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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
fa816bf3 26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
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27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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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
de42a5a9 53=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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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
7c7af292 88(S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
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89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
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92=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
93
7c7af292 94(S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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95bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
96(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
97like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
98assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
99clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
100really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 101
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102=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
103
104(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
105asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
106named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 107the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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108function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
109and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
110
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111=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
112
113=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 114
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115(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
116the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
1172 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
118might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
119foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
120that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
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121
122In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
123to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
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124C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
125by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
126want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
127unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
128that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
129off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 130
bdac9d71 131=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
397d0f13 132
7c7af292 133(S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
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134string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
135the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
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136write C<-foo()>.
137
6df41af2 138=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 139
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140(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
141redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
142redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 143
6df41af2 144=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 145
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146(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
147redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
148into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
149though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
150which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 151
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152 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
153 while (<STDIN>) {
154 print;
155 print OUT;
156 }
157 close OUT;
c9f97d15 158
6df41af2 159=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 160
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161(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
162transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 163one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 164a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
165hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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166you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
167alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 168
6df41af2 169=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 170
6df41af2 171(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 172
b0fdf69e 173=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 174
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175(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
176subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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177
178 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 179 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 180 &do_something
a0d0e21e 181
8ea97a1e 182=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 183
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184(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
185such as:
5f05dabc 186
187 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 188 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 189
8ea97a1e 190or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 191
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192 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
193 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 194
6df41af2 195=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 196
6df41af2 197(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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198name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
199error.
a0d0e21e 200
f86702cc 201=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 202
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203(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
204that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
205will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 206
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207=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
208
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209(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
210system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
211take care of transforming data between external and internal
212representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
213point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
214didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
215result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 216
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217=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
218
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219(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
220spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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221
222=item assertion botched: %s
223
21b5e840 224(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
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225
226=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
227
21b5e840 228(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 229
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230=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
231
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232(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
233the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 234
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235=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
236
237(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
238must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
239know which context to supply to the right side.
240
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241=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
242
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243(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily
244the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
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245Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
246created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
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247thread. See L<threads>.
248
2393f1b9 249=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 250
49293501 251(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 252the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 253
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254=item Attempt to bless into a reference
255
256(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 257the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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258supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
259
260 bless $self, $proto;
261
262when you intended
263
264 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
265
266If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
267of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
268example by:
269
270 bless $self, "$proto";
271
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272=item Attempt to clear deleted array
273
274(S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
275Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
276can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
277callback on the array.
278
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279=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
280
281(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
282which is not in its key set.
283
284=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
285
286(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
287declared readonly from a restricted hash.
288
de42a5a9 289=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 290
f84fe999 291(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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292that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
293outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 294
12578ffb 295=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 296
f84fe999 297(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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298strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
299strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
300of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 301
7d5b40b4 302=item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 303
f84fe999 304(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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305free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
306SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
307free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
308try to free it.
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309
310=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
311
f84fe999 312(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e 313
7d5b40b4 314=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 315
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316(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
317see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
318earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
319This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
320that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
321mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
322corrupted.
a0d0e21e 323
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324=item Attempt to join self
325
326(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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327impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
328to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 329
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330=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
331
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332(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
333function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
334means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
335invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
336literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
337avoid this warning.
84902520 338
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339=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
340
341(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
342compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
343unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
344L<perlvar/%INC>.
345
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346=item Attempt to set length of freed array
347
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348(W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
349been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
350scalar representing the last index of an array and later
351assigning through that reference. For example
1b20cd17
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352
353 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
354 $$r = 503
355
b7a902f4 356=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
357
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358(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
359used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
360dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 361
c32124fe
NC
362=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
363
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FC
364(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
365"locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
366obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
367will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
c32124fe 368
f1a3ce43
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369=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
370
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371(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
372the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
373The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
374will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
f1a3ce43 375
ccce04a4
FC
376=item av_reify called on tied array
377
378(S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
379confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
380
de42a5a9 381=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 382
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383(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
384or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 385S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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386S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
387
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388=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
389
496a33f5 390(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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391substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
392most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
393
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394=item Bad filehandle: %s
395
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396(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
397symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
398open(), or did it in another package.
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399
400=item Bad free() ignored
401
be771a83 402(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
fa816bf3 403been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 404setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 405
9ea8bc6d 406This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 407dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 408which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 409
aa689395 410=item Bad hash
411
412(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
413
6df41af2
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414=item Badly placed ()'s
415
416(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
417of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
418Perl yourself.
419
a7cb8dae 420=item Bad name after %s
a0d0e21e 421
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422(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
423didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
424of quotes, so
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425
426 $var = 'myvar';
427 $sym = mypack::$var;
428
429is not the same as
430
431 $var = 'myvar';
432 $sym = "mypack::$var";
433
88e1f1a2
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434=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
435
436(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
437plugin API.
