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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:
6df41af2
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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
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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 653
0103b764
JH
654=item Can't find %s property definition %s
655
f91328b7
JH
656(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
657example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
658C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
659possible C<\E>).
0103b764 660
a0d0e21e
LW
661=item Can't fork
662
be771a83
GS
663(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
664pipeline.
a0d0e21e 665
748a9306
LW
666=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
667
be771a83
GS
668(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
669between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
670Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
671the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
672account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
673the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
674the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
675the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
676if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
677because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
678appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
679and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
680routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
681shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
682only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 683
a0d0e21e
LW
684=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
685
be771a83
GS
686(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
687pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
688
689=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
690
748a9306
LW
691(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
692mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 693
6df41af2 694=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 695
be771a83
GS
696(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
697loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
698
699=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
700
be771a83
GS
701(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
702a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
703you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
704See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 705
b150fb22
RH
706=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
707
be771a83
GS
708(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
709"string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
710probably don't want to.)
b150fb22 711
6df41af2
GS
712=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
713
be771a83
GS
714(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
715subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
716cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
717routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 718
0b5b802d
GS
719=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
720
be771a83
GS
721(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
722signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
723signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
724processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
725situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
726may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 727
6df41af2 728=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 729
6df41af2 730(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
731except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
732block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
733block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
734usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
735inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
736L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 737
748a9306
LW
738=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
739
2ba9eb46 740(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306
LW
741lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
742localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
743package name.
744
0ebe0038
SM
745=item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
746
be771a83
GS
747(F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
748reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
749can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
750directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
0ebe0038 751
6df41af2 752=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 753
6df41af2
GS
754(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
755handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83
GS
756pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
757that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 758
ec889f3a
GS
759=item Can't locate %s
760
761(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
762found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
763unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
764need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
765the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
766to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
767L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 768
6df41af2
GS
769=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
770
be771a83
GS
771(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
772autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
773are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
774the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 775
a0d0e21e
LW
776=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
777
778(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
779functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 780method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 781
c1899e02
GS
782=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
783
784(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
785"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
786that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
787
a0d0e21e
LW
788=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
789
be771a83
GS
790(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
791doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 792
3e3baf6d
TB
793=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
794
be771a83
GS
795(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
796VMS.
3e3baf6d 797
a0d0e21e
LW
798=item Can't modify %s in %s
799
be771a83
GS
800(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
801to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 802
54310121 803=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
804
805(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
806a NULL.
807
6df41af2
GS
808=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
809
810(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
811such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
812
5f05dabc 813=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 814
5f05dabc 815(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
816buffer.
817
6df41af2
GS
818=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
819
820(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
821there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
822count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
823grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
824though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
825once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 826
a0d0e21e
LW
827=item Can't open %s: %s
828
c47ff5f1 829(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
830filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
831switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
832is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
833the command line.
a0d0e21e
LW
834
835=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
836
be771a83
GS
837(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
838You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
839as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
840">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 841
748a9306
LW
842=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
843
be771a83
GS
844(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
845redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
846the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
847
848=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
849
be771a83
GS
850(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
851redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
852command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
853
854=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
855
be771a83
GS
856(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
857redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
858the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
859
860=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
861
be771a83
GS
862(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
863redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
864for stdout.
748a9306 865
a0d0e21e
LW
866=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
867
868(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
869
6df41af2
GS
870=item Can't read CRTL environ
871
872(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
873from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
874missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
875or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
876searched.
6df41af2 877
7bac28a0 878=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
879
880(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
be771a83
GS
881pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
882it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
7bac28a0 883this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
884
6df41af2
GS
885=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
886
887(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
888there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
889count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
890or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
891though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
892loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
893
10f9c03d
CK
894=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
895
be771a83
GS
896(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
897file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
898the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 899
a0d0e21e
LW
900=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
901
e476b1b5 902(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 903probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 904
748a9306
LW
905=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
906
be771a83
GS
907(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
908to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 909
6df41af2
GS
910=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
911
be771a83
GS
912(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
913to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
914method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 915
a0d0e21e
LW
916=item Can't reswap uid and euid
917
be771a83
GS
918(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
919suidperl.
a0d0e21e 920
cd06dffe
GS
921=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
922
be771a83
GS
923(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
924temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
925is not allowed.
cd06dffe 926
6df41af2
GS
927=item Can't return outside a subroutine
928
929(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
930there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
931
a0d0e21e
LW
932=item Can't stat script "%s"
933
be771a83
GS
934(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
935open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
936
937=item Can't swap uid and euid
938
be771a83
GS
939(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
940suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
941
942=item Can't take log of %g
943
fb73857a 944(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
945negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
946standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
947negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
948
949=item Can't take sqrt of %g
950
951(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 952negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
953with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
954
955=item Can't undef active subroutine
956
957(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
958however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
959redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
960
961=item Can't unshift
962
963(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
964as the main Perl stack.
965
966=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
967
be771a83
GS
968(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
969into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
970specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
971indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e
LW
972
973=item Can't upgrade to undef
974
be771a83
GS
975(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
976upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
977calling sv_upgrade.
a0d0e21e 978
6df41af2
GS
979=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
980
981(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
982be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
983
984=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
985
be771a83
GS
986(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
987references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 988
1d2dff63
GS
989=item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
990
991(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
992Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
993provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
994
6df41af2
GS
995=item Can't use %s for loop variable
996
be771a83
GS
997(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
998foreach.
6df41af2
GS
999
1000=item Can't use global %s in "my"
1001
be771a83
GS
1002(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1003is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1004(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1005have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1006weren't.
1007
c07a80fd 1008=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1009
1010(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1011You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1012and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1013Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1014lexical variable.
1015
a0d0e21e
LW
1016=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1017
1018(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1019reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1020test the type of the reference, if need be.
