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[perl5.git] / pod / perldiag.pod
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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
e476b1b5 12 (S) A severe warning (default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
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18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
30Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
6df41af2 53=item Allocation too large: %lx
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
f61d411c 57=item '!' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
60See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
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74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
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88(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
6df41af2 92=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 93
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94(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 97
6df41af2 98=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 99
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100(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 105
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106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
107 while (<STDIN>) {
108 print;
109 print OUT;
110 }
111 close OUT;
c9f97d15 112
6df41af2 113=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 114
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115(W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
121alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 122
6df41af2 123=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 124
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125(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 129
6df41af2 130=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 131
6df41af2 132(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 133
8ea97a1e 134=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
a0d0e21e 135
8ea97a1e 136(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
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137
138 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 139 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
a0d0e21e 140
8ea97a1e 141=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 142
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143(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
144such as:
5f05dabc 145
146 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 147 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 148
8ea97a1e 149or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 150
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151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 153
6df41af2 154=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 155
6df41af2 156(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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157name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
158error.
a0d0e21e 159
f86702cc 160=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 161
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162(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
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165
166=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
167
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168(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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170
171=item assertion botched: %s
172
173(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
174
175=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
176
177(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
178
179=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
180
181(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183know which context to supply to the right side.
184
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185=item Attempt to bless into a reference
186
187(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
188the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
189supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
190
191 bless $self, $proto;
192
193when you intended
194
195 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
196
197If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
198of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
199example by:
200
201 bless $self, "$proto";
202
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203=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
204
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205(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
206that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
207outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 208
54310121 209=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 210
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211(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
212strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
213strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
214of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 215
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216=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
217
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218(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
219free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
220SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
221free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
222try to free it.
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223
224=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
225
e476b1b5 226(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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227
228=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
229
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230(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
231see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
232earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
233This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
234that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
235mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
236corrupted.
a0d0e21e 237
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238=item Attempt to join self
239
240(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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241impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
242to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 243
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244=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
245
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246(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
247function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
248means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
249invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
250literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
251avoid this warning.
84902520 252
b7a902f4 253=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
254
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255(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
256used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
257dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 258
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259=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
260
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261(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
262or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 263S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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264S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
265
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266=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
267
268(F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
269substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
270most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
271
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272=item Bad filehandle: %s
273
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274(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
275symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
276open(), or did it in another package.
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277
278=item Bad free() ignored
279
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280(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
281been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 282setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 283
9ea8bc6d 284This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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285dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
286which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 287
aa689395 288=item Bad hash
289
290(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
291
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292=item Bad index while coercing array into hash
293
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294(F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
295pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
296See L<perlref>.
57079c46 297
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298=item Badly placed ()'s
299
300(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
301of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
302Perl yourself.
303
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304=item Bad name after %s::
305
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306(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
307didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
308of quotes, so
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309
310 $var = 'myvar';
311 $sym = mypack::$var;
312
313is not the same as
314
315 $var = 'myvar';
316 $sym = "mypack::$var";
317
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318=item Bad realloc() ignored
319
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320(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
321never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
322by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 323
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324=item Bad symbol for array
325
326(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
327wasn't a symbol table entry.
328
329=item Bad symbol for filehandle
330
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331(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
332that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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333
334=item Bad symbol for hash
335
336(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
337wasn't a symbol table entry.
338
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339=item Bareword found in conditional
340
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341(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
342conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
343of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
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344
345 open FOO || die;
346
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347It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
348a bareword:
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349
350 use constant TYPO => 1;
351 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
352
353The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
354
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355=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
356
357(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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358subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
359symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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360
361=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
362
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363(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
364compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
365you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 366
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367=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
368
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369(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
370subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
371exited.
a0d0e21e 372
68dc0745 373=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
374
375(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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376implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
377occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
378be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
379depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 380
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381=item \1 better written as $1
382
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383(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
384The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
385substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
386because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
387there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 388
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389=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
390
e476b1b5 391(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
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392(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
393L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 394
69282e91 395=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 396
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397(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
398check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 399
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400=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
401
e476b1b5 402(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 403
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404=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
405
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406(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
407copiable.
4633a7c4 408
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409=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
410
411(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
412which provides a race condition that breaks security.
413
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414=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
415
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416(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
417iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
418which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 419
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420=item Callback called exit
421
4929bf7b 422(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
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423exited by calling exit.
424
6df41af2 425=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 426
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427(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
428parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
429that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
430early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
431subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
432checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
433function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
434the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 435
6df41af2 436=item / cannot take a count
a0d0e21e 437
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438(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
439you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
440L<perlfunc/pack>.
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441
442=item Can't bless non-reference value
443
444(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
445encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
446
447=item Can't break at that line
448
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449(S internal) A warning intended to only be printed while running within
450the debugger, indicating the line number specified wasn't the location
451of a statement that could be stopped at.
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452
453=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
454
455(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
456functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
457in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
458
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459=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
460
461(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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462object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
463like this will reproduce the error:
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464
465 $BADREF = undef;
466 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
467 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
468
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469=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
470
54310121 471(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
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472ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
473didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
474object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
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475
476=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
477
478(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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479object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
480defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
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481Something like this will reproduce the error:
482
483 $BADREF = 42;
484 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
485 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
486
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487=item Can't chdir to %s
488
489(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
490that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
491
0545a864 492=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 493
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494(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
495nosuid.
104d25b7 496
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497=item Can't coerce array into hash
498
499(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
500information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
501only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
502
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503=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
504
505(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 506(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
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507say things like:
508
509 *foo += 1;
510
511You CAN say
512
513 $foo = *foo;
514 $foo += 1;
515
516but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
517
518=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
519
520(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 521(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
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522
523=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
524
525(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 526(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
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527
528=item Can't create pipe mailbox
529
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530(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
531quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 532
eb64745e 533=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 534
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535(S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
536qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
537for other types of variables in future.
538
539=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
540
541(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
542"our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 543
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544=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
545
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546(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
547a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 548
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549=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
550
be771a83
GS
551(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
552reason.
a0d0e21e 553
54310121 554=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 555
be771a83
GS
556(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
557reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
558C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 559
10f9c03d 560=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 561
e476b1b5 562(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
563characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
564inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 565
6df41af2 566=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m
a0d0e21e 567
6df41af2
GS
568(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
569your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e
LW
570
571=item Can't do setegid!
572
be771a83
GS
573(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
574suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
575
576=item Can't do seteuid!