438
4ad56ec9
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439=item Bad realloc() ignored
440
6903afa2
FC
441(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
442had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
443be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 444
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445=item Bad symbol for array
446
447(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
448wasn't a symbol table entry.
449
4df3f177
SP
450=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
451
452(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
453that wasn't a symbol table entry.
454
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455=item Bad symbol for filehandle
456
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457(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
458that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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459
460=item Bad symbol for hash
461
462(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
463wasn't a symbol table entry.
464
34d09196
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465=item Bareword found in conditional
466
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467(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
468conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
469of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
470
471 open FOO || die;
472
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473It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
474a bareword:
34d09196
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475
476 use constant TYPO => 1;
477 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
478
479The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
480
6df41af2
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481=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
482
483(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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484subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
485symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
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486
487=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
488
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489(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
490compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
491you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 492
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493=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
494
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495(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
496subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
497exited.
a0d0e21e 498
68dc0745 499=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
500
501(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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502implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
503occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
504be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
505depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 506
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507=item \1 better written as $1
508
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509(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
510The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
511substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
512because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
513there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 514
252aa082
JH
515=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
516
e476b1b5 517(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
518(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
519L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 520
69282e91 521=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 522
be771a83
GS
523(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
524check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 525
c289d2f7
JH
526=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
527
528(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 529Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 530
f866a7cd
FC
531=item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
532
533=item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
534
535(W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
536C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
537itself in a future release.
538
c5a0f51a
JH
539=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
540
e476b1b5 541(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 542
043c750c 543=item Bizarre copy of %s
4633a7c4 544
be771a83 545(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
4dcecea4 546copiable.
4633a7c4 547
f675dbe5
CB
548=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
549
be771a83
GS
550(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
551iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
552which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 553
7fcfef4d
FC
554=item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
555
556(P) When starting a new thread or return values from a thread, Perl
557encountered an invalid data type.
558
a0d0e21e
LW
559=item Callback called exit
560
4929bf7b 561(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
562exited by calling exit.
563
6df41af2 564=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 565
be771a83
GS
566(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
567parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
568that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
569early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
570subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
571checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
572function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
573the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 574
49704364 575=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
576
577(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
578compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
579attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
580See L<perlfunc/pack>.
581
49704364 582=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
583
584(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
585format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
586
5c1f4d79
NC
587=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
588
6903afa2
FC
589(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
590in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
591The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
592no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 593
4040665a 594=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
595
596(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 597be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 598
b5d97229
RGS
599=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
600
601(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
602either with open() or binmode().
603
7355df7e
FC
604=item Cannot set tied @DB::args
605
606(F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
607is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
608
ce65bc73
FC
609=item Cannot tie unreifiable array
610
611(P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
612keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
613do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
614Perl code, but are only used internally.
615
96ebfdd7
RK
616=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
617
618(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
619integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
620to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
621
a0d0e21e
LW
622=item Can't bless non-reference value
623
624(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
625encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
626
dc57907a
RGS
627=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
628
0d863452 629(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
6903afa2 630a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
0d863452
RH
631
632=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 633
0d863452
RH
634(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
635
6df41af2
GS
636=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
637
638(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
639object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
640like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
641
642 $BADREF = undef;
643 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
644 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
645
a0d0e21e
LW
646=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
647
54310121 648(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
649ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
650didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
651object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
652
653=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
654
655(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
656object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
657defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
658Something like this will reproduce the error:
659
660 $BADREF = 42;
661 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
662 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
663
a0d0e21e
LW
664=item Can't chdir to %s
665
666(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
667that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
668
0545a864 669=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 670
be771a83
GS
671(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
672nosuid.
104d25b7 673
22e74366 674=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
675
676(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 677(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
678say things like:
679
680 *foo += 1;
681
682You CAN say
683
684 $foo = *foo;
685 $foo += 1;
686
687but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
688
0d863452 689=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 690
0d863452
RH
691(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
692or C<default> block.
693
a0d0e21e
LW
694=item Can't create pipe mailbox
695
be771a83
GS
696(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
697quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 698
eb64745e
GS
699=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
700
30c282f6
NC
701(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
702"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 703
fc7debfb
FC
704=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
705
706(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
707C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
708issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
709error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
710
6df41af2
GS
711=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
712
be771a83
GS
713(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
714a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 715
a0d0e21e
LW
716=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
717
be771a83
GS
718(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
719reason.
a0d0e21e 720
54310121 721=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 722
be771a83
GS
723(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
724reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
725C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 726
10f9c03d 727=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 728
e476b1b5 729(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
730characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
731inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 732
7253e4e3 733=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 734
6903afa2
FC
735(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
736want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The
737<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
738was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 739
a0d0e21e
LW
740=item Can't do waitpid with flags
741
be771a83
GS
742(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
743waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 744
a0d0e21e
LW
745=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
746
be771a83
GS
747(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
748point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
749line.
a0d0e21e 750
1109a392
MHM
751=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
752
753(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
754or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
755little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
756See L<perlfunc/pack>.