1021
748a9306 1022=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1023
be771a83
GS
1024(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1025references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1026
748a9306
LW
1027=item Can't use subscript on %s
1028
1029(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1030subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1031didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1032
6df41af2
GS
1033=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1034
75b44862
GS
1035(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1036creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1037backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1038expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1039value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1040instead.
6df41af2 1041
810b8aa5
GS
1042=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1043
1044(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1045references can be weakened.
1046
5f05dabc 1047=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1048
be771a83
GS
1049(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1050with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1051Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1052
5a211162 1053=item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
a0d0e21e 1054
e476b1b5 1055(W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
a0d0e21e
LW
1056
1057 chmod 777, $filename
1058
be771a83
GS
1059not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1060equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1061Perl, as in C.
a0d0e21e 1062
9ddeeac9 1063=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 1064
e476b1b5 1065(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
a0d0e21e 1066
6df41af2
GS
1067=item %s: Command not found
1068
be771a83
GS
1069(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1070Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1071
7a2e2cd6 1072=item Compilation failed in require
1073
1074(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1075Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1076encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1077
c3464db5
DD
1078=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1079
be771a83
GS
1080(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1081situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1082to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1083arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1084recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1085under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1086in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1087that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1088on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1089
69282e91 1090=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1091
be771a83
GS
1092(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1093to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1094L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1095
41ab332f 1096=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1097
be771a83
GS
1098(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1099an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1100specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1101corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1102L<overload>.
6df41af2 1103
779c5bc9
GS
1104=item Constant is not %s reference
1105
1106(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1107is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1108The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1109usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1110See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1111
4cee8e80
CS
1112=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1113
be771a83
GS
1114(S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1115eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1116commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1117
9607fc9c 1118=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1119
be771a83
GS
1120(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1121for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1122workarounds.
9607fc9c 1123
e7ea3e70
IZ
1124=item Copy method did not return a reference
1125
13a2d996
SP
1126(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1127L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1128
6798c92b
GS
1129=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1130
1131(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1132
a0d0e21e
LW
1133=item corrupted regexp pointers
1134
1135(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1136expression compiler gave it.
1137
1138=item corrupted regexp program
1139
be771a83
GS
1140(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1141valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1142
6df41af2
GS
1143=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1144
1145(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1146
1147=item C<-p> destination: %s
1148
1149(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1150command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1151redirected it with select().)
1152
1153=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1154
1155(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1156know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1157
a0d0e21e
LW
1158=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1159
be771a83
GS
1160(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1161100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1162infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1163which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1164
f10b0346 1165=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1166
be771a83
GS
1167(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1168checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1169array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1170
f10b0346 1171=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1172
be771a83
GS
1173(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1174checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1175is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1176
fc36a67e 1177=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1178
be771a83
GS
1179(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1180long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1181that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1182
3cdd684c
TP
1183=item Did not produce a valid header
1184
1185See Server error.
1186
6df41af2
GS
1187=item %s did not return a true value
1188
1189(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1190it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1191traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1192do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1193
cc507455 1194=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1195
be771a83
GS
1196(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1197such.
4633a7c4 1198
cc507455 1199=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1200
be771a83
GS
1201(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1202variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1203seems superfluous.
33633739 1204
cc507455 1205=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1206
be771a83
GS
1207(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1208@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1209carried away.
748a9306 1210
7e1af8bc 1211=item Died
5f05dabc 1212
1213(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1214you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1215
3cdd684c
TP
1216=item Document contains no data
1217
1218See Server error.
1219
a0d0e21e
LW
1220=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1221
1222(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1223
1224=item do_study: out of memory
1225
1226(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1227
6df41af2
GS
1228=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1229
1230(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1231found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1232name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1233because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1234"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1235something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1236subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1237"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1238
a0d0e21e
LW
1239=item Duplicate free() ignored
1240
be771a83
GS
1241(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1242already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1243
4633a7c4
LW
1244=item elseif should be elsif
1245
be771a83
GS
1246(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1247Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1248"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1249unlikely to be what you want.
1250
85ab1d1d 1251=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1252
85ab1d1d 1253(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1254effective uids or gids failed.
1255
748a9306
LW
1256=item Error converting file specification %s
1257
5f05dabc 1258(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1259specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1260single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1261an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1262conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1263
e4d48cc9
GS
1264=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1265
be771a83
GS
1266(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1267expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1268is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1269
e4d48cc9
GS
1270=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1271
be771a83
GS
1272(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1273C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1274pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1275is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1276building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1277that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1278
6df41af2
GS
1279=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1280
be771a83
GS
1281(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1282assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1283pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1284
fc36a67e 1285=item Excessively long <> operator
1286
1287(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1288Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1289filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1290variable and glob that.
1291
f86702cc 1292=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1293
1294(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1295
1296=item Exiting eval via %s
1297
be771a83
GS
1298(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1299goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1300
1301=item Exiting format via %s
1302
be771a83
GS
1303(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1304goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1305
0a753a76 1306=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1307
be771a83
GS
1308(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1309sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1310loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1311
a0d0e21e
LW
1312=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1313
be771a83
GS
1314(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1315as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1316
1317=item Exiting substitution via %s
1318
be771a83
GS
1319(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1320as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1321
7b8d334a
GS
1322=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1323
be771a83
GS
1324(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1325the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1326usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1327e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1328
6df41af2
GS
1329=item %s: Expression syntax
1330
be771a83
GS
1331(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1332Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1333
1334=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1335
1336(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1337END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1338routines has been prematurely ended.
1339
73b437c8
JH
1340=item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1341
be771a83
GS
1342(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1343character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1344"-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1345quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1346
748a9306 1347=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1348
be771a83
GS
1349(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1350system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1351details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1352you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1353
1354=item fcntl is not implemented
1355
1356(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1357PDP-11 or something?