577
578(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
579
580=item Can't do setuid
581
be771a83
GS
582(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
583setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
584sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
585the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
586file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
587sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
a0d0e21e
LW
588
589=item Can't do waitpid with flags
590
be771a83
GS
591(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
592waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 593
a0d0e21e
LW
594=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
595
be771a83
GS
596(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
597point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
598line.
a0d0e21e
LW
599
600=item Can't exec "%s": %s
601
be771a83
GS
602(W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
603named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
604permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
605C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
606architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
607can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
608#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
609
610=item Can't exec %s
611
be771a83
GS
612(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
613that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
614need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
615
616=item Can't execute %s
617
be771a83
GS
618(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
619found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 620
6df41af2 621=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 622
be771a83
GS
623(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
624is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2
GS
625
626=item Can't find label %s
627
be771a83
GS
628(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
629possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
630
631=item Can't find %s on PATH
632
be771a83
GS
633(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
634found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 635
6df41af2 636=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 637
be771a83
GS
638(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
639found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
640script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
641
642=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
643
be771a83
GS
644(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
645that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
646nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 647
fb73857a 648 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
649
be771a83
GS
650If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
651unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
652editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e
LW
653
654=item Can't fork
655
be771a83
GS
656(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
657pipeline.
a0d0e21e 658
748a9306
LW
659=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
660
be771a83
GS
661(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
662between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
663Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
664the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
665account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
666the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
667the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
668the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
669if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
670because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
671appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
672and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
673routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
674shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
675only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 676
a0d0e21e
LW
677=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
678
be771a83
GS
679(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
680pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
681
682=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
683
748a9306
LW
684(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
685mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 686
6df41af2 687=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 688
be771a83
GS
689(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
690loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
691
692=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
693
be771a83
GS
694(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
695a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
696you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
697See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 698
b150fb22
RH
699=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
700
be771a83
GS
701(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
702"string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
703probably don't want to.)
b150fb22 704
6df41af2
GS
705=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
706
be771a83
GS
707(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
708subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
709cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
710routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 711
0b5b802d
GS
712=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
713
be771a83
GS
714(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
715signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
716signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
717processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
718situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
719may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 720
6df41af2 721=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 722
6df41af2 723(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
724except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
725block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
726block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
727usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
728inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
729L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 730
748a9306
LW
731=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
732
2ba9eb46 733(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306
LW
734lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
735localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
736package name.
737
0ebe0038
SM
738=item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
739
be771a83
GS
740(F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
741reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
742can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
743directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
0ebe0038 744
6df41af2 745=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 746
6df41af2
GS
747(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
748handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83
GS
749pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
750that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 751
ec889f3a
GS
752=item Can't locate %s
753
754(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
755found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
756unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
757need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
758the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
759to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
760L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 761
6df41af2
GS
762=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
763
be771a83
GS
764(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
765autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
766are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
767the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 768
a0d0e21e
LW
769=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
770
771(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
772functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 773method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 774
c1899e02
GS
775=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
776
777(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
778"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
779that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
780
a0d0e21e
LW
781=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
782
be771a83
GS
783(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
784doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 785
3e3baf6d
TB
786=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
787
be771a83
GS
788(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
789VMS.
3e3baf6d 790
a0d0e21e
LW
791=item Can't modify %s in %s
792
be771a83
GS
793(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
794to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 795
54310121 796=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
797
798(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
799a NULL.
800
6df41af2
GS
801=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
802
803(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
804such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
805
5f05dabc 806=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 807
5f05dabc 808(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
809buffer.
810
6df41af2
GS
811=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
812
813(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
814there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
815count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
816grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
817though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
818once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 819
a0d0e21e
LW
820=item Can't open %s: %s
821
c47ff5f1 822(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
823filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
824switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
825is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
826the command line.
a0d0e21e
LW
827
828=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
829
be771a83
GS
830(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
831You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
832as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
833">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 834
748a9306
LW
835=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
836
be771a83
GS
837(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
838redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
839the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
840
841=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
842
be771a83
GS
843(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
844redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
845command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
846
847=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
848
be771a83
GS
849(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
850redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
851the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
852
853=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
854
be771a83
GS
855(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
856redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
857for stdout.
748a9306 858
a0d0e21e
LW
859=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
860
861(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
862
6df41af2
GS
863=item Can't read CRTL environ
864
865(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
866from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
867missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
868or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
869searched.
6df41af2 870
7bac28a0 871=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
872
873(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
be771a83
GS
874pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
875it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
7bac28a0 876this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
877
6df41af2
GS
878=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
879
880(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
881there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
882count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
883or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
884though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
885loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
886
10f9c03d
CK
887=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
888
be771a83
GS
889(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
890file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
891the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 892
a0d0e21e
LW
893=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
894
e476b1b5 895(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 896probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 897
748a9306
LW
898=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
899
be771a83
GS
900(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
901to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 902
6df41af2
GS
903=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
904
be771a83
GS
905(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
906to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
907method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 908
a0d0e21e
LW
909=item Can't reswap uid and euid
910
be771a83
GS
911(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
912suidperl.
a0d0e21e 913
cd06dffe
GS
914=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
915
be771a83
GS
916(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
917temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
918is not allowed.
cd06dffe 919
6df41af2
GS
920=item Can't return outside a subroutine
921
922(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
923there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
924
a0d0e21e
LW
925=item Can't stat script "%s"
926
be771a83
GS
927(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
928open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
929
930=item Can't swap uid and euid
931
be771a83
GS
932(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
933suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
934
935=item Can't take log of %g
936
fb73857a 937(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
938negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
939standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
940negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
941
942=item Can't take sqrt of %g
943
944(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 945negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
946with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
947
948=item Can't undef active subroutine
949
950(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
951however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
952redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
953
954=item Can't unshift
955
956(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
957as the main Perl stack.
958
959=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
960
be771a83
GS
961(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
962into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
963specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
964indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e
LW
965
966=item Can't upgrade to undef
967
be771a83
GS
968(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
969upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
970calling sv_upgrade.
a0d0e21e 971
6df41af2
GS
972=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
973
974(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
975be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
976
977=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
978
be771a83
GS
979(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
980references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 981
1d2dff63
GS
982=item Can't use %%! because Errno.pm is not available
983
984(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
985Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
986provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
987
6df41af2
GS
988=item Can't use %s for loop variable
989
be771a83
GS
990(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
991foreach.
6df41af2
GS
992
993=item Can't use global %s in "my"
994
be771a83
GS
995(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
996is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
997(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
998have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
999weren't.
1000
c07a80fd 1001=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1002
1003(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1004You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1005and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1006Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1007lexical variable.
1008
a0d0e21e
LW
1009=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1010
1011(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1012reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1013test the type of the reference, if need be.
1014
748a9306 1015=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1016
be771a83
GS
1017(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1018references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1019
748a9306
LW
1020=item Can't use subscript on %s
1021
1022(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1023subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1024didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1025
6df41af2
GS
1026=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1027
75b44862
GS
1028(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1029creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1030backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1031expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1032value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1033instead.
6df41af2 1034
810b8aa5
GS
1035=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1036
1037(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1038references can be weakened.