757
a0d0e21e
LW
758=item Can't exec "%s": %s
759
d1be9408 760(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
761named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
762permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
763C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
764architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
765can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
766#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
767
768=item Can't exec %s
769
be771a83
GS
770(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
771that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
772need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
773
774=item Can't execute %s
775
be771a83
GS
776(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
777found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 778
6df41af2 779=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 780
be771a83
GS
781(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
782is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 783
56ca2fc0
JH
784=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
785
786(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
6903afa2 787could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
e1b711da
KW
788See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
789for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 790
6df41af2
GS
791=item Can't find label %s
792
be771a83
GS
793(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
794possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
795
796=item Can't find %s on PATH
797
be771a83
GS
798(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
799found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 800
6df41af2 801=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 802
be771a83
GS
803(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
804found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
805script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
806
807=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
808
be771a83
GS
809(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
810that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
811nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 812
fb73857a 813 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
814
97b3d10f 815If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
816included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
817may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
818a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
819L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 820
660a4616
TS
821=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
822
5f8ad6b6
FC
823(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
824property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
fa816bf3 825letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
e1b711da 826L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
6903afa2 827for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
fa816bf3
FC
828mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by
829C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
5f8ad6b6 830until C<\E>).
660a4616 831
b3647a36 832=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 833
be771a83
GS
834(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
835pipeline.
a0d0e21e 836
b3647a36
SR
837=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
838
c973c02e 839(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
840after five seconds.
841
748a9306
LW
842=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
843
be771a83
GS
844(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
845between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
846Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
847the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
848account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
849the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 850the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
851the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
852if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
853because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
854appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
855and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
856routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
857shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
858only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 859
a0d0e21e
LW
860=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
861
be771a83
GS
862(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
863pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
864
865=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
866
748a9306
LW
867(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
868mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 869
6df41af2 870=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 871
be771a83
GS
872(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
873loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
874
875=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
876
be771a83
GS
877(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
878a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
879you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
880See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 881
9850bf21 882=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 883
9850bf21
RH
884(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
885comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
886as the reduce() function in List::Util).
887
c74ace89 888=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 889
be771a83 890(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 891"string" or block.
b150fb22 892
6df41af2
GS
893=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
894
be771a83
GS
895(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
896subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
897cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
898routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 899
0b5b802d
GS
900=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
901
be771a83
GS
902(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
903signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
904signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
905processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
906situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
907may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 908
e2c0f81f
DG
909=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
910
911(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
912attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
913process identifier.
914
6df41af2 915=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 916
6df41af2 917(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
918except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
919block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
920block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
921usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
922inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
923L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 924
2c7d6b9c
RGS
925=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
926
927(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
928package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
929
b8170e59
JB
930=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
931
6903afa2
FC
932(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
933This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
934that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
935to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
936dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
937that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
938dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 939
748a9306
LW
940=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
941
2ba9eb46 942(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
943lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
944want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
945the package name.
748a9306 946
6df41af2 947=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 948
6df41af2
GS
949(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
950handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 951pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 952that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 953
ea071790 954=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a 955
fa816bf3
FC
956(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
957Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
958the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
959to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
960extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
be771a83
GS
961to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
962L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 963
6df41af2
GS
964=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
965
be771a83
GS
966(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
967autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
968are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
969the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 970
b8170e59
JB
971=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
972
973(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 974for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
975unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
976
a0d0e21e
LW
977=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
978
979(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
980functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 981method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
982
983=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
984
be771a83
GS
985(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
986doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 987
2f7da168
RK
988=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
989
990(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
991e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
992
f4ad53f4 993=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 994
be771a83
GS
995(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
996VMS.
3e3baf6d 997
a0d0e21e
LW
998=item Can't modify %s in %s
999
be771a83
GS
1000(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1001to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 1002
54310121 1003=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
1004
1005(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1006a NULL.
1007
6df41af2
GS
1008=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
1009
1010(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 1011such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 1012
5f05dabc 1013=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 1014
5f05dabc 1015(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1016buffer.
1017
6df41af2
GS
1018=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1019
1020(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1021there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1022count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1023grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1024though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1025once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1026
46fa9b26
FC
1027=item Can't open %s
1028
1029(F) You tried to run a perl built with MAD support with
1030the PERL_XMLDUMP environment variable set, but the file
1031named by that variable could not be opened.
1032
a0d0e21e
LW
1033=item Can't open %s: %s
1034
c47ff5f1 1035(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e 1036filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
46fa9b26
FC
1037switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1038this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1039you named on the command line.
1040
1041(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1042your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
a0d0e21e 1043
9a869a14
RGS
1044=item Can't open a reference
1045
1046(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1047using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1048
1049 open FH, '>', $ref;
1050
1051but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1052open is not supported.