1358
af8c498a 1359=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1360
be771a83
GS
1361(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1362to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1363or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1364the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1365
af8c498a 1366=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1367
be771a83
GS
1368(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1369you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1370with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1371intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
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 dollar 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
LW
1379
1380=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1381
1382(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1383a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1384happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1385name.
a0d0e21e 1386
56e90b21
GS
1387=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1388
be771a83
GS
1389(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1390some time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on
1391filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1392same name?
56e90b21 1393
79eeca27 1394=item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 1395
b45f050a 1396(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
79eeca27 1397meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
b45f050a 1398problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1399
1400=item Format not terminated
1401
1402(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1403to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1404
a0d0e21e
LW
1405=item Format %s redefined
1406
e476b1b5 1407(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1408
1409 {
4438c4b7 1410 no warnings;
a0d0e21e
LW
1411 eval "format NAME =...";
1412 }
1413
a0d0e21e
LW
1414=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1415
e476b1b5 1416(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1417
1418 if ($foo = 123)
1419
1420when you meant
1421
1422 if ($foo == 123)
1423
1424(or something like that).
1425
6df41af2
GS
1426=item %s found where operator expected
1427
1428(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
be771a83
GS
1429sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1430operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1431operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1432
a0d0e21e
LW
1433=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1434
1435(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1436
1437=item gethostent not implemented
1438
1439(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1440because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1441on the Internet.
1442
69282e91 1443=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1444
be771a83
GS
1445(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1446socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1447
748a9306
LW
1448=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1449
1450(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1451C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1452
6df41af2
GS
1453=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1454
be771a83
GS
1455(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1456forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1457L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1458
1459=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1460
1461(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1462must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1463"our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1464is in (using "::").
1465
e476b1b5
GS
1466=item glob failed (%s)
1467
be771a83
GS
1468(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1469C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1470C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1471nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1472resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1473broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1474config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1475were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1476empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1477think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1478C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1479
a0d0e21e
LW
1480=item Glob not terminated
1481
1482(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1483a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1484not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1485earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1486
6df41af2 1487=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1488
6df41af2
GS
1489(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1490version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1491
1492=item goto must have label
1493
1494(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1495unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1496
6df41af2
GS
1497=item %s had compilation errors
1498
1499(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1500
a0d0e21e
LW
1501=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1502
be771a83
GS
1503(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1504to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1505created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1506
1507=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1508
be771a83
GS
1509(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1510spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1511
6df41af2
GS
1512=item %s has too many errors
1513
1514(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1515Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1516
252aa082
JH
1517=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1518
e476b1b5 1519(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1520(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1521L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1522
8903cb82 1523=item Identifier too long
1524
1525(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1526about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1527names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1528of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1529
6df41af2 1530=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1531
6df41af2 1532(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1533
6df41af2 1534=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1535
be771a83
GS
1536(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1537binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1538offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1539
4fdae800 1540=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1541
d5898338 1542(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1543would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1544when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1545version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1546to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1547
a0d0e21e
LW
1548=item Illegal division by zero
1549
be771a83
GS
1550(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1551your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1552meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1553
6df41af2
GS
1554=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1555
be771a83
GS
1556(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1557A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1558number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1559
a0d0e21e
LW
1560=item Illegal modulus zero
1561
be771a83
GS
1562(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1563numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1564
6df41af2 1565=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1566
6df41af2
GS
1567(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1568two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1569
1570=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1571
1572(F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1573
399388f4 1574=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1575
75b44862
GS
1576(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1577Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1578
6df41af2 1579=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1580
6df41af2
GS
1581(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1582following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
6ff81951 1583
6df41af2 1584=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1585
75b44862 1586(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1587internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1588delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1589
6df41af2 1590=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1591
be771a83
GS
1592(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1593name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1594didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1595ignored.
54310121 1596
6df41af2 1597=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1598
be771a83
GS
1599(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1600the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1601system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1602times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1603would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1604
be771a83
GS
1605Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1606also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1607
a0d0e21e
LW
1608=item Insecure dependency in %s
1609
8b1a09fc 1610(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
1611The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1612setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1613tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1614from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1615such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1616L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
1617
1618=item Insecure directory in %s
1619
be771a83
GS
1620(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1621setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1622the world. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 1623
62f468fc 1624=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1625
1626(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc
MG
1627setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1628C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
a0d0e21e
LW
1629potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1630known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1631
a7ae9550
GS
1632=item Integer overflow in %s number
1633
75b44862 1634(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
1635either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1636your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1637On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
1638representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
16390b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1640transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1641internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1642operations.
bbce6d69 1643
79eeca27 1644=item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
1645
1646(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
79eeca27 1647The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
1648discovered.
1649
6df41af2 1650
748a9306
LW
1651=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1652
be771a83
GS
1653(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1654you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1655to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1656L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1657Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1658terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 1659
79eeca27 1660=item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a 1661
79eeca27 1662(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
b45f050a 1663shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 1664
a0d0e21e 1665
6df41af2
GS
1666=item %s (...) interpreted as function
1667
75b44862 1668(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 1669followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
13a2d996
SP
1670operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1671L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 1672
09bef843
SB
1673=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1674
1675The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1676by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1677
1678=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1679
be771a83
GS
1680The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1681recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1682
c635e13b 1683=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1684
be771a83
GS
1685(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1686L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 1687
6df41af2
GS
1688=item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1689
1690(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1691greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1692
c2e66d9e
GS
1693=item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1694
1695(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1696character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1697
09bef843
SB
1698=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1699
0120eecf 1700(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
1701elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1702parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1703See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1704
96e4d5b1 1705=item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1706
8903cb82 1707(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
be771a83
GS
1708(W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1709silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1710
1711=item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1712
be771a83
GS
1713(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1714L<perlfunc/unpack>.