1039
5f05dabc 1040=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1041
be771a83
GS
1042(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1043with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1044Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1045
b8c5462f
JH
1046=item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1047
e476b1b5 1048(W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
be771a83
GS
1049I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
1050example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
1051currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
3802429d 1052extensions and will cause fatal errors.
b8c5462f 1053
644a2880 1054=item Character class syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
4599a1de 1055
3802429d 1056(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
be771a83 1057beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
3802429d
JF
1058extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
1059a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
1060with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
4599a1de
JH
1061
1062=item Character class syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
1063
3802429d 1064(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
be771a83 1065beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
3802429d
JF
1066extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
1067a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
1068with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
4599a1de 1069
6df41af2
GS
1070=item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1071
be771a83
GS
1072(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
1073L<perlre>.
6df41af2 1074
5a211162 1075=item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
a0d0e21e 1076
e476b1b5 1077(W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
a0d0e21e
LW
1078
1079 chmod 777, $filename
1080
be771a83
GS
1081not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1082equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1083Perl, as in C.
a0d0e21e 1084
9ddeeac9 1085=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 1086
e476b1b5 1087(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
a0d0e21e 1088
6df41af2
GS
1089=item %s: Command not found
1090
be771a83
GS
1091(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1092Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1093
7a2e2cd6 1094=item Compilation failed in require
1095
1096(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1097Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1098encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1099
c3464db5
DD
1100=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1101
be771a83
GS
1102(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1103situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1104to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1105arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1106recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1107under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1108in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1109that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1110on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1111
69282e91 1112=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1113
be771a83
GS
1114(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1115to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1116L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1117
6df41af2
GS
1118=item constant(%s): %s
1119
be771a83
GS
1120(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1121an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1122specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1123corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1124L<overload>.
6df41af2 1125
779c5bc9
GS
1126=item Constant is not %s reference
1127
1128(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1129is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1130The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1131usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1132See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1133
4cee8e80
CS
1134=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1135
be771a83
GS
1136(S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1137eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1138commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1139
9607fc9c 1140=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1141
be771a83
GS
1142(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1143for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1144workarounds.
9607fc9c 1145
e7ea3e70
IZ
1146=item Copy method did not return a reference
1147
be771a83
GS
1148(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy
1149Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1150
6798c92b
GS
1151=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1152
1153(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1154
a0d0e21e
LW
1155=item corrupted regexp pointers
1156
1157(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1158expression compiler gave it.
1159
1160=item corrupted regexp program
1161
be771a83
GS
1162(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1163valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1164
6df41af2
GS
1165=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1166
1167(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1168
1169=item C<-p> destination: %s
1170
1171(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1172command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1173redirected it with select().)
1174
1175=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1176
1177(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1178know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1179
a0d0e21e
LW
1180=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1181
be771a83
GS
1182(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1183100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1184infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1185which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1186
f10b0346 1187=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1188
be771a83
GS
1189(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1190checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1191array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1192
f10b0346 1193=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1194
be771a83
GS
1195(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1196checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1197is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1198
fc36a67e 1199=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1200
be771a83
GS
1201(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1202long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1203that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1204
3cdd684c
TP
1205=item Did not produce a valid header
1206
1207See Server error.
1208
6df41af2
GS
1209=item %s did not return a true value
1210
1211(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1212it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1213traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1214do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1215
cc507455 1216=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1217
be771a83
GS
1218(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1219such.
4633a7c4 1220
cc507455 1221=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1222
be771a83
GS
1223(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1224variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1225seems superfluous.
33633739 1226
cc507455 1227=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1228
be771a83
GS
1229(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1230@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1231carried away.
748a9306 1232
7e1af8bc 1233=item Died
5f05dabc 1234
1235(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1236you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1237
3cdd684c
TP
1238=item Document contains no data
1239
1240See Server error.
1241
a0d0e21e
LW
1242=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1243
1244(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1245
1246=item do_study: out of memory
1247
1248(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1249
6df41af2
GS
1250=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1251
1252(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1253found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1254name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1255because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1256"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1257something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1258subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1259"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1260
a0d0e21e
LW
1261=item Duplicate free() ignored
1262
be771a83
GS
1263(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1264already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1265
4633a7c4
LW
1266=item elseif should be elsif
1267
be771a83
GS
1268(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1269Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1270"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1271unlikely to be what you want.
1272
85ab1d1d 1273=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1274
85ab1d1d 1275(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1276effective uids or gids failed.
1277
748a9306
LW
1278=item Error converting file specification %s
1279
5f05dabc 1280(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1281specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1282single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1283an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1284conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1285
e4d48cc9
GS
1286=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1287
be771a83
GS
1288(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1289expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1290is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1291
e4d48cc9
GS
1292=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1293
be771a83
GS
1294(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1295C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1296pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1297is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1298building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1299that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1300
6df41af2
GS
1301=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1302
be771a83
GS
1303(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1304assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1305pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1306
fc36a67e 1307=item Excessively long <> operator
1308
1309(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1310Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1311filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1312variable and glob that.
1313
f86702cc 1314=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1315
1316(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1317
1318=item Exiting eval via %s
1319
be771a83
GS
1320(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1321goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1322
1323=item Exiting format via %s
1324
be771a83
GS
1325(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1326goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1327
0a753a76 1328=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1329
be771a83
GS
1330(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1331sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1332loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1333
a0d0e21e
LW
1334=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1335
be771a83
GS
1336(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1337as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1338
1339=item Exiting substitution via %s
1340
be771a83
GS
1341(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1342as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1343
7b8d334a
GS
1344=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1345
be771a83
GS
1346(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1347the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1348usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1349e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1350
6df41af2
GS
1351=item %s: Expression syntax
1352
be771a83
GS
1353(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1354Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1355
1356=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1357
1358(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1359END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1360routines has been prematurely ended.
1361
73b437c8
JH
1362=item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1363
be771a83
GS
1364(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1365character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1366"-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1367quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1368
748a9306 1369=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1370
be771a83
GS
1371(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1372system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1373details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1374you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1375
1376=item fcntl is not implemented
1377
1378(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1379PDP-11 or something?
1380
af8c498a 1381=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1382
be771a83
GS
1383(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1384to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1385or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1386the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1387
af8c498a 1388=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1389
be771a83
GS
1390(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1391you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1392with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1393intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1394
1395=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1396
1397(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1398a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1399happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1400name.
a0d0e21e
LW
1401
1402=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1403
1404(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1405a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1406happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1407name.
a0d0e21e 1408
56e90b21
GS
1409=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1410
be771a83
GS
1411(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1412some time before now. Check your logic flow. flock() operates on
1413filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1414same name?
56e90b21 1415
6df41af2
GS
1416=item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
1417
be771a83
GS
1418(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
1419you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1420
1421=item Format not terminated
1422
1423(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1424to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1425
a0d0e21e
LW
1426=item Format %s redefined
1427
e476b1b5 1428(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1429
1430 {
4438c4b7 1431 no warnings;
a0d0e21e
LW
1432 eval "format NAME =...";
1433 }
1434
a0d0e21e
LW
1435=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1436
e476b1b5 1437(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1438
1439 if ($foo = 123)
1440
1441when you meant
1442
1443 if ($foo == 123)
1444
1445(or something like that).