1053
a0d0e21e
LW
1054=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1055
be771a83
GS
1056(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1057You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1058as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1059">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1060
748a9306
LW
1061=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1062
be771a83
GS
1063(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1064redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1065the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1066
1067=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1068
be771a83
GS
1069(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1070redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1071command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1072
1073=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1074
be771a83
GS
1075(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1076redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1077the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1078
1079=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1080
be771a83
GS
1081(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1082redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1083for stdout.
748a9306 1084
3b1cf97d 1085=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1086
1087(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1088
fa3aa65a
JC
1089If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1090shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1091you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1092
6df41af2
GS
1093=item Can't read CRTL environ
1094
1095(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1096from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1097missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1098or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1099searched.
6df41af2 1100
6df41af2
GS
1101=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1102
1103(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1104there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1105count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1106or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1107though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1108loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1109
64977eb6 1110=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1111
be771a83
GS
1112(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1113file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1114the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1115
a0d0e21e
LW
1116=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1117
e476b1b5 1118(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1119probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1120
748a9306
LW
1121=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1122
be771a83
GS
1123(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1124to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1125
4f12ec0e
FC
1126=item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1127
1128(F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1129all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1130the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1131supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1132
fe13d51d 1133=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1134
1fa582fa
FC
1135(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1136opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1137package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1138
cd06dffe
GS
1139=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1140
be771a83
GS
1141(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1142temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1143is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1144
96ebfdd7
RK
1145=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1146
1147(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1148there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1149
78f9721b
SM
1150=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1151
6903afa2
FC
1152(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1153subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1154think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1155write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1156Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1157
a0d0e21e
LW
1158=item Can't stat script "%s"
1159
be771a83
GS
1160(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1161open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1162
a0d0e21e
LW
1163=item Can't take log of %g
1164
fb73857a 1165(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1166negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1167standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1168negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1169
1170=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1171
1172(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1173negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1174with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1175
1176=item Can't undef active subroutine
1177
1178(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1179however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1180redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1181
c81225bc 1182=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1183
be771a83
GS
1184(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1185into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1186specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1187indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1188
6651ba0b
FC
1189=item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1190
1191(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1192other than "=" after the module name.
1193
1db89ea5
BS
1194=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1195
e27ad1f2 1196(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1197table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1198for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1199
96ebfdd7
RK
1200=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1201
1202(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1203be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1204
6df41af2
GS
1205=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1206
be771a83
GS
1207(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1208references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1209
90b75b61 1210=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1211
20561843 1212(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1213Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1214provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1215
1109a392
MHM
1216=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1217
1218(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1219byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1220allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1221
6df41af2
GS
1222=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1223
be771a83
GS
1224(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1225foreach.
6df41af2 1226
aab6a793 1227=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1228
be771a83
GS
1229(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1230is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1231(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1232have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1233weren't.
1234
6d3b25aa
RGS
1235=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1236
1237(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1238that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1239For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1240is inside a big-endian group.
1241
c07a80fd 1242=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1243
1244(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1245You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1246and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1247Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1248lexical variable.
1249
a0d0e21e
LW
1250=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1251
1252(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1253reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1254test the type of the reference, if need be.
1255
748a9306 1256=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1257
b41bf23f
FC
1258(F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1259C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1260L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1261in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1262for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1263of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1264symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
a0d0e21e 1265
748a9306
LW
1266=item Can't use subscript on %s
1267
1268(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1269subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1270didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1271
6df41af2
GS
1272=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1273
75b44862
GS
1274(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1275creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1276backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1277expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1278value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1279instead.
6df41af2 1280
810b8aa5
GS
1281=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1282
1283(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1284references can be weakened.
1285
fc7debfb
FC
1286=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1287
1288(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1289loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1290from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1291or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1292
5f05dabc 1293=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1294
be771a83
GS
1295(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1296with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1297Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1298
4a68bf9d 1299=item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
f9d13529 1300
1fa582fa 1301(F)(W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
79ef86ee 1302It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.18. In the
17a3df4c
KW
1303cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1304derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1305
1306Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
f9d13529 1307
f337b084 1308=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1309
1310(W pack) You said
1311
1312 pack("C", $x)
1313
1314where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1315only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1316and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1317
1318 pack("C", $x & 255)
1319
1320If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1321instead.
1322
f337b084
TH
1323=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1324
1325(W pack) You said
1326
1327 pack("U0W", $x)
1328
6903afa2
FC
1329where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1330expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1331as if you meant:
f337b084
TH
1332
1333 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1334
1335=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1336
1337(W pack) You said
1338
1339 pack("c", $x)
1340
1341where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1342is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1343and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1344
1345 pack("c", $x & 255);
1346
1347If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1348instead.
