1986does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1987explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1988L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1989would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1990remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1991constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1992list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1993this error was triggered?
1994
748a9306
LW
1995=item No command into which to pipe on command line
1996
be771a83
GS
1997(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
1998redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
1999doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2000
a0d0e21e
LW
2001=item No DB::DB routine defined
2002
be771a83
GS
2003(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2004for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2005define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2006is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2007should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
a0d0e21e
LW
2008
2009=item No dbm on this machine
2010
2011(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2012supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2013
2014=item No DBsub routine
2015
2016(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2017but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2018didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2019ordinary subroutine call.
2020
c47ff5f1 2021=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2022
be771a83
GS
2023(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2024redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2025find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2026
c47ff5f1 2027=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2028
be771a83
GS
2029(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2030redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2031name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2032
6df41af2
GS
2033=item No #! line
2034
2035(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2036even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2037
2038=item "no" not allowed in expression
2039
be771a83
GS
2040(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2041returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2042
c47ff5f1 2043=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2044
be771a83
GS
2045(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2046redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2047doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2048
c47ff5f1 2049=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2050
be771a83
GS
2051(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2052redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2053find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2054
1ec3e8de
GS
2055=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2056
be771a83
GS
2057(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2058declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2059semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2060
a0d0e21e
LW
2061=item No Perl script found in input
2062
2063(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2064with #! and containing the word "perl".
2065
2066=item No setregid available
2067
2068(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2069your system.
2070
2071=item No setreuid available
2072
2073(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2074your system.
2075
a67e862a 2076=item No space allowed after -%c
a0d0e21e 2077
be771a83
GS
2078(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2079immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
a0d0e21e 2080
6df41af2
GS
2081=item No %s specified for -%c
2082
2083(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2084you haven't specified one.
2085
2086=item No such pipe open
2087
2088(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2089close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2090earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2091
88e9b055 2092=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
57079c46 2093
88e9b055 2094(F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
57079c46
GA
2095not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2096array indices for that to work.
2097
88e9b055 2098=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
f1192cee 2099
be771a83
GS
2100(F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2101not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2102%FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2103%usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
f1192cee 2104
a0d0e21e
LW
2105=item No such signal: SIG%s
2106
be771a83
GS
2107(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2108not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2109names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2110
2111=item Not a CODE reference
2112
2113(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2114subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2115use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2116also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2117
2118=item Not a format reference
2119
2120(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2121format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2122
2123=item Not a GLOB reference
2124
be771a83
GS
2125(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2126symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2127something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2128kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2129
2130=item Not a HASH reference
2131
be771a83
GS
2132(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2133reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2134find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2135
6df41af2
GS
2136=item Not an ARRAY reference
2137
be771a83
GS
2138(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2139a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2140to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2141
a0d0e21e
LW
2142=item Not a perl script
2143
2144(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2145even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2146mention perl.
2147
2148=item Not a SCALAR reference
2149
be771a83
GS
2150(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2151a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2152to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2153
2154=item Not a subroutine reference
2155
2156(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2157subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2158use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2159also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2160
e7ea3e70 2161=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2162
2163(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2164doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2165
a0d0e21e
LW
2166=item Not enough arguments for %s
2167
2168(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2169
6df41af2
GS
2170=item Not enough format arguments
2171
be771a83
GS
2172(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2173supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2174
2175=item %s: not found
2176
be771a83
GS
2177(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2178of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2179yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2180
2181=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2182
6df41af2
GS
2183(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2184timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2185to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2186F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2187need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2188
2189=item Null filename used
2190
be771a83
GS
2191(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2192machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2193
6df41af2
GS
2194=item NULL OP IN RUN
2195
be771a83
GS
2196(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2197pointer.
6df41af2 2198
55497cff 2199=item Null picture in formline
2200
2201(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2202specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2203supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2204
a0d0e21e
LW
2205=item Null realloc
2206
2207(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2208
2209=item NULL regexp argument
2210
5f05dabc 2211(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2212
2213=item NULL regexp parameter
2214
2215(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2216
fc36a67e 2217=item Number too long
2218
be771a83
GS
2219(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2220about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2221versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2222the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2223"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2224
6df41af2
GS
2225=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2226
be771a83
GS
2227(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2228The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2229future version.