75b44862
GS
1715(W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1716silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1717
a0d0e21e
LW
1718=item ioctl is not implemented
1719
1720(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1721strange for a machine that supports C.
1722
6ad11d81
JH
1723=item `%s' is not a code reference
1724
1725(W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1726to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1727to a subroutine.
1728
1729=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1730
1731(W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1732
a0d0e21e
LW
1733=item junk on end of regexp
1734
1735(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1736
1737=item Label not found for "last %s"
1738
be771a83
GS
1739(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1740of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1741L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1742
1743=item Label not found for "next %s"
1744
1745(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1746that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1747L<perlfunc/last>.
1748
1749=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1750
1751(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1752that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1753L<perlfunc/last>.
1754
85ab1d1d 1755=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1756
85ab1d1d 1757(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1758effective uids or gids failed.
1759
69282e91 1760=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1761
be771a83
GS
1762(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1763to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1764L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 1765
9d837945
TM
1766=item lstat() on filehandle %s
1767
1768(W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1769by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1770instead on the filehandle.)
1771
cd06dffe
GS
1772=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1773
1774(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
be771a83
GS
1775values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1776L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
cd06dffe 1777
79eeca27 1778=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE in reges m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
1779
1780(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
79eeca27 1781handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
b45f050a 1782the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2e50fd82 1783
6df41af2
GS
1784=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1785
1786(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1787
1788 prefix1;prefix2
1789
1790or
1791
1792 prefix1 prefix2
1793
be771a83
GS
1794with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1795a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1796appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 1797"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 1798
ba210ebe
JH
1799=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1800
1801Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1802
dea0fc0b
JH
1803=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1804
1805Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1806doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1807
6df41af2
GS
1808=item %s matches null string many times
1809
1810(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
be771a83
GS
1811regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1812L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1813
1814=item % may only be used in unpack
1815
1816(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
1817checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1818See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 1819
a0d0e21e
LW
1820=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1821
1822(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 1823doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 1824
3cdd684c
TP
1825=item Method %s not permitted
1826
1827See Server error.
1828
a0d0e21e
LW
1829=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1830
1831(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1832by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1833ended earlier on the current line.
1834
1835=item Misplaced _ in number
1836
e476b1b5 1837(W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
a0d0e21e 1838
4a2d328f 1839=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 1840
4a2d328f 1841(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
1842double-quotish context.
1843
a0d0e21e
LW
1844=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1845
1846(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1847"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1848
06eaf0bc
GS
1849=item Missing command in piped open
1850
be771a83
GS
1851(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1852C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1853blank.
06eaf0bc 1854
6df41af2
GS
1855=item Missing name in "my sub"
1856
be771a83
GS
1857(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1858they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
1859
1860=item Missing $ on loop variable
1861
be771a83
GS
1862(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1863are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1864can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 1865
cc507455 1866=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306
LW
1867
1868(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1869found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1870
d98d5fff 1871=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 1872
be771a83
GS
1873(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1874ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1875were last editing.
a0d0e21e 1876
6df41af2
GS
1877=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1878
1879(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1880found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1881the previous line just because you saw this message.
1882
a0d0e21e
LW
1883=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1884
1885(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 1886constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
1887catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1888
1889 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1890 mod(2);
1891
1892Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1893
c5674021
PDF
1894Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1895is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1896
1897 $x = 1;
1898 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1899 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1900 }
1901
7a4340ed 1902=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1903
1904(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1905subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1906backwards.
1907
7a4340ed 1908=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 1909
be771a83
GS
1910(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1911couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
1912
1913=item Module name must be constant
1914
1915(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1916
be98fb35 1917=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 1918
be98fb35
GS
1919(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1920you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1921about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 1922
a0d0e21e
LW
1923=item msg%s not implemented
1924
1925(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1926
1927=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1928
75b44862
GS
1929(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1930They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 1931
6df41af2 1932=item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
09bef843 1933
6df41af2 1934(F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
be771a83
GS
1935Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1936or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1937
1938=item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1939
be771a83
GS
1940(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1941must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1942of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1943
1944=item / must follow a numeric type
1945
be771a83
GS
1946(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1947follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1948
1949=item "my sub" not yet implemented
1950
be771a83
GS
1951(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1952that yet.
6df41af2
GS
1953
1954=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1955
be771a83
GS
1956(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1957sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1958local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 1959
8b1a09fc 1960=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1961
e476b1b5 1962(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
1963If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1964again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 1965provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e
LW
1966
1967=item Negative length
1968
be771a83
GS
1969(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1970length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 1971
79eeca27 1972=item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 1973
b45f050a 1974(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
79eeca27 1975things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 1976expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 1977
be771a83
GS
1978Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
1979C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 1980
b45f050a 1981
6df41af2 1982=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 1983
be771a83
GS
1984(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
1985scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e
LW
1986
1987=item No %s allowed while running setuid
1988
be771a83
GS
1989(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
1990setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
1991will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
1992securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1993
1994=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1995
1996(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1997
1998=item No comma allowed after %s
1999
2000(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2001allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2002Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2003
0a753a76 2004One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2005constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2006importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2007does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2008explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2009L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2010would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2011remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2012constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2013list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2014this error was triggered?
2015
748a9306
LW
2016=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2017
be771a83
GS
2018(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2019redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2020doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2021
a0d0e21e
LW
2022=item No DB::DB routine defined
2023
be771a83
GS
2024(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2025for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2026define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2027is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2028should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
a0d0e21e
LW
2029
2030=item No dbm on this machine
2031
2032(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2033supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2034
2035=item No DBsub routine
2036
2037(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2038but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2039didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2040ordinary subroutine call.