1349
f337b084
TH
1350=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1351
1352(W unpack) You tried something like
1353
1354 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1355
1a147d38 1356where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1357below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1358value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1359
1360 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1361
1362=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1363
1364(W pack) You tried something like
1365
1366 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1367
1a147d38 1368where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1369value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1370uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1371
1372 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1373
1374=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1375
1376(W unpack) You tried something like
1377
1378 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1379
1a147d38 1380where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1381value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1382uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1383
1384 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1385
f866a7cd
FC
1386=item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1387
1388(D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1389to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1390evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
79ef86ee 1391ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.18. Just use a
f866a7cd
FC
1392semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1393
1394=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1395
1396(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1397non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1398written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1399characters.
1400
6651ba0b
FC
1401=item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1402
1403(F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1404
96ebfdd7
RK
1405=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1406
1407(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1408
abc7ecad
SP
1409=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1410
1411(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1412a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1413
541ed3a9
FC
1414=item Closure prototype called
1415
1416(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1417handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1418This subroutine cannot be called.
1419
49704364
WL
1420=item Code missing after '/'
1421
6903afa2
FC
1422(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1423another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1424
0876b9a0
KW
1425=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1426
c634fdd3 1427=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed
9ae3ac1a 1428
e2f4a215 1429(S utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1b64326b
FC
1430of U+10FFFF.
1431
1432Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1433to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1434but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1435it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1436but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
143732 bit word.
0876b9a0 1438
9ae3ac1a
KW
1439None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1440code point. For example,
1441
1442 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1443
1444will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1445
1446 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1447
1448will match.
1449
94b42e47
KW
1450This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1451
f9d4ccdc
FC
1452 chr(0x110000) =~ /\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True}/ # Fails.
1453 chr(0x110000) =~ /\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False}/ # Also fails!
94b42e47
KW
1454
1455and both these succeed:
1456
f9d4ccdc
FC
1457 chr(0x110000) =~ /\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True}/ # Succeeds.
1458 chr(0x110000) =~ /\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False}/ # Also succeeds!
94b42e47 1459
6df41af2
GS
1460=item %s: Command not found
1461
a892b81a
FC
1462(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1463shell instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
1464into Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
8f721816
MM
1465
1466 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
6df41af2 1467
7a2e2cd6 1468=item Compilation failed in require
1469
1470(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1471Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1472encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1473
c3464db5
DD
1474=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1475
be771a83
GS
1476(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1477situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1478to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1479arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1480recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1481under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1482in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1483that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1484on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1485
38875929
DM
1486=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1487
6903afa2
FC
1488(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1489call cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked.
1490The cond_broadcast() function is used to wake up another thread
1491that is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1492sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1493is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1494variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1495thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
38875929 1496
38875929
DM
1497=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1498
6903afa2
FC
1499(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1500call cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The
1501cond_signal() function is used to wake up another thread that
1502is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1503sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1504is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1505variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1506thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
38875929 1507
69282e91 1508=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1509
be771a83
GS
1510(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1511to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1512L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1513
41ab332f 1514=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1515
be771a83
GS
1516(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1517an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1518specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
fbb93542 1519corresponding L<overload> pragma?.
6df41af2 1520
fc8cd66c
YO
1521=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1522
1a147d38 1523(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
fbb93542 1524the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape.
fc8cd66c 1525
779c5bc9
GS
1526=item Constant is not %s reference
1527
1528(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1529is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1530The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1531usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1532See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1533
4cee8e80
CS
1534=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1535
aeb94125
FC
1536(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1537been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1538for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1539
9607fc9c 1540=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1541
be771a83
GS
1542(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1543for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1544workarounds.
9607fc9c 1545
e7ea3e70
IZ
1546=item Copy method did not return a reference
1547
6903afa2 1548(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1549L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1550
4aaa4757
FC
1551=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1552
1553(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1554with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1555in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1556called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1557
1558 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1559 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1560
6798c92b
GS
1561=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1562
1563(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1564
a0d0e21e
LW
1565=item corrupted regexp pointers
1566
1567(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1568expression compiler gave it.
1569
1570=item corrupted regexp program
1571
be771a83
GS
1572(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1573valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1574
de42a5a9 1575=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1576
1577(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1578
49704364
WL
1579=item Count after length/code in unpack
1580
1581(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1582you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1583L<perlfunc/pack>.
1584
6651ba0b
FC
1585=item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1586
a0d0e21e
LW
1587=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1588
be771a83
GS
1589(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1590100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1591infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1592which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1593
aad1d01f
NC
1594This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1595setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1596
f10b0346 1597=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1598
be771a83
GS
1599(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1600checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1601array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1602
f10b0346 1603=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1604
f0ec9725
KR
1605(D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1606discouraged since 5.004.
1607
1608Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1609becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1610weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1611These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1612
1613If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1614context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
16546e45
KR
1615
1616 if (%hash) {
1617 # not empty
1618 }
1619
f0ec9725
KR
1620If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1621variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1622a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1623it's loaded, etc.