6df41af2 2230
252aa082
JH
2231=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2232
75b44862 2233(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2234(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2235L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2236
2237See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2238
1930e939 2239=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2240
be771a83
GS
2241(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2242which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2243
bbce6d69 2244=item Offset outside string
2245
2246(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
be771a83
GS
2247pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2248exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2249the buffer and zero pad the new area.
bbce6d69 2250
9ddeeac9
JH
2251=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2252
2253(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2254that isn't open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2255
2dd78f96
JH
2256=item %s() on unopened %s %s
2257
2258(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2259never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2260call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2261
a0d0e21e
LW
2262=item oops: oopsAV
2263
e476b1b5 2264(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2265
2266=item oops: oopsHV
2267
e476b1b5 2268(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2269
56f7f34b 2270=item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2271
be771a83
GS
2272(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2273handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2274of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2275C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2276
748a9306
LW
2277=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2278
be771a83
GS
2279(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2280was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2281use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2282example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2283"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2284
6df41af2
GS
2285=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2286
be771a83
GS
2287(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2288in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2289
a80b8354
GS
2290=item Out of memory!
2291
2292(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2293remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2294no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2295
6df41af2 2296=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2297
6df41af2
GS
2298(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2299remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2300the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2301possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2302
1b979e0a 2303=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2304
be771a83
GS
2305(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2306insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2307request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2308
2309The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2310depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2311However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2312emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2313is trappable I<once>.
55497cff 2314
1b979e0a
IZ
2315=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2316
2317(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2318is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2319C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2320
6df41af2
GS
2321=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2322
be771a83
GS
2323(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2324parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2325otherwise.
6df41af2
GS
2326
2327=item @ outside of string
2328
2329(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2330the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2331
2332=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2333
be771a83
GS
2334(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2335package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2336some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2337mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 2338
a0d0e21e
LW
2339=item page overflow
2340
be771a83
GS
2341(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2342page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 2343
6df41af2
GS
2344=item panic: %s
2345
2346(P) An internal error.
2347
a0d0e21e
LW
2348=item panic: ck_grep
2349
2350(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2351
2352=item panic: ck_split
2353
2354(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2355
2356=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2357
be771a83
GS
2358(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2359there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 2360
810b8aa5
GS
2361=item panic: del_backref
2362
2363(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2364reference.
2365
a0d0e21e
LW
2366=item panic: die %s
2367
2368(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2369it wasn't an eval context.
2370
2371=item panic: do_match
2372
be771a83
GS
2373(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2374data.
a0d0e21e
LW
2375
2376=item panic: do_split
2377
2378(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2379
2380=item panic: do_subst
2381
be771a83
GS
2382(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2383data.
a0d0e21e
LW
2384
2385=item panic: do_trans
2386
be771a83
GS
2387(P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational
2388data.
a0d0e21e 2389
c635e13b 2390=item panic: frexp
2391
2392(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2393
a0d0e21e
LW
2394=item panic: goto
2395
2396(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2397and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2398
2399=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2400
2401(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2402
2403=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2404
2405(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2406
e446cec8
IZ
2407=item panic: kid popen errno read
2408
2409(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2410
a0d0e21e
LW
2411=item panic: last
2412
2413(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2414it wasn't a block context.
2415
2416=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2417
be771a83
GS
2418(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2419scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
2420
2421=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2422
2423(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2424invalid enum on the top of it.
2425
810b8aa5
GS
2426=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2427
2428(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2429references to an object.