1446
6df41af2
GS
1447=item %s found where operator expected
1448
1449(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
be771a83
GS
1450sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1451operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1452operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1453
a0d0e21e
LW
1454=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1455
1456(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1457
1458=item gethostent not implemented
1459
1460(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1461because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1462on the Internet.
1463
69282e91 1464=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1465
be771a83
GS
1466(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1467socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1468
748a9306
LW
1469=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1470
1471(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1472C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1473
6df41af2
GS
1474=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1475
be771a83
GS
1476(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1477forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1478L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1479
1480=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1481
1482(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1483must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1484"our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1485is in (using "::").
1486
e476b1b5
GS
1487=item glob failed (%s)
1488
be771a83
GS
1489(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1490C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1491C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1492nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1493resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1494broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1495config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1496were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1497empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1498think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1499C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1500
a0d0e21e
LW
1501=item Glob not terminated
1502
1503(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1504a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1505not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1506earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1507
6df41af2 1508=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1509
6df41af2
GS
1510(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1511version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1512
1513=item goto must have label
1514
1515(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1516unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1517
6df41af2
GS
1518=item %s had compilation errors
1519
1520(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1521
a0d0e21e
LW
1522=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1523
be771a83
GS
1524(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1525to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1526created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1527
1528=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1529
be771a83
GS
1530(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1531spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1532
6df41af2
GS
1533=item %s has too many errors
1534
1535(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1536Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1537
252aa082
JH
1538=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1539
e476b1b5 1540(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1541(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1542L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1543
8903cb82 1544=item Identifier too long
1545
1546(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1547about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1548names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1549of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1550
6df41af2 1551=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1552
6df41af2 1553(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1554
6df41af2 1555=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1556
be771a83
GS
1557(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1558binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1559offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1560
4fdae800 1561=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1562
d5898338 1563(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1564would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1565when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1566version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1567to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1568
a0d0e21e
LW
1569=item Illegal division by zero
1570
be771a83
GS
1571(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1572your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1573meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1574
6df41af2
GS
1575=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1576
be771a83
GS
1577(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1578A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1579number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1580
a0d0e21e
LW
1581=item Illegal modulus zero
1582
be771a83
GS
1583(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1584numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1585
6df41af2 1586=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1587
6df41af2
GS
1588(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1589two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1590
1591=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1592
1593(F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1594
399388f4 1595=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1596
75b44862
GS
1597(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1598Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1599
6df41af2 1600=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1601
6df41af2
GS
1602(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1603following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
6ff81951 1604
6df41af2 1605=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1606
75b44862 1607(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1608internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1609delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1610
6df41af2 1611=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1612
be771a83
GS
1613(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1614name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1615didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1616ignored.
54310121 1617
6df41af2 1618=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1619
be771a83
GS
1620(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1621the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1622system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1623times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1624would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1625
be771a83
GS
1626Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1627also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1628
a0d0e21e
LW
1629=item Insecure dependency in %s
1630
8b1a09fc 1631(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
1632The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1633setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1634tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1635from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1636such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1637L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
1638
1639=item Insecure directory in %s
1640
be771a83
GS
1641(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1642setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1643the world. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 1644
62f468fc 1645=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1646
1647(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc
MG
1648setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1649C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
a0d0e21e
LW
1650potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1651known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1652
6df41af2
GS
1653=item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1654
1655(F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
be771a83
GS
1656array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was
1657first used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and
1658ambiguous instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a
1659backslash to indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array
1660within the program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will
1661simply assume that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
6df41af2 1662
a7ae9550
GS
1663=item Integer overflow in %s number
1664
75b44862 1665(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
1666either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1667your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1668On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
1669representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
16700b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1671transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1672internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1673operations.
bbce6d69 1674
6df41af2
GS
1675=item internal disaster in regexp
1676
1677(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1678
748a9306
LW
1679=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1680
be771a83
GS
1681(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1682you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1683to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1684L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1685Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1686terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 1687
a0d0e21e
LW
1688=item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1689
1690(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1691
6df41af2
GS
1692=item %s (...) interpreted as function
1693
75b44862 1694(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83
GS
1695followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1696operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms
1697and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 1698
09bef843
SB
1699=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1700
1701The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1702by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1703
1704=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1705
be771a83
GS
1706The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1707recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1708
c635e13b 1709=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1710
be771a83
GS
1711(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1712L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 1713
6df41af2
GS
1714=item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1715
1716(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1717greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1718
c2e66d9e
GS
1719=item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1720
1721(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1722character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1723
09bef843
SB
1724=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1725
0120eecf 1726(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
1727elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1728parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1729See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1730
96e4d5b1 1731=item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1732
8903cb82 1733(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
be771a83
GS
1734(W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1735silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1736
1737=item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1738
be771a83
GS
1739(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1740L<perlfunc/unpack>.
75b44862
GS
1741(W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1742silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1743
a0d0e21e
LW
1744=item ioctl is not implemented
1745
1746(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1747strange for a machine that supports C.
1748
1749=item junk on end of regexp
1750
1751(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1752
1753=item Label not found for "last %s"
1754
be771a83
GS
1755(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1756of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1757L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1758
1759=item Label not found for "next %s"
1760
1761(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1762that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1763L<perlfunc/last>.
1764
1765=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1766
1767(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1768that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1769L<perlfunc/last>.
1770
85ab1d1d 1771=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1772
85ab1d1d 1773(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1774effective uids or gids failed.
1775
69282e91 1776=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1777
be771a83
GS
1778(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1779to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1780L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 1781
9baa0206
HS
1782=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented at {#} mark in regex 5s
1783
1784There is an upper limit to the depth of lookbehind in the (?<=
1785regular expression construct.
1786
9d837945
TM
1787=item lstat() on filehandle %s
1788
1789(W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1790by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1791instead on the filehandle.)
1792
cd06dffe
GS
1793=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1794
1795(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
be771a83
GS
1796values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1797L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
cd06dffe 1798
6df41af2
GS
1799=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1800
1801(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1802
1803 prefix1;prefix2
1804
1805or
1806
1807 prefix1 prefix2
1808
be771a83
GS
1809with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1810a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1811appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 1812"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 1813
dea0fc0b
JH
1814=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1815
1816Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1817doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1818
6df41af2
GS
1819=item %s matches null string many times
1820
1821(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
be771a83
GS
1822regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1823L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1824
1825=item % may only be used in unpack
1826
1827(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
1828checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1829See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 1830
a0d0e21e
LW
1831=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1832
1833(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 1834doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 1835
3cdd684c
TP
1836=item Method %s not permitted
1837
1838See Server error.
1839
a0d0e21e
LW
1840=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1841
1842(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1843by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1844ended earlier on the current line.