1624
69794302 1625
bcb95744
FC
1626=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1627
6903afa2 1628(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1629most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1630of the C<....> part.
1631
1632The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1633discovered.
1634
62658f4d
PM
1635=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1636
1637(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1638there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1639
fc36a67e 1640=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1641
be771a83
GS
1642(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1643long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1644that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1645
4a68bf9d 1646=item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1647
1648(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
5fca8acb
FC
1649But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1650are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1651and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1652parentheses or colons.
cb233ae3 1653
6d3b25aa
RGS
1654=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1655
fa816bf3
FC
1656(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1657has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6d3b25aa 1658not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 1659conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
fa816bf3 1660static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 1661relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 1662declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1663
6d3b25aa
RGS
1664 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1665
1666becomes
1667
1668 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1669
fa816bf3
FC
1670Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to have
1671lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
36fb85f3
RGS
1672
1673 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1674
500ab966
RGS
1675=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1676
1677(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
1678just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1679than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 1680
3cdd684c
TP
1681=item Did not produce a valid header
1682
1683See Server error.
1684
6df41af2
GS
1685=item %s did not return a true value
1686
1687(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1688it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1689traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1690do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1691
cc507455 1692=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1693
413ff9f6
FC
1694(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1695some such.
4633a7c4 1696
cc507455 1697=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1698
be771a83
GS
1699(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1700variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1701seems superfluous.
33633739 1702
cc507455 1703=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1704
be771a83
GS
1705(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1706@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1707carried away.
748a9306 1708
7e1af8bc 1709=item Died
5f05dabc 1710
1711(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 1712you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 1713
3cdd684c
TP
1714=item Document contains no data
1715
1716See Server error.
1717
62658f4d
PM
1718=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1719
1720(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1721define a C<$VERSION.>
1722
49704364
WL
1723=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1724
1725(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1726See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1727
a0d0e21e
LW
1728=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1729
1730(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1731
1732=item do_study: out of memory
1733
1734(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1735
6df41af2
GS
1736=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1737
56da5a46
RGS
1738(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1739"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1740name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1741because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1742"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1743something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1744subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1745"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1746
ac206dc8
RGS
1747=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1748
1749(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1750qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1751
84d78eb7
YO
1752=item dump is not supported
1753
1754(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1755
a0d0e21e
LW
1756=item Duplicate free() ignored
1757
be771a83
GS
1758(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1759already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1760
1109a392
MHM
1761=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1762
35f0cd76
FC
1763(W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
1764type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1109a392 1765
4633a7c4
LW
1766=item elseif should be elsif
1767
fa816bf3
FC
1768(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
1769it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1770named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1771unlikely to be what you want.
1772
ab13f0c7
JH
1773=item Empty %s
1774
af6f566e 1775(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
6903afa2 1776described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
af6f566e 1777a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1778
85ab1d1d 1779=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1780
85ab1d1d 1781(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1782effective uids or gids failed.
1783
c038024b
RGS
1784=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1785
1786(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1787aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 1788program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 1789
748a9306
LW
1790=item Error converting file specification %s
1791
5f05dabc 1792(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1793specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1794single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1795an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1796conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1797
ad19ef22 1798=item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
e4d48cc9 1799
be771a83
GS
1800(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1801expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1802is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1803
ad19ef22 1804=item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
e4d48cc9 1805
be771a83
GS
1806(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1807C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
1808pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1809it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1810C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1811interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1812L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1813
ad19ef22 1814=item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 1815
be771a83
GS
1816(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1817assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1818pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1819
1a147d38
YO
1820=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1821
1822(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 1823any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38
YO
1824
1825The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1826discovered.
1827
fc36a67e 1828=item Excessively long <> operator
1829
1830(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1831Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1832filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1833variable and glob that.
1834
ed9aa3b7
SG
1835=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1836
af8bb25a 1837(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 1838OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 1839
fe13d51d 1840=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1841
1842(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1843
1844=item Exiting eval via %s
1845
be771a83
GS
1846(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1847goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1848
1849=item Exiting format via %s
1850
9a2ff54b 1851(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1852goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1853
0a753a76 1854=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1855
be771a83
GS
1856(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1857sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1858loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1859
a0d0e21e
LW
1860=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1861
be771a83
GS
1862(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1863as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1864
1865=item Exiting substitution via %s
1866
be771a83
GS
1867(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1868as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1869
7b8d334a
GS
1870=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1871
be771a83
GS
1872(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1873the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1874usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1875e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1876
6df41af2
GS
1877=item %s: Expression syntax
1878
be771a83
GS
1879(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1880Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1881
1882=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1883
3c10abe3
AG
1884(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1885CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1886queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1887
7253e4e3 1888=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1889
be771a83 1890(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1891character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1892in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1893"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1894problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1895
1b1ee2ef 1896=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1897
be771a83
GS
1898(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1899system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1900details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1901you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1902
1903=item fcntl is not implemented
1904
1905(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1906PDP-11 or something?