2430
6df41af2
GS
2431=item panic: malloc
2432
2433(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2434
a0d0e21e
LW
2435=item panic: mapstart
2436
2437(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2438
2439=item panic: null array
2440
2441(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2442
2443=item panic: pad_alloc
2444
2445(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2446and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2447
2448=item panic: pad_free curpad
2449
2450(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2451and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2452
2453=item panic: pad_free po
2454
2455(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2456
2457=item panic: pad_reset curpad
2458
2459(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2460and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2461
2462=item panic: pad_sv po
2463
2464(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2465
2466=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2467
2468(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2469and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2470
2471=item panic: pad_swipe po
2472
2473(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2474
2475=item panic: pp_iter
2476
2477(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2478
2479=item panic: realloc
2480
2481(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2482
2483=item panic: restartop
2484
2485(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2486didn't supply the destination.
2487
2488=item panic: return
2489
2490(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2491then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2492
2493=item panic: scan_num
2494
2495(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2496
2497=item panic: sv_insert
2498
2499(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2500was string.
2501
2502=item panic: top_env
2503
6224f72b 2504(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e
LW
2505
2506=item panic: yylex
2507
2508(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2509
dea0fc0b
JH
2510=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2511
2512(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2513to even) byte length.
2514
7b8d334a 2515=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 2516
e476b1b5 2517(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
2518
2519 my $foo, $bar = @_;
2520
2521when you meant
2522
2523 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2524
54884818 2525Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 2526
75b44862 2527=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
a0d0e21e 2528
be771a83
GS
2529(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2530recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2531you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2532
6df41af2
GS
2533=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2534
2535(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 2536C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2
GS
2537
2538=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2539
2540(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2541
2542 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2543 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2544 LC_ALL = "En_US",
2545 LANG = (unset)
2546 are supported and installed on your system.
2547 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2548
2549Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2550settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2551This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
2552administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
2553not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
be771a83
GS
2554is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the script
2555will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you will get
2556the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really fix the
2557problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 2558
a0d0e21e
LW
2559=item Permission denied
2560
2561(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2562
bd3fa61c 2563=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 2564
be771a83
GS
2565(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2566process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2567fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 2568
b45f050a
JF
2569=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2570
2571(W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2572I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2573example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2574currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2575extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2576
2577=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2578
2579(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2580beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2581extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2582a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2583with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2584
2585=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2586
2587(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2588beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2589extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2590a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2591with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2592
2593=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2594
2595(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2596L<perlre>.
2597
a0d0e21e
LW
2598=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2599
81777298 2600(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
a0d0e21e
LW
2601the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2602
bbce6d69 2603=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2604
e476b1b5 2605(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 2606strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
2607literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2608parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2609
774d564b 2610You probably wrote something like this:
2611
54310121 2612 @list = qw(
774d564b 2613 a # a comment
bbce6d69 2614 b # another comment
774d564b 2615 );
bbce6d69 2616
2617when you should have written this:
2618
774d564b 2619 @list = qw(
54310121 2620 a
2621 b
774d564b 2622 );
2623
2624If you really want comments, build your list the
2625old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2626
2627 @list = (
2628 'a', # a comment
2629 'b', # another comment
2630 );
bbce6d69 2631
2632=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2633
be771a83
GS
2634(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2635commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2636different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2637frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2638
54310121 2639You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 2640
774d564b 2641 qw! a, b, c !;
2642
2643which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2644commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 2645
774d564b 2646 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 2647
a0d0e21e
LW
2648=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2649
2650(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2651Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2652end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2653Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2654
6df41af2
GS
2655=item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2656
2657(W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2658could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2659
8cd79558
GS
2660=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2661
4375e838 2662(W deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
2663
2664 sub doit
2665 {
2666 use attrs qw(locked);
2667 }
2668
2669You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2670
2671 sub doit : locked
2672 {
2673 ...
2674
2675The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2676backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2677
a0d0e21e
LW
2678=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2679
e476b1b5 2680(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 2681
a0d0e21e
LW
2682 open FOO || die;
2683
2684is now misinterpreted as
2685
2686 open(FOO || die);
2687
be771a83
GS
2688because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2689list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2690parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2691of "||".
a0d0e21e 2692
3cdd684c
TP
2693=item Premature end of script headers
2694
2695See Server error.
2696
6df41af2
GS
2697=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2698
be771a83
GS
2699(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2700before now. Check your logic flow.