1845
1846=item Misplaced _ in number
1847
e476b1b5 1848(W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
a0d0e21e 1849
4a2d328f 1850=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 1851
4a2d328f 1852(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
1853double-quotish context.
1854
a0d0e21e
LW
1855=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1856
1857(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1858"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1859
06eaf0bc
GS
1860=item Missing command in piped open
1861
be771a83
GS
1862(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1863C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1864blank.
06eaf0bc 1865
6df41af2
GS
1866=item Missing name in "my sub"
1867
be771a83
GS
1868(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1869they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
1870
1871=item Missing $ on loop variable
1872
be771a83
GS
1873(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1874are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1875can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 1876
cc507455 1877=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306
LW
1878
1879(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1880found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1881
d98d5fff 1882=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 1883
be771a83
GS
1884(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1885ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1886were last editing.
a0d0e21e 1887
6df41af2
GS
1888=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1889
1890(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1891found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1892the previous line just because you saw this message.
1893
a0d0e21e
LW
1894=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1895
1896(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 1897constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
1898catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1899
1900 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1901 mod(2);
1902
1903Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1904
7a4340ed 1905=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1906
1907(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1908subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1909backwards.
1910
7a4340ed 1911=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 1912
be771a83
GS
1913(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1914couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
1915
1916=item Module name must be constant
1917
1918(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1919
be98fb35 1920=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 1921
be98fb35
GS
1922(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1923you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1924about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 1925
a0d0e21e
LW
1926=item msg%s not implemented
1927
1928(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1929
1930=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1931
75b44862
GS
1932(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1933They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 1934
6df41af2 1935=item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
09bef843 1936
6df41af2 1937(F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
be771a83
GS
1938Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1939or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1940
1941=item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1942
be771a83
GS
1943(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1944must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1945of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1946
1947=item / must follow a numeric type
1948
be771a83
GS
1949(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1950follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1951
1952=item "my sub" not yet implemented
1953
be771a83
GS
1954(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1955that yet.
6df41af2
GS
1956
1957=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1958
be771a83
GS
1959(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1960sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1961local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 1962
8b1a09fc 1963=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1964
e476b1b5 1965(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
1966If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1967again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 1968provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e
LW
1969
1970=item Negative length
1971
be771a83
GS
1972(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1973length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 1974
9baa0206 1975=item Nested quantifiers in regexp
a0d0e21e 1976
5f05dabc 1977(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
a0d0e21e
LW
1978things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1979
be771a83
GS
1980Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
1981C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 1982
6df41af2 1983=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 1984
be771a83
GS
1985(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
1986scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e
LW
1987
1988=item No %s allowed while running setuid
1989
be771a83
GS
1990(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
1991setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
1992will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
1993securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1994
1995=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1996
1997(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1998
1999=item No comma allowed after %s
2000
2001(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2002allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2003Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2004
0a753a76 2005One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2006constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2007importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2008does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2009explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2010L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2011would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2012remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2013constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2014list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2015this error was triggered?
2016
748a9306
LW
2017=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2018
be771a83
GS
2019(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2020redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2021doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2022
a0d0e21e
LW
2023=item No DB::DB routine defined
2024
be771a83
GS
2025(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2026for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2027define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2028is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2029should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
a0d0e21e
LW
2030
2031=item No dbm on this machine
2032
2033(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2034supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2035
2036=item No DBsub routine
2037
2038(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2039but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2040didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2041ordinary subroutine call.
2042
c47ff5f1 2043=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2044
be771a83
GS
2045(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2046redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2047find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2048
c47ff5f1 2049=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2050
be771a83
GS
2051(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2052redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2053name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2054
6df41af2
GS
2055=item No #! line
2056
2057(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2058even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2059
2060=item "no" not allowed in expression
2061
be771a83
GS
2062(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2063returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2064
c47ff5f1 2065=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2066
be771a83
GS
2067(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2068redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2069doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2070
c47ff5f1 2071=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2072
be771a83
GS
2073(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2074redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2075find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2076
1ec3e8de
GS
2077=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2078
be771a83
GS
2079(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2080declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2081semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2082
a0d0e21e
LW
2083=item No Perl script found in input
2084
2085(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2086with #! and containing the word "perl".
2087
2088=item No setregid available
2089
2090(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2091your system.
2092
2093=item No setreuid available
2094
2095(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2096your system.
2097
a67e862a 2098=item No space allowed after -%c
a0d0e21e 2099
be771a83
GS
2100(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2101immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
a0d0e21e 2102
6df41af2
GS
2103=item No %s specified for -%c
2104
2105(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2106you haven't specified one.
2107
2108=item No such pipe open
2109
2110(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2111close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2112earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2113
88e9b055 2114=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
57079c46 2115
88e9b055 2116(F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
57079c46
GA
2117not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2118array indices for that to work.
2119
88e9b055 2120=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
f1192cee 2121
be771a83
GS
2122(F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2123not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2124%FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2125%usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
f1192cee 2126
a0d0e21e
LW
2127=item No such signal: SIG%s
2128
be771a83
GS
2129(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2130not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2131names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2132
2133=item Not a CODE reference
2134
2135(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2136subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2137use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2138also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2139
2140=item Not a format reference
2141
2142(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2143format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2144
2145=item Not a GLOB reference
2146
be771a83
GS
2147(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2148symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2149something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2150kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2151
2152=item Not a HASH reference
2153
be771a83
GS
2154(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2155reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2156find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2157
6df41af2
GS
2158=item Not an ARRAY reference
2159
be771a83
GS
2160(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2161a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2162to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2163
a0d0e21e
LW
2164=item Not a perl script
2165
2166(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2167even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2168mention perl.
2169
2170=item Not a SCALAR reference
2171
be771a83
GS
2172(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2173a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2174to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2175
2176=item Not a subroutine reference
2177
2178(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2179subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2180use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2181also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2182
e7ea3e70 2183=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2184
2185(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2186doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2187
a0d0e21e
LW
2188=item Not enough arguments for %s
2189
2190(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2191
6df41af2
GS
2192=item Not enough format arguments
2193
be771a83
GS
2194(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2195supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2196
2197=item %s: not found
2198
be771a83
GS
2199(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2200of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2201yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2202
2203=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2204
6df41af2
GS
2205(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2206timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2207to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2208F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2209need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2210
2211=item Null filename used
2212
be771a83
GS
2213(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2214machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2215
6df41af2
GS
2216=item NULL OP IN RUN
2217
be771a83
GS
2218(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2219pointer.
6df41af2 2220
55497cff 2221=item Null picture in formline
2222
2223(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2224specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2225supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2226
a0d0e21e
LW
2227=item Null realloc
2228
2229(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2230
2231=item NULL regexp argument
2232
5f05dabc 2233(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2234
2235=item NULL regexp parameter
2236
2237(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2238
fc36a67e 2239=item Number too long
2240
be771a83
GS
2241(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2242about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2243versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2244the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2245"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2246
6df41af2
GS
2247=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2248
be771a83
GS
2249(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2250The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2251future version.