1907
22846ab4
AB
1908=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1909
1910(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1911is not possible.
1912
f337b084
TH
1913=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1914
1915(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
1916which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1917a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 1918C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 1919
af8c498a 1920=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1921
6c8d78fb
HS
1922(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1923it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1924"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1925write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1926
af8c498a 1927=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1928
6c8d78fb
HS
1929(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1930you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
1931with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1932read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1933is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1934output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1935
1936=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1937
1938(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 1939as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1940previously.
1941
1942=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1943
1944(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
fa816bf3 1945as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1946
1947=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1948
1949(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1950a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1951happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1952name.
a0d0e21e 1953
56e90b21
GS
1954=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1955
be771a83 1956(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1957some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1958filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1959same name?
56e90b21 1960
6df41af2
GS
1961=item Format not terminated
1962
1963(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1964to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1965
a0d0e21e
LW
1966=item Format %s redefined
1967
e476b1b5 1968(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1969
1970 {
271595cc 1971 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1972 eval "format NAME =...";
1973 }
1974
a0d0e21e
LW
1975=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1976
e476b1b5 1977(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1978
1979 if ($foo = 123)
1980
1981when you meant
1982
1983 if ($foo == 123)
1984
1985(or something like that).
1986
6df41af2
GS
1987=item %s found where operator expected
1988
56da5a46
RGS
1989(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1990If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1991operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1992operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1993
a0d0e21e
LW
1994=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1995
1996(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1997
1998=item gethostent not implemented
1999
2000(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2001because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2002on the Internet.
2003
69282e91 2004=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2005
be771a83
GS
2006(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2007socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 2008
748a9306
LW
2009=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2010
2011(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2012C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2013
6df41af2
GS
2014=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2015
be771a83
GS
2016(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2017forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2018L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2019
2020=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
2021
a4edf47d 2022(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 2023that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
2024declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2025which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 2026
e476b1b5
GS
2027=item glob failed (%s)
2028
5ead438e 2029(S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
73c4e9dc
FC
2030for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2031pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 2032nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
2033resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2034is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2035in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2036if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2037all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 2038think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 2039C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 2040
a0d0e21e
LW
2041=item Glob not terminated
2042
2043(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
2044a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2045not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2046earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 2047
bcd05b94 2048=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2049
e9200be3 2050(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2051it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2052date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2053not-a-number value).
2054
bcd05b94 2055=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2056
e9200be3 2057(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2058it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2059
6df41af2 2060=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2061
6df41af2
GS
2062(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2063version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2064
2065=item goto must have label
2066
2067(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2068unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2069
6651ba0b
FC
2070=item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2071
2072(F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2073the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2074has since been undefined.
2075
49704364 2076=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 2077
bca4a986
FC
2078(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2079something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 2080
1f4f6bf1
YO
2081=item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2082
2083(F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2084they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2085this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2086
fe13d51d 2087=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2088
2089(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2090
a0d0e21e
LW
2091=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2092
be771a83
GS
2093(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2094to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2095created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
2096
2097=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2098
be771a83
GS
2099(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2100spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 2101
6df41af2
GS
2102=item %s has too many errors
2103
2104(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2105Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2106
252aa082
JH
2107=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2108
e476b1b5 2109(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2110(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2111L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2112
82f96200
JL
2113=item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
2114
2115(S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
2116that the script is intended to edit files inplace, but no files were
0421bbaa
FC
2117given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN inplace doesn't
2118make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
2119it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
2120should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
2121line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
82f96200 2122
8903cb82 2123=item Identifier too long
2124
2125(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2126about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2127names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2128of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2129
c3c41406 2130=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 2131
20561843 2132(W) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a zero-length
6903afa2
FC
2133sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class its
2134behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
2135been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2136
6df41af2 2137=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 2138
6df41af2 2139(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2140
6df41af2 2141=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2142
be771a83
GS
2143(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2144binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2145offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2146
6597eb22
FC
2147=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2148
2149(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2150Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2151
78d0fecf 2152=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
4fdae800 2153
d5898338 2154(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2155would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2156when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2157version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2158to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2159
d37a9538
ST
2160=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2161
197afce1 2162(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2163Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
d37a9538 2164
904d85c5
RGS
2165=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2166
2167(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2168you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2169
8e742a20
MHM
2170=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2171
6903afa2 2172(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2173
a0d0e21e
LW
2174=item Illegal division by zero
2175
be771a83
GS
2176(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2177your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2178meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2179
6df41af2
GS
2180=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2181
be771a83
GS
2182(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2183A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2184number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2185
a0d0e21e
LW
2186=item Illegal modulus zero
2187
be771a83
GS
2188(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2189numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2190
6df41af2 2191=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2192
6df41af2
GS
2193(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2194two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2195
2196=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2197
d1be9408 2198(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2199
399388f4 2200=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2201
d1be9408 2202(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2203Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2204
fe13d51d 2205=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2206
6df41af2 2207(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2208following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2209
6df41af2 2210=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2211
75b44862 2212(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2213internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2214delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2215
6df41af2 2216=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2217
be771a83
GS
2218(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2219name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2220didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2221ignored.