6df41af2 2701
9a7dcd9c 2702=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2703
be771a83
GS
2704(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2705before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2706
6df41af2 2707=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 2708
6df41af2
GS
2709(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2710applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2711port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2712L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 2713in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 2714
3fe9a6f1 2715=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 2716
be771a83
GS
2717(S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2718declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 2719
79eeca27 2720=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 2721
b45f050a 2722(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
79eeca27 2723{min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 2724the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 2725
79eeca27 2726=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 2727
b45f050a
JF
2728(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2729it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2730quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2731"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2732C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 2733
89ea2908
GA
2734=item Range iterator outside integer range
2735
2736(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2737are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
2738One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2739by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 2740
9a7dcd9c 2741=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2742
75b44862
GS
2743(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2744before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2745
6df41af2
GS
2746=item Reallocation too large: %lx
2747
2748(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2749
4ad56ec9
IZ
2750=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2751
be771a83
GS
2752(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2753already been freed.
4ad56ec9 2754
a0d0e21e
LW
2755=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2756
be771a83
GS
2757(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2758the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
2759which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2760
3e0ccd42 2761=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e
LW
2762
2763(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2764an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2765
7a4340ed 2766=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 2767
be771a83
GS
2768(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2769a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2770hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 2771
1930e939
TP
2772=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2773
be771a83
GS
2774(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2775with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2776means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2777parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
2778
2779 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2780 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2781 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2782 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2783
810b8aa5
GS
2784=item Reference is already weak
2785
e476b1b5 2786(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
2787Doing so has no effect.
2788
a0d0e21e
LW
2789=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2790
be771a83
GS
2791(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2792a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 2793
b1866b2d 2794=item Reference to nonexistent group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2795
2796(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2797not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2798wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2799prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
9baa0206 2800
79eeca27 2801The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 2802discovered.
9baa0206 2803
a0d0e21e
LW
2804=item regexp memory corruption
2805
2806(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2807expression compiler gave it.
2808
b45f050a 2809=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 2810
be771a83
GS
2811(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2812earlier.
a0d0e21e 2813
7a95317d
GS
2814=item Repeat count in pack overflows
2815
be771a83
GS
2816(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2817signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7a95317d
GS
2818
2819=item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2820
be771a83
GS
2821(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2822signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
7a95317d 2823
a0d0e21e
LW
2824=item Reversed %s= operator
2825
be771a83
GS
2826(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2827always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e
LW
2828
2829=item Runaway format
2830
2831(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2832produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2833199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2834themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2835shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2836
2837=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2838
be771a83
GS
2839(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2840single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2841value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2842behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2843argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2844and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2845if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 2846
748a9306 2847On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 2848element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
2849Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2850L<perlref>.
2851
a6006777 2852=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2853
75b44862 2854(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
2855element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2856(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2857like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2858argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2859and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2860if you're expecting only one subscript.
2861
2862On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2863as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2864not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 2865L<perlref>.
2866
a0d0e21e
LW
2867=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2868
54310121 2869(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2870or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e
LW
2871
2872=item Search pattern not terminated
2873
2874(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2875construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 2876Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 2877
9ddeeac9 2878=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 2879
be771a83
GS
2880(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2881filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e
LW
2882
2883=item select not implemented
2884
2885(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2886
6df41af2 2887=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 2888
75b44862
GS
2889(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2890semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
2891
2892=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2893
be771a83
GS
2894(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2895scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 2896
6df41af2 2897=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 2898
6df41af2 2899(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 2900
69282e91 2901=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2902
be771a83
GS
2903(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2904before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2905
79eeca27 2906=item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
7b8d334a 2907
79eeca27 2908(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
b45f050a 2909shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 2910L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 2911
b45f050a
JF
2912=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex m/%s/
2913
2914(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
2915for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2916
79eeca27 2917=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2918
b45f050a 2919(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
79eeca27 2920has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
2921where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2922
79eeca27 2923=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
2924
2925(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
79eeca27 2926The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a 2927where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e
LW
2928See L<perlre>.