6df41af2 2252
252aa082
JH
2253=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2254
75b44862 2255(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2256(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2257L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2258
2259See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2260
1930e939 2261=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2262
be771a83
GS
2263(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2264which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2265
bbce6d69 2266=item Offset outside string
2267
2268(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
be771a83
GS
2269pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2270exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2271the buffer and zero pad the new area.
bbce6d69 2272
9ddeeac9
JH
2273=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2274
2275(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2276that isn't open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2277
2dd78f96
JH
2278=item %s() on unopened %s %s
2279
2280(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2281never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2282call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2283
a0d0e21e
LW
2284=item oops: oopsAV
2285
e476b1b5 2286(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2287
2288=item oops: oopsHV
2289
e476b1b5 2290(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2291
56f7f34b 2292=item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2293
be771a83
GS
2294(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2295handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2296of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2297C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2298
748a9306
LW
2299=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2300
be771a83
GS
2301(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2302was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2303use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2304example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2305"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2306
6df41af2
GS
2307=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2308
be771a83
GS
2309(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2310in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2311
a80b8354
GS
2312=item Out of memory!
2313
2314(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2315remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2316no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2317
6df41af2 2318=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2319
6df41af2
GS
2320(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2321remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2322the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2323possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2324
1b979e0a 2325=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2326
be771a83
GS
2327(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2328insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2329request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2330
2331The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2332depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2333However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2334emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2335is trappable I<once>.
55497cff 2336
1b979e0a
IZ
2337=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2338
2339(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2340is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2341C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2342
6df41af2
GS
2343=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2344
be771a83
GS
2345(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2346parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2347otherwise.
6df41af2
GS
2348
2349=item @ outside of string
2350
2351(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2352the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2353
2354=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2355
be771a83
GS
2356(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2357package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2358some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2359mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 2360
a0d0e21e
LW
2361=item page overflow
2362
be771a83
GS
2363(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2364page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 2365
6df41af2
GS
2366=item panic: %s
2367
2368(P) An internal error.
2369
a0d0e21e
LW
2370=item panic: ck_grep
2371
2372(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2373
2374=item panic: ck_split
2375
2376(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2377
2378=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2379
be771a83
GS
2380(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2381there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 2382
810b8aa5
GS
2383=item panic: del_backref
2384
2385(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2386reference.
2387
a0d0e21e
LW
2388=item panic: die %s
2389
2390(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2391it wasn't an eval context.
2392
2393=item panic: do_match
2394
be771a83
GS
2395(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2396data.
a0d0e21e
LW
2397
2398=item panic: do_split
2399
2400(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2401
2402=item panic: do_subst
2403
be771a83
GS
2404(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2405data.
a0d0e21e
LW
2406
2407=item panic: do_trans
2408
be771a83
GS
2409(P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational
2410data.
a0d0e21e 2411
c635e13b 2412=item panic: frexp
2413
2414(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2415
a0d0e21e
LW
2416=item panic: goto
2417
2418(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2419and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2420
2421=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2422
2423(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2424
2425=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2426
2427(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2428
e446cec8
IZ
2429=item panic: kid popen errno read
2430
2431(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2432
a0d0e21e
LW
2433=item panic: last
2434
2435(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2436it wasn't a block context.
2437
2438=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2439
be771a83
GS
2440(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2441scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
2442
2443=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2444
2445(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2446invalid enum on the top of it.
2447
810b8aa5
GS
2448=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2449
2450(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2451references to an object.
2452
6df41af2
GS
2453=item panic: malloc
2454
2455(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2456
a0d0e21e
LW
2457=item panic: mapstart
2458
2459(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2460
2461=item panic: null array
2462
2463(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2464
2465=item panic: pad_alloc
2466
2467(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2468and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2469
2470=item panic: pad_free curpad
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 po
2476
2477(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2478
2479=item panic: pad_reset curpad
2480
2481(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2482and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2483
2484=item panic: pad_sv po
2485
2486(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2487
2488=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2489
2490(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2491and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2492
2493=item panic: pad_swipe po
2494
2495(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2496
2497=item panic: pp_iter
2498
2499(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2500
2501=item panic: realloc
2502
2503(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2504
2505=item panic: restartop
2506
2507(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2508didn't supply the destination.
2509
2510=item panic: return
2511
2512(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2513then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2514
2515=item panic: scan_num
2516
2517(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2518
2519=item panic: sv_insert
2520
2521(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2522was string.
2523
2524=item panic: top_env
2525
6224f72b 2526(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e
LW
2527
2528=item panic: yylex
2529
2530(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2531
dea0fc0b
JH
2532=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2533
2534(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2535to even) byte length.
2536
7b8d334a 2537=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 2538
e476b1b5 2539(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
2540
2541 my $foo, $bar = @_;
2542
2543when you meant
2544
2545 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2546
54884818 2547Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 2548
75b44862 2549=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
a0d0e21e 2550
be771a83
GS
2551(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2552recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2553you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2554
6df41af2
GS
2555=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2556
2557(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 2558C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2
GS
2559
2560=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2561
2562(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2563
2564 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2565 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2566 LC_ALL = "En_US",
2567 LANG = (unset)
2568 are supported and installed on your system.
2569 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2570
2571Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2572settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2573This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your system
2574administrator have set up the so-called variable system but Perl could
2575not use those settings. This was not dead serious, fortunately: there
be771a83
GS
2576is a "default locale" called "C" that Perl can and will use, the script
2577will be run. Before you really fix the problem, however, you will get
2578the same error message each time you run Perl. How to really fix the
2579problem can be found in L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 2580
a0d0e21e
LW
2581=item Permission denied
2582
2583(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2584
bd3fa61c 2585=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 2586
be771a83
GS
2587(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2588process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2589fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 2590
a0d0e21e
LW
2591=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2592
81777298 2593(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
a0d0e21e
LW
2594the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2595
bbce6d69 2596=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2597
e476b1b5 2598(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 2599strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
2600literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2601parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2602
774d564b 2603You probably wrote something like this:
2604
54310121 2605 @list = qw(
774d564b 2606 a # a comment
bbce6d69 2607 b # another comment
774d564b 2608 );
bbce6d69 2609
2610when you should have written this:
2611
774d564b 2612 @list = qw(
54310121 2613 a
2614 b
774d564b 2615 );
2616
2617If you really want comments, build your list the
2618old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2619
2620 @list = (
2621 'a', # a comment
2622 'b', # another comment
2623 );
bbce6d69 2624
2625=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2626
be771a83
GS
2627(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2628commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2629different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2630frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2631
54310121 2632You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 2633
774d564b 2634 qw! a, b, c !;
2635
2636which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2637commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 2638
774d564b 2639 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 2640
a0d0e21e
LW
2641=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2642
2643(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2644Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2645end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2646Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2647
6df41af2
GS
2648=item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2649
2650(W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2651could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2652
8cd79558
GS
2653=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2654
4375e838 2655(W deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
2656
2657 sub doit
2658 {
2659 use attrs qw(locked);
2660 }
2661
2662You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2663
2664 sub doit : locked
2665 {
2666 ...