2041
c47ff5f1 2042=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2043
be771a83
GS
2044(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2045redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2046find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2047
c47ff5f1 2048=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2049
be771a83
GS
2050(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2051redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2052name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2053
6df41af2
GS
2054=item No #! line
2055
2056(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2057even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2058
2059=item "no" not allowed in expression
2060
be771a83
GS
2061(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2062returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2063
c47ff5f1 2064=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2065
be771a83
GS
2066(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2067redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2068doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2069
c47ff5f1 2070=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2071
be771a83
GS
2072(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2073redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2074find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2075
1ec3e8de
GS
2076=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2077
be771a83
GS
2078(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2079declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2080semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2081
a0d0e21e
LW
2082=item No Perl script found in input
2083
2084(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2085with #! and containing the word "perl".
2086
2087=item No setregid available
2088
2089(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2090your system.
2091
2092=item No setreuid available
2093
2094(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2095your system.
2096
a67e862a 2097=item No space allowed after -%c
a0d0e21e 2098
be771a83
GS
2099(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2100immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
a0d0e21e 2101
6df41af2
GS
2102=item No %s specified for -%c
2103
2104(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2105you haven't specified one.
2106
2107=item No such pipe open
2108
2109(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2110close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2111earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2112
88e9b055 2113=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
57079c46 2114
88e9b055 2115(F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
57079c46
GA
2116not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2117array indices for that to work.
2118
88e9b055 2119=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
f1192cee 2120
be771a83
GS
2121(F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2122not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2123%FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2124%usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
f1192cee 2125
a0d0e21e
LW
2126=item No such signal: SIG%s
2127
be771a83
GS
2128(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2129not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2130names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2131
2132=item Not a CODE reference
2133
2134(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2135subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2136use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2137also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2138
2139=item Not a format reference
2140
2141(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2142format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2143
2144=item Not a GLOB reference
2145
be771a83
GS
2146(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2147symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2148something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2149kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2150
2151=item Not a HASH reference
2152
be771a83
GS
2153(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2154reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2155find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2156
6df41af2
GS
2157=item Not an ARRAY reference
2158
be771a83
GS
2159(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2160a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2161to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2162
a0d0e21e
LW
2163=item Not a perl script
2164
2165(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2166even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2167mention perl.
2168
2169=item Not a SCALAR reference
2170
be771a83
GS
2171(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2172a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2173to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2174
2175=item Not a subroutine reference
2176
2177(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2178subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2179use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2180also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2181
e7ea3e70 2182=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2183
2184(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2185doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2186
a0d0e21e
LW
2187=item Not enough arguments for %s
2188
2189(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2190
6df41af2
GS
2191=item Not enough format arguments
2192
be771a83
GS
2193(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2194supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2195
2196=item %s: not found
2197
be771a83
GS
2198(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2199of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2200yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2201
2202=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2203
6df41af2
GS
2204(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2205timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2206to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2207F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2208need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2209
2210=item Null filename used
2211
be771a83
GS
2212(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2213machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2214
6df41af2
GS
2215=item NULL OP IN RUN
2216
be771a83
GS
2217(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2218pointer.
6df41af2 2219
55497cff 2220=item Null picture in formline
2221
2222(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2223specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2224supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2225
a0d0e21e
LW
2226=item Null realloc
2227
2228(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2229
2230=item NULL regexp argument
2231
5f05dabc 2232(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2233
2234=item NULL regexp parameter
2235
2236(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2237
fc36a67e 2238=item Number too long
2239
be771a83
GS
2240(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2241about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2242versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2243the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2244"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2245
6df41af2
GS
2246=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2247
be771a83
GS
2248(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2249The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2250future version.
6df41af2 2251
252aa082
JH
2252=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2253
75b44862 2254(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2255(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2256L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2257
2258See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2259
6ad11d81
JH
2260=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2261
2262(W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2263The arguments should come in pairs.
2264
1930e939 2265=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2266
be771a83
GS
2267(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2268which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2269
bbce6d69 2270=item Offset outside string
2271
2272(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
be771a83
GS
2273pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2274exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2275the buffer and zero pad the new area.
bbce6d69 2276
9ddeeac9
JH
2277=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2278
2279(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2280that isn't open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2281
2dd78f96
JH
2282=item %s() on unopened %s %s
2283
2284(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2285never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2286call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2287
a0d0e21e
LW
2288=item oops: oopsAV
2289
e476b1b5 2290(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2291
2292=item oops: oopsHV
2293
e476b1b5 2294(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2295
56f7f34b 2296=item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2297
be771a83
GS
2298(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2299handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2300of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2301C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2302
748a9306
LW
2303=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2304
be771a83
GS
2305(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2306was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2307use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2308example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2309"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2310
6df41af2
GS
2311=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2312
be771a83
GS
2313(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2314in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2315
a80b8354
GS
2316=item Out of memory!
2317
2318(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2319remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2320no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2321
6df41af2 2322=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2323
6df41af2
GS
2324(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2325remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2326the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2327possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2328
1b979e0a 2329=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2330
be771a83
GS
2331(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2332insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2333request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2334
2335The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2336depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2337However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2338emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
2339is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2340where the failed request happened.
55497cff 2341
1b979e0a
IZ
2342=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2343
2344(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2345is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2346C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2347
6df41af2
GS
2348=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2349
be771a83
GS
2350(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2351parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2352otherwise.
6df41af2
GS
2353
2354=item @ outside of string
2355
2356(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2357the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2358
2359=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2360
be771a83
GS
2361(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2362package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2363some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2364mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 2365
a0d0e21e
LW
2366=item page overflow
2367
be771a83
GS
2368(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2369page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 2370
6df41af2
GS
2371=item panic: %s
2372
2373(P) An internal error.