2929
b45f050a 2930=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2931
2932(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2933parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2934
2935=item 500 Server error
2936
2937See Server error.
2938
a5f75d66
AD
2939=item Server error
2940
3cdd684c 2941This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
2942to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
2943varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
2944are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
2945contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
2946produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 2947
2948B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2949
be771a83
GS
2950You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
2951user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
2952account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
2953(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
2954location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
2955Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 2956
be94a901
GS
2957 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2958 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
9607fc9c 2959 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2960 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2961 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
a5f75d66 2962
be94a901
GS
2963You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2964
a0d0e21e
LW
2965=item setegid() not implemented
2966
be771a83
GS
2967(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
2968support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2969didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
2970
2971=item seteuid() not implemented
2972
be771a83
GS
2973(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
2974support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2975didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 2976
81777298
GS
2977=item setpgrp can't take arguments
2978
be771a83
GS
2979(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
2980arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
2981group ID.
81777298 2982
a0d0e21e
LW
2983=item setrgid() not implemented
2984
be771a83
GS
2985(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
2986support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2987didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
2988
2989=item setruid() not implemented
2990
be771a83
GS
2991(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
2992support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2993didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 2994
6df41af2
GS
2995=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
2996
be771a83
GS
2997(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2998forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2999L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3000
a0d0e21e
LW
3001=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3002
be771a83
GS
3003(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3004world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e
LW
3005
3006=item shm%s not implemented
3007
3008(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3009
6df41af2
GS
3010=item <> should be quotes
3011
3012(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3013C<require 'file'>.
3014
3015=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3016
3017(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
3018as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3019result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3020probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 3021
69282e91 3022=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3023
75b44862
GS
3024(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3025superfluous.
a0d0e21e 3026
f86702cc 3027=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 3028
be771a83
GS
3029(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3030Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e
LW
3031
3032=item sort is now a reserved word
3033
3034(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3035But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3036
3037=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3038
3039(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
c47ff5f1 3040it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e
LW
3041See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3042
3043=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3044
3045(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3046or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3047
3048=item Split loop
3049
be771a83
GS
3050(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3051iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3052happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 3053
a0d0e21e
LW
3054=item Statement unlikely to be reached
3055
be771a83
GS
3056(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3057die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3058unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3059instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3060a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 3061
9ddeeac9 3062=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 3063
355b1299
JH
3064(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3065was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 3066
7a4340ed 3067=item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
e7ea3e70 3068
be771a83
GS
3069(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3070stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3071C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 3072
a0d0e21e
LW
3073=item Subroutine %s redefined
3074
e476b1b5 3075(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
3076
3077 {
4438c4b7 3078 no warnings;
a0d0e21e
LW
3079 eval "sub name { ... }";
3080 }
3081
3082=item Substitution loop
3083
be771a83
GS
3084(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3085shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3086is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5f05dabc 3087L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
3088
3089=item Substitution pattern not terminated
3090
3091(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3092construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3093Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3094
3095=item Substitution replacement not terminated
3096
3097(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3098construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3099Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3100
3101=item substr outside of string
3102
be771a83
GS
3103(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3104a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3105length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3106substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3107assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 3108
f86702cc 3109=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
a0d0e21e 3110
be771a83
GS
3111(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3112a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
a0d0e21e 3113
79eeca27 3114=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3115
3116(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3117branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3118contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3119clustering parentheses:
3120
3121 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3122
79eeca27 3123The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
3124discovered. See L<perlre>.
3125
79eeca27 3126=item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3127
3128(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
79eeca27 3129number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
b45f050a
JF
3130about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3131
85ab1d1d
JH
3132=item switching effective %s is not implemented
3133
be771a83
GS
3134(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3135and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 3136
a0d0e21e
LW
3137=item syntax error
3138
3139(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3140
3141 A keyword is misspelled.
3142 A semicolon is missing.
3143 A comma is missing.
3144 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3145 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3146 A closing quote is missing.