2667
2668The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2669backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2670
a0d0e21e
LW
2671=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2672
e476b1b5 2673(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 2674
a0d0e21e
LW
2675 open FOO || die;
2676
2677is now misinterpreted as
2678
2679 open(FOO || die);
2680
be771a83
GS
2681because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2682list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2683parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2684of "||".
a0d0e21e 2685
3cdd684c
TP
2686=item Premature end of script headers
2687
2688See Server error.
2689
6df41af2
GS
2690=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2691
be771a83
GS
2692(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2693before now. Check your logic flow.
6df41af2 2694
9a7dcd9c 2695=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2696
be771a83
GS
2697(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2698before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2699
6df41af2 2700=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 2701
6df41af2
GS
2702(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2703applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2704port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2705L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 2706in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 2707
3fe9a6f1 2708=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 2709
be771a83
GS
2710(S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2711declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 2712
9baa0206
HS
2713=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d at {#} mark in regex %s
2714
2715(F) There is an upper limit to the number of allowed repetitions in the {,}
2716regular expression construct.
2717
2718=item Quantifier follows nothing in rgexp
2719
2720(F) Quantifiers like * are suffixes, they quantify something preceding them.
2721
89ea2908
GA
2722=item Range iterator outside integer range
2723
2724(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2725are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
2726One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2727by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 2728
9a7dcd9c 2729=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2730
75b44862
GS
2731(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2732before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2733
6df41af2
GS
2734=item Reallocation too large: %lx
2735
2736(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2737
4ad56ec9
IZ
2738=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2739
be771a83
GS
2740(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2741already been freed.
4ad56ec9 2742
a0d0e21e
LW
2743=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2744
be771a83
GS
2745(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2746the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
2747which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2748
3e0ccd42 2749=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e
LW
2750
2751(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2752an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2753
7a4340ed 2754=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 2755
be771a83
GS
2756(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2757a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2758hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 2759
1930e939
TP
2760=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2761
be771a83
GS
2762(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2763with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2764means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2765parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
2766
2767 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2768 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2769 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2770 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2771
810b8aa5
GS
2772=item Reference is already weak
2773
e476b1b5 2774(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
2775Doing so has no effect.
2776
a0d0e21e
LW
2777=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2778
be771a83
GS
2779(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2780a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 2781
9baa0206
HS
2782=item Reference to nonexistent group
2783
2784(F) In a regexp you tried to reference (\1, \2, ...) a group that
2785doesn't exist. Count your parentheses.
2786
a0d0e21e
LW
2787=item regexp memory corruption
2788
2789(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2790expression compiler gave it.
2791
6df41af2
GS
2792=item regexp *+ operand could be empty
2793
be771a83
GS
2794(F) The part of the regexp subject to either the * or + quantifier could
2795match an empty string.
6df41af2 2796
a0d0e21e
LW
2797=item regexp out of space
2798
be771a83
GS
2799(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2800earlier.
a0d0e21e 2801
7a95317d
GS
2802=item Repeat count in pack overflows
2803
be771a83
GS
2804(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2805signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7a95317d
GS
2806
2807=item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2808
be771a83
GS
2809(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2810signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
7a95317d 2811
a0d0e21e
LW
2812=item Reversed %s= operator
2813
be771a83
GS
2814(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2815always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e
LW
2816
2817=item Runaway format
2818
2819(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2820produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2821199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2822themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2823shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2824
2825=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2826
be771a83
GS
2827(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2828single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2829value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2830behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2831argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2832and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2833if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 2834
748a9306 2835On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 2836element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
2837Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2838L<perlref>.
2839
a6006777 2840=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2841
75b44862 2842(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
2843element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2844(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2845like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2846argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2847and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2848if you're expecting only one subscript.
2849
2850On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2851as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2852not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 2853L<perlref>.
2854
a0d0e21e
LW
2855=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2856
54310121 2857(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2858or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e
LW
2859
2860=item Search pattern not terminated
2861
2862(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2863construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 2864Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 2865
9ddeeac9 2866=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 2867
be771a83
GS
2868(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2869filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e
LW
2870
2871=item select not implemented
2872
2873(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2874
6df41af2 2875=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 2876
75b44862
GS
2877(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2878semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
2879
2880=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2881
be771a83
GS
2882(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2883scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 2884
6df41af2 2885=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 2886
6df41af2 2887(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 2888
69282e91 2889=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2890
be771a83
GS
2891(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
2892before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 2893
1b1626e4 2894=item Sequence (? incomplete
7b8d334a 2895
be771a83
GS
2896(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. See
2897L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 2898
a0d0e21e
LW
2899=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2900
2901(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2902but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2903
2904=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2905
2906(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2907See L<perlre>.
2908
6df41af2
GS
2909=item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2910
2911(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2912parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2913
2914=item 500 Server error
2915
2916See Server error.
2917
a5f75d66
AD
2918=item Server error
2919
3cdd684c 2920This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
2921to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
2922varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
2923are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
2924contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
2925produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 2926
2927B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2928
be771a83
GS
2929You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
2930user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
2931account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
2932(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
2933location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
2934Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 2935
be94a901
GS
2936 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
2937 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
9607fc9c 2938 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2939 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2940 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
a5f75d66 2941
be94a901
GS
2942You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
2943
a0d0e21e
LW
2944=item setegid() not implemented
2945
be771a83
GS
2946(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
2947support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2948didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
2949
2950=item seteuid() not implemented
2951
be771a83
GS
2952(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
2953support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2954didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 2955
81777298
GS
2956=item setpgrp can't take arguments
2957
be771a83
GS
2958(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
2959arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
2960group ID.
81777298 2961
a0d0e21e
LW
2962=item setrgid() not implemented
2963
be771a83
GS
2964(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
2965support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2966didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
2967
2968=item setruid() not implemented
2969
be771a83
GS
2970(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
2971support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
2972didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 2973
6df41af2
GS
2974=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
2975
be771a83
GS
2976(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2977forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2978L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
2979
a0d0e21e
LW
2980=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2981
be771a83
GS
2982(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
2983world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e
LW
2984
2985=item shm%s not implemented
2986
2987(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2988
6df41af2
GS
2989=item <> should be quotes
2990
2991(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
2992C<require 'file'>.