2374
a0d0e21e
LW
2375=item panic: ck_grep
2376
2377(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2378
2379=item panic: ck_split
2380
2381(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2382
2383=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2384
be771a83
GS
2385(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2386there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 2387
810b8aa5
GS
2388=item panic: del_backref
2389
2390(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2391reference.
2392
a0d0e21e
LW
2393=item panic: die %s
2394
2395(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2396it wasn't an eval context.
2397
2398=item panic: do_match
2399
be771a83
GS
2400(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2401data.
a0d0e21e
LW
2402
2403=item panic: do_split
2404
2405(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2406
2407=item panic: do_subst
2408
be771a83
GS
2409(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2410data.
a0d0e21e
LW
2411
2412=item panic: do_trans
2413
be771a83
GS
2414(P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational
2415data.
a0d0e21e 2416
c635e13b 2417=item panic: frexp
2418
2419(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2420
a0d0e21e
LW
2421=item panic: goto
2422
2423(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2424and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2425
2426=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2427
2428(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2429
2430=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2431
2432(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2433
e446cec8
IZ
2434=item panic: kid popen errno read
2435
2436(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2437
a0d0e21e
LW
2438=item panic: last
2439
2440(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2441it wasn't a block context.
2442
2443=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2444
be771a83
GS
2445(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2446scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
2447
2448=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2449
2450(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2451invalid enum on the top of it.
2452
810b8aa5
GS
2453=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2454
2455(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2456references to an object.
2457
6df41af2
GS
2458=item panic: malloc
2459
2460(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2461
a0d0e21e
LW
2462=item panic: mapstart
2463
2464(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2465
2466=item panic: null array
2467
2468(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2469
2470=item panic: pad_alloc
2471
2472(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2473and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2474
2475=item panic: pad_free curpad
2476
2477(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2478and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2479
2480=item panic: pad_free po
2481
2482(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2483
2484=item panic: pad_reset curpad
2485
2486(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2487and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2488
2489=item panic: pad_sv po
2490
2491(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2492
2493=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2494
2495(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2496and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2497
2498=item panic: pad_swipe po
2499
2500(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2501
2502=item panic: pp_iter
2503
2504(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2505
2506=item panic: realloc
2507
2508(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2509
2510=item panic: restartop
2511
2512(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2513didn't supply the destination.
2514
2515=item panic: return
2516
2517(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2518then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2519
2520=item panic: scan_num
2521
2522(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2523
2524=item panic: sv_insert
2525
2526(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2527was string.
2528
2529=item panic: top_env
2530
6224f72b 2531(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e
LW
2532
2533=item panic: yylex
2534
2535(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2536
dea0fc0b
JH
2537=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2538
2539(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2540to even) byte length.
2541
7b8d334a 2542=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 2543
e476b1b5 2544(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
2545
2546 my $foo, $bar = @_;
2547
2548when you meant
2549
2550 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2551
54884818 2552Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 2553
75b44862 2554=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
a0d0e21e 2555
be771a83
GS
2556(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2557recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2558you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2559
6df41af2
GS
2560=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2561
2562(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 2563C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2
GS
2564
2565=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2566
2567(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2568
2569 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2570 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2571 LC_ALL = "En_US",
2572 LANG = (unset)
2573 are supported and installed on your system.
2574 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2575
2576Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2577settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
2578This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2579system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2580locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2581dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2582Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2583the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2584you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2585L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 2586
ef0f9817
DD
2587=item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2588
2589(S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2590system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2591internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2592are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2593explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2594value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2595
a0d0e21e
LW
2596=item Permission denied
2597
2598(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2599
bd3fa61c 2600=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 2601
be771a83
GS
2602(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2603process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2604fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 2605
b45f050a
JF
2606=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2607
2608(W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2609I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2610example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2611currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2612extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2613
2614=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2615
2616(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2617beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2618extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2619a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2620with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2621
2622=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2623
2624(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2625beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2626extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2627a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2628with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2629
2630=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2631
2632(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2633L<perlre>.
2634
a0d0e21e
LW
2635=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2636
81777298 2637(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
a0d0e21e
LW
2638the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2639
bbce6d69 2640=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2641
e476b1b5 2642(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 2643strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
2644literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2645parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2646
774d564b 2647You probably wrote something like this:
2648
54310121 2649 @list = qw(
774d564b 2650 a # a comment
bbce6d69 2651 b # another comment
774d564b 2652 );
bbce6d69 2653
2654when you should have written this:
2655
774d564b 2656 @list = qw(
54310121 2657 a
2658 b
774d564b 2659 );
2660
2661If you really want comments, build your list the
2662old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2663
2664 @list = (
2665 'a', # a comment
2666 'b', # another comment
2667 );
bbce6d69 2668
2669=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2670
be771a83
GS
2671(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2672commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2673different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2674frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2675
54310121 2676You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 2677
774d564b 2678 qw! a, b, c !;
2679
2680which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2681commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 2682
774d564b 2683 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 2684
a0d0e21e
LW
2685=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2686
2687(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2688Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2689end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2690Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2691
6df41af2
GS
2692=item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2693
2694(W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2695could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2696
8cd79558
GS
2697=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2698
4375e838 2699(W deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
2700
2701 sub doit
2702 {
2703 use attrs qw(locked);
2704 }
2705
2706You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2707
2708 sub doit : locked
2709 {
2710 ...
2711
2712The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2713backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2714
a0d0e21e
LW
2715=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2716
e476b1b5 2717(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 2718
a0d0e21e
LW
2719 open FOO || die;
2720
2721is now misinterpreted as
2722
2723 open(FOO || die);
2724
be771a83
GS
2725because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2726list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2727parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2728of "||".
a0d0e21e 2729
3cdd684c
TP
2730=item Premature end of script headers
2731
2732See Server error.