3147
3148Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3149error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3150The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3151it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 3152before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
3153Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3154the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3155C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
be771a83
GS
3156if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3157questions>.
a0d0e21e 3158
cb1a09d0
AD
3159=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3160
be771a83
GS
3161(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3162of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3163yourself.
cb1a09d0 3164
6df41af2
GS
3165=item %s syntax OK
3166
3167(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3168
6087ac44 3169=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 3170
6087ac44
JH
3171(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3172"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3173machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3174unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 3175
69282e91 3176=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3177
be771a83
GS
3178(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3179before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 3180
fc36a67e 3181=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3182
be771a83
GS
3183(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3184for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 3185
9ddeeac9 3186=item tell() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3187
be771a83
GS
3188(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3189was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3190
a0d0e21e
LW
3191=item That use of $[ is unsupported
3192
be771a83
GS
3193(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3194as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e
LW
3195
3196 $[ = 0;
3197 $[ = 1;
3198 ...
3199 local $[ = 0;
3200 local $[ = 1;
3201 ...
3202
be771a83
GS
3203This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3204from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
a0d0e21e 3205
f86702cc 3206=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
3207
3208(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3209probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 3210think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
3211will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3212will deny it.
3213
6df41af2
GS
3214=item The %s function is unimplemented
3215
3216The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3217to the probings of Configure.
3218
a0d0e21e
LW
3219=item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
3220
be771a83
GS
3221(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3222linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3223past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3224instead.
a0d0e21e 3225
437784d6 3226=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
3227
3228=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3229
75b44862 3230(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
3231element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3232wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3233need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3234F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3235target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
3236%ENV which produced the warning.
3237
a0d0e21e
LW
3238=item times not implemented
3239
be771a83
GS
3240(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3241suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e
LW
3242
3243=item Too few args to syscall
3244
3245(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3246system call to call, silly dilly.
3247
9607fc9c 3248=item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3249
3250(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
8cc95fdb 3251B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3252This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3253script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3254So Perl gives up.
f86702cc 3255
9607fc9c 3256If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
be771a83
GS
3257mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3258editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3259argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
f86702cc 3260
9607fc9c 3261If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3262B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
f86702cc 3263
8cc95fdb 3264=item Too late for "-%s" option
3265
3266(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3267B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3268are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3269
ddda08b7
GS
3270=item Too late to run %s block
3271
3272(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3273when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
3274loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3275instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3276BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 3277
a0d0e21e
LW
3278=item Too many args to syscall
3279
5f05dabc 3280(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
3281
3282=item Too many arguments for %s
3283
3284(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3285
6df41af2
GS
3286=item Too many )'s
3287
be771a83
GS
3288(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3289Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3290
3291=item Too many ('s
3292
a0d0e21e
LW
3293=item trailing \ in regexp
3294
be771a83
GS
3295(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3296Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3297
2c268ad5 3298=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
3299
3300(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 3301or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3302C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3303
2c268ad5 3304=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
3305
3306(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3307construct.
3308
3309=item truncate not implemented
3310
3311(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3312Configure knows about.
3313
3314=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3315
3316(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 3317certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3318%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
3319{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3320
3321=item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3322
e476b1b5 3323(W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
eec2d3df
GS
3324literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3325
3326=item umask not implemented
3327
be771a83
GS
3328(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3329use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 3330
4633a7c4
LW
3331=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3332
3333(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3334
a0d0e21e
LW
3335=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3336
be771a83
GS
3337(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3338many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
3339
3340=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3341
be771a83
GS
3342(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3343many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
3344
3345=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3346
be771a83
GS
3347(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3348many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
3349
3350=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3351
be771a83
GS
3352(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3353many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
3354
3355=item Undefined format "%s" called
3356
3357(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3358another package? See L<perlform>.
3359
3360=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3361
be771a83
GS
3362(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3363Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3364
3365=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3366
be771a83
GS
3367(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3368since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
3369
3370=item Undefined subroutine called
3371
3372(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3373or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3374
3375=item Undefined subroutine in sort
3376
be771a83
GS
3377(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3378to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 3379
4633a7c4
LW