2993
2994=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
2995
2996(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
2997as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
2998result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
2999probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 3000
69282e91 3001=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3002
75b44862
GS
3003(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3004superfluous.
a0d0e21e 3005
f86702cc 3006=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 3007
be771a83
GS
3008(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3009Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e
LW
3010
3011=item sort is now a reserved word
3012
3013(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3014But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3015
3016=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3017
3018(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
c47ff5f1 3019it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e
LW
3020See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3021
3022=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3023
3024(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3025or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3026
3027=item Split loop
3028
be771a83
GS
3029(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3030iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3031happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 3032
a0d0e21e
LW
3033=item Statement unlikely to be reached
3034
be771a83
GS
3035(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3036die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3037unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3038instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3039a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 3040
9ddeeac9 3041=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 3042
355b1299
JH
3043(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3044was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 3045
17feb5d5
DD
3046=item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
3047
be771a83
GS
3048(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3049it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3050quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3051"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3052C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
17feb5d5 3053
7a4340ed 3054=item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
e7ea3e70 3055
be771a83
GS
3056(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3057stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3058C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 3059
a0d0e21e
LW
3060=item Subroutine %s redefined
3061
e476b1b5 3062(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
3063
3064 {
4438c4b7 3065 no warnings;
a0d0e21e
LW
3066 eval "sub name { ... }";
3067 }
3068
3069=item Substitution loop
3070
be771a83
GS
3071(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3072shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3073is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5f05dabc 3074L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
3075
3076=item Substitution pattern not terminated
3077
3078(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3079construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3080Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3081
3082=item Substitution replacement not terminated
3083
3084(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3085construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3086Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3087
3088=item substr outside of string
3089
be771a83
GS
3090(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3091a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3092length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3093substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3094assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 3095
f86702cc 3096=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
a0d0e21e 3097
be771a83
GS
3098(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3099a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
a0d0e21e 3100
85ab1d1d
JH
3101=item switching effective %s is not implemented
3102
be771a83
GS
3103(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3104and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 3105
a0d0e21e
LW
3106=item syntax error
3107
3108(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3109
3110 A keyword is misspelled.
3111 A semicolon is missing.
3112 A comma is missing.
3113 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3114 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3115 A closing quote is missing.
3116
3117Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3118error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3119The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3120it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 3121before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
3122Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3123the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3124C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
be771a83
GS
3125if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3126questions>.
a0d0e21e 3127
cb1a09d0
AD
3128=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3129
be771a83
GS
3130(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3131of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3132yourself.
cb1a09d0 3133
6df41af2
GS
3134=item %s syntax OK
3135
3136(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3137
6087ac44 3138=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 3139
6087ac44
JH
3140(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3141"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3142machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3143unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 3144
69282e91 3145=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3146
be771a83
GS
3147(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3148before now. Check your logic flow.
a0d0e21e 3149
fc36a67e 3150=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3151
be771a83
GS
3152(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3153for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 3154
9ddeeac9 3155=item tell() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3156
be771a83
GS
3157(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3158was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3159
a0d0e21e
LW
3160=item That use of $[ is unsupported
3161
be771a83
GS
3162(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3163as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e
LW
3164
3165 $[ = 0;
3166 $[ = 1;
3167 ...
3168 local $[ = 0;
3169 local $[ = 1;
3170 ...
3171
be771a83
GS
3172This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3173from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
a0d0e21e 3174
f86702cc 3175=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
3176
3177(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3178probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 3179think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
3180will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3181will deny it.
3182
6df41af2
GS
3183=item The %s function is unimplemented
3184
3185The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3186to the probings of Configure.
3187
a0d0e21e
LW
3188=item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
3189
be771a83
GS
3190(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3191linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3192past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3193instead.
a0d0e21e 3194
437784d6 3195=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
3196
3197=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3198
75b44862 3199(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
3200element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3201wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3202need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3203F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3204target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
3205%ENV which produced the warning.
3206
a0d0e21e
LW
3207=item times not implemented
3208
be771a83
GS
3209(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3210suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e
LW
3211
3212=item Too few args to syscall
3213
3214(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3215system call to call, silly dilly.
3216
9607fc9c 3217=item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3218
3219(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
8cc95fdb 3220B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3221This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3222script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3223So Perl gives up.
f86702cc 3224
9607fc9c 3225If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
be771a83
GS
3226mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3227editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3228argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
f86702cc 3229
9607fc9c 3230If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3231B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
f86702cc 3232
8cc95fdb 3233=item Too late for "-%s" option
3234
3235(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3236B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3237are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3238
ddda08b7
GS
3239=item Too late to run %s block
3240
3241(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3242when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
3243loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3244instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3245BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 3246
a0d0e21e
LW
3247=item Too many args to syscall
3248
5f05dabc 3249(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
3250
3251=item Too many arguments for %s
3252
3253(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3254
6df41af2
GS
3255=item Too many )'s
3256
be771a83
GS
3257(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3258Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3259
3260=item Too many ('s
3261
a0d0e21e
LW
3262=item trailing \ in regexp
3263
be771a83
GS
3264(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3265Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3266
2c268ad5 3267=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
3268
3269(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 3270or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3271C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3272
2c268ad5 3273=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
3274
3275(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3276construct.
3277
3278=item truncate not implemented
3279
3280(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3281Configure knows about.
3282
3283=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3284
3285(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 3286certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3287%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
3288{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3289
3290=item umask: argument is missing initial 0
3291
e476b1b5 3292(W umask) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal
eec2d3df
GS
3293literals always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
3294
3295=item umask not implemented
3296
be771a83
GS
3297(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3298use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 3299
4633a7c4
LW
3300=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3301
3302(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3303
a0d0e21e
LW
3304=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3305
be771a83
GS
3306(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3307many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
3308
3309=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3310
be771a83
GS
3311(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3312many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
3313
3314=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3315
be771a83
GS
3316(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3317many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
3318
3319=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3320
be771a83
GS
3321(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3322many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
3323
3324=item Undefined format "%s" called
3325
3326(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3327another package? See L<perlform>.
3328
3329=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3330
be771a83
GS
3331(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3332Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3333
3334=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3335
be771a83
GS
3336(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3337since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
3338
3339=item Undefined subroutine called
3340
3341(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3342or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3343
3344=item Undefined subroutine in sort
3345
be771a83
GS
3346(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3347to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 3348
4633a7c4
LW
3349=item Undefined top format "%s" called
3350
3351(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3352another package? See L<perlform>.
3353
20408e3c
GS
3354=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3355
be771a83
GS
3356(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3357C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3358C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 3359
6df41af2
GS
3360=item %s: Undefined variable
3361
be771a83
GS
3362(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3363Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 3364
a0d0e21e
LW
3365=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3366
3367(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3368representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3369
3370=item Unknown BYTEORDER
3371
be771a83
GS
3372(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3373order.
a0d0e21e 3374
6170680b
IZ
3375=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3376
437784d6 3377(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1
GS
3378of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3379C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
6170680b 3380
f675dbe5
CB
3381=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3382
3383(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3384iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3385data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3386subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3387
6df41af2
GS
3388=item unmatched [] in regexp
3389
3390(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83
GS
3391include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3392first. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 3393
a0d0e21e
LW
3394=item unmatched () in regex