2733
6df41af2
GS
2734=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2735
be771a83
GS
2736(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2737before now. Check your logic flow.
6df41af2 2738
9a7dcd9c 2739=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2740
be771a83
GS
2741(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2742before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2743
6df41af2 2744=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 2745
6df41af2
GS
2746(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2747applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2748port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2749L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 2750in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 2751
3fe9a6f1 2752=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 2753
be771a83
GS
2754(S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2755declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 2756
79eeca27 2757=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 2758
b45f050a 2759(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
79eeca27 2760{min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 2761the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 2762
79eeca27 2763=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 2764
b45f050a
JF
2765(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2766it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2767quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2768"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2769C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 2770
89ea2908
GA
2771=item Range iterator outside integer range
2772
2773(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2774are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
2775One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2776by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 2777
9a7dcd9c 2778=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2779
75b44862
GS
2780(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2781before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2782
6df41af2
GS
2783=item Reallocation too large: %lx
2784
2785(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2786
4ad56ec9
IZ
2787=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2788
be771a83
GS
2789(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2790already been freed.
4ad56ec9 2791
a0d0e21e
LW
2792=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2793
be771a83
GS
2794(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2795the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
2796which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2797
3e0ccd42 2798=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e
LW
2799
2800(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2801an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2802
7a4340ed 2803=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 2804
be771a83
GS
2805(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2806a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2807hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 2808
1930e939
TP
2809=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2810
be771a83
GS
2811(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2812with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2813means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2814parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
2815
2816 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2817 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2818 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2819 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2820
810b8aa5
GS
2821=item Reference is already weak
2822
e476b1b5 2823(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
2824Doing so has no effect.
2825
a0d0e21e
LW
2826=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2827
be771a83
GS
2828(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2829a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 2830
b1866b2d 2831=item Reference to nonexistent group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2832
2833(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2834not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2835wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2836prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
9baa0206 2837
79eeca27 2838The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 2839discovered.
9baa0206 2840
a0d0e21e
LW
2841=item regexp memory corruption
2842
2843(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2844expression compiler gave it.
2845
b45f050a 2846=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 2847
be771a83
GS
2848(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2849earlier.
a0d0e21e 2850
7a95317d
GS
2851=item Repeat count in pack overflows
2852
be771a83
GS
2853(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2854signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7a95317d
GS
2855
2856=item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2857
be771a83
GS
2858(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2859signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
7a95317d 2860
a0d0e21e
LW
2861=item Reversed %s= operator
2862
be771a83
GS
2863(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2864always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e
LW
2865
2866=item Runaway format
2867
2868(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2869produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2870199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2871themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2872shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2873
2874=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2875
be771a83
GS
2876(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2877single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2878value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2879behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2880argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2881and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2882if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 2883
748a9306 2884On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 2885element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
2886Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2887L<perlref>.
2888
a6006777 2889=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2890
75b44862 2891(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
2892element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2893(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2894like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2895argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2896and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2897if you're expecting only one subscript.
2898
2899On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2900as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2901not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 2902L<perlref>.
2903
a0d0e21e
LW
2904=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2905
54310121 2906(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2907or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e
LW
2908
2909=item Search pattern not terminated
2910
2911(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2912construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 2913Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 2914
9ddeeac9 2915=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 2916
be771a83
GS
2917(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2918filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e
LW
2919
2920=item select not implemented
2921
2922(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2923
ae21d580 2924=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 2925
ae21d580
JH
2926(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
2927the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 2928
6df41af2 2929=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 2930
75b44862
GS
2931(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2932semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
2933
2934=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2935
be771a83
GS
2936(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2937scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 2938
6df41af2 2939=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 2940
6df41af2 2941(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 2942
69282e91 2943=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2944
be771a83
GS
2945(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2946before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2947
79eeca27 2948=item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
7b8d334a 2949
79eeca27 2950(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
b45f050a 2951shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 2952L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 2953
b45f050a
JF
2954=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex m/%s/
2955
2956(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
2957for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2958
79eeca27 2959=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2960
b45f050a 2961(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
79eeca27 2962has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
2963where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2964
79eeca27 2965=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
2966
2967(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
79eeca27 2968The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a 2969where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e
LW
2970See L<perlre>.
2971
b45f050a 2972=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2973
2974(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2975parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2976
2977=item 500 Server error
2978
2979See Server error.
2980
a5f75d66
AD
2981=item Server error
2982
3cdd684c 2983This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
2984to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
2985varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
2986are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
2987contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
2988produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 2989
2990B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2991
be771a83
GS
2992You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
2993user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
2994account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
2995(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
2996location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
2997Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 2998
be94a901
GS
2999 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3000 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
9607fc9c 3001 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3002 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3003 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
a5f75d66 3004
be94a901
GS
3005You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3006
a0d0e21e
LW
3007=item setegid() not implemented
3008
be771a83
GS
3009(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3010support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3011didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3012
3013=item seteuid() not implemented
3014
be771a83
GS
3015(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3016support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3017didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3018
81777298
GS
3019=item setpgrp can't take arguments
3020
be771a83
GS
3021(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3022arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3023group ID.
81777298 3024
a0d0e21e
LW
3025=item setrgid() not implemented
3026
be771a83
GS
3027(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3028support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3029didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3030
3031=item setruid() not implemented
3032
be771a83
GS
3033(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3034support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3035didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3036
6df41af2
GS
3037=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3038
be771a83
GS
3039(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3040forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
3041L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3042
a0d0e21e
LW
3043=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3044
be771a83
GS
3045(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3046world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e
LW
3047
3048=item shm%s not implemented
3049
3050(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3051
6df41af2
GS
3052=item <> should be quotes
3053
3054(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3055C<require 'file'>.
3056
3057=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3058
3059(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
3060as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3061result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3062probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 3063
69282e91 3064=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3065
75b44862
GS
3066(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3067superfluous.
a0d0e21e 3068
f86702cc 3069=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 3070
be771a83
GS
3071(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3072Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e
LW
3073
3074=item sort is now a reserved word
3075
3076(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3077But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3078
3079=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3080
3081(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
c47ff5f1 3082it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e
LW
3083See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3084
3085=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3086
3087(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3088or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3089
3090=item Split loop
3091
be771a83
GS
3092(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3093iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3094happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 3095
a0d0e21e
LW
3096=item Statement unlikely to be reached
3097
be771a83
GS
3098(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3099die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3100unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3101instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3102a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 3103
9ddeeac9 3104=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 3105
355b1299
JH
3106(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3107was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 3108
7a4340ed 3109=item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
e7ea3e70 3110
be771a83
GS
3111(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3112stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3113C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 3114
a0d0e21e
LW
3115=item Subroutine %s redefined
3116
e476b1b5 3117(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
3118
3119 {
4438c4b7 3120 no warnings;
a0d0e21e
LW
3121 eval "sub name { ... }";
3122 }
3123
3124=item Substitution loop
3125
be771a83
GS
3126(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3127shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3128is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5f05dabc 3129L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
3130
3131=item Substitution pattern not terminated
3132
3133(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3134construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3135Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3136
3137=item Substitution replacement not terminated
3138
3139(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3140construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3141Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3142
3143=item substr outside of string
3144
be771a83
GS
3145(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3146a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3147length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3148substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3149assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 3150
f86702cc 3151=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
a0d0e21e 3152
be771a83
GS
3153(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3154a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
a0d0e21e 3155
79eeca27 3156=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3157
3158(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3159branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3160contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3161clustering parentheses:
3162
3163 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3164
79eeca27 3165The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
3166discovered. See L<perlre>.
3167
79eeca27 3168=item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3169
3170(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
79eeca27 3171number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
b45f050a
JF
3172about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3173
85ab1d1d
JH
3174=item switching effective %s is not implemented
3175
be771a83
GS
3176(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3177and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 3178
a0d0e21e
LW
3179=item syntax error
3180
3181(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3182
3183 A keyword is misspelled.
3184 A semicolon is missing.
3185 A comma is missing.
3186 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3187 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3188 A closing quote is missing.
3189
3190Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3191error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3192The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3193it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 3194before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
3195Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3196the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3197C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
be771a83
GS
3198if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3199questions>.
a0d0e21e 3200
cb1a09d0
AD
3201=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3202
be771a83
GS
3203(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3204of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3205yourself.
cb1a09d0 3206
6df41af2
GS
3207=item %s syntax OK
3208
3209(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3210
6087ac44 3211=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 3212
6087ac44
JH
3213(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3214"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3215machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3216unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 3217
69282e91 3218=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3219
be771a83
GS
3220(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3221before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 3222
fc36a67e 3223=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3224
be771a83
GS
3225(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3226for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 3227
9ddeeac9 3228=item tell() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3229
be771a83
GS
3230(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3231was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3232
a0d0e21e
LW
3233=item That use of $[ is unsupported
3234
be771a83
GS
3235(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3236as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e
LW
3237
3238 $[ = 0;
3239 $[ = 1;
3240 ...
3241 local $[ = 0;
3242 local $[ = 1;
3243 ...
3244
be771a83
GS
3245This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3246from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
a0d0e21e 3247
f86702cc 3248=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
3249
3250(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3251probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 3252think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
3253will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3254will deny it.
3255
6df41af2
GS
3256=item The %s function is unimplemented
3257
3258The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3259to the probings of Configure.
3260
5e1c7ca2 3261=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 3262
be771a83
GS
3263(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3264linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3265past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3266instead.
a0d0e21e 3267
437784d6 3268=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
3269
3270=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3271
75b44862 3272(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
3273element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3274wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3275need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3276F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3277target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
3278%ENV which produced the warning.
3279
a0d0e21e
LW
3280=item times not implemented
3281
be771a83
GS
3282(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3283suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e
LW
3284
3285=item Too few args to syscall
3286
3287(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3288system call to call, silly dilly.
3289
9607fc9c 3290=item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3291
3292(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
8cc95fdb 3293B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3294This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3295script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3296So Perl gives up.
f86702cc 3297
9607fc9c 3298If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
be771a83
GS
3299mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3300editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3301argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
f86702cc 3302
9607fc9c 3303If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3304B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
f86702cc 3305
8cc95fdb 3306=item Too late for "-%s" option
3307
3308(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3309B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3310are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3311
ddda08b7
GS
3312=item Too late to run %s block
3313
3314(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3315when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
3316loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3317instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3318BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 3319
a0d0e21e
LW
3320=item Too many args to syscall
3321
5f05dabc 3322(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
3323
3324=item Too many arguments for %s
3325
3326(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3327
6df41af2
GS
3328=item Too many )'s
3329
be771a83
GS
3330(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3331Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3332
3333=item Too many ('s
3334
a0d0e21e
LW
3335=item trailing \ in regexp
3336
be771a83
GS
3337(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3338Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3339
2c268ad5 3340=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
3341
3342(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 3343or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3344C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3345
2c268ad5 3346=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
3347
3348(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3349construct.
3350
3351=item truncate not implemented
3352
3353(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3354Configure knows about.
3355
3356=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3357
3358(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 3359certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3360%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
3361{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3362
3363=item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3364
e476b1b5 3365(W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
eec2d3df
GS
3366literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3367
3368=item umask not implemented
3369
be771a83
GS
3370(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3371use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 3372
4633a7c4
LW
3373=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3374
3375(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3376
a0d0e21e
LW
3377=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3378