54310121 2222
6df41af2 2223=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2224
be771a83
GS
2225(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2226the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2227system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2228times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2229would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2230
be771a83
GS
2231Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2232also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2233
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2234=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2235
2236(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2237C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2238documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2239
979699d9
JH
2240=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2241
2242(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2243Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2244encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2245
1a147d38
YO
2246=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2247
2248(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2249text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2250either consume text or fail.
2251
2252The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2253discovered.
2254
6dbe9451
NC
2255=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2256
6903afa2
FC
2257(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2258initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2259C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2260context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2261supported in a future perl release.
6dbe9451 2262
a0d0e21e
LW
2263=item Insecure dependency in %s
2264
8b1a09fc 2265(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2266The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2267setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2268tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2269from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2270such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2271L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2272
2273=item Insecure directory in %s
2274
be771a83
GS
2275(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2276setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2277the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2278See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2279
62f468fc 2280=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2281
2282(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2283setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2284C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2285supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2286the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2287
0e9be77f
DM
2288=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2289
2290(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2291expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2292function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2293See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2294
b9ef414d
FC
2295=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2296
2297(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2298or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2299integers for your architecture.
2300
a7ae9550
GS
2301=item Integer overflow in %s number
2302
35928bc5 2303(S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2304either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2305your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2306On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2307representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
23080b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2309transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2310internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2311operations.
bbce6d69 2312
fc89ca81
FC
2313=item Integer overflow in srand
2314
2315(S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2316in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2317replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2318architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2319you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2320return the same sequence of random numbers.
2321
46314c13
JP
2322=item Integer overflow in version
2323
18da5252
FC
2324=item Integer overflow in version %d
2325
784d71ed
FC
2326(W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2327the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
f084e84f 2328because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
784d71ed
FC
2329element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2330to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
46314c13 2331
7253e4e3 2332=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2333
2334(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2335The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2336discovered.
2337
748a9306
LW
2338=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2339
be771a83
GS
2340(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2341you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2342to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2343L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2344Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2345terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2346
7253e4e3 2347=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2348
fa816bf3 2349(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
7253e4e3
RK
2350<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2351discovered.
a0d0e21e 2352
6df41af2
GS
2353=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2354
75b44862 2355(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2356followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2357operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2358L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2359
09bef843
SB
2360=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2361
a4a4c9e2 2362(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
2363by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2364
2365=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2366
a4a4c9e2 2367(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 2368recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2369
c635e13b 2370=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2371
be771a83
GS
2372(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2373L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2374
9e08bc66
TS
2375=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2376
2377(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2378didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2379from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2380The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2381The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2382escape was discovered.
2383
8149aa9f
FC
2384=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2385
aec0ef10
FC
2386=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2387
8149aa9f 2388(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
2389number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
23900 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 2391
6651ba0b
FC
2392=item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2393
2394(F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2395cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2396arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2397B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2398
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2399=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2400
162a3e34
FC
2401(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2402where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2403the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2404a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 2405
40e4140b
FC
2406=item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
2407
2408(W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
2409not valid characters numbers, so it return the Unicode replacement
2410character (U+FFFD).
2411
6651ba0b
FC
2412=item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2413
8ff21bfe
FC
2414(S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
2415with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
0341637c 2416See also L<perlrun/B<-D>I<letters>>.
6651ba0b 2417
7253e4e3 2418=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2419
2420(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2421greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2422C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2423up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2424problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2425
d1573ac7 2426=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2427
2428(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2429character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2430
09bef843
SB
2431=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2432
0120eecf 2433(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2434elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2435parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2436See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2437
b4581f09
JH
2438=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2439
2bfc5f71
FC
2440(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2441than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
2442If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2443list was terminated too soon.
2444
2c86d456
DG
2445=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2446
fa816bf3 2447(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
2448A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2449decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2450v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2451The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2452See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2453
49704364 2454=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2455
49704364
WL
2456(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2457See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 2458
49704364 2459(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2460silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2461
2c86d456
DG
2462=item Invalid version format (%s)
2463
fa816bf3 2464(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
2465A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2466decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
fa816bf3
FC
2467v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2468must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2469optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2470trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2471after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2472text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2473for more details on allowed version formats.
46314c13 2474
798ae1b7
DG
2475=item Invalid version object
2476
fa816bf3
FC
2477(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2478Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2479an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
798ae1b7 2480
a0d0e21e
LW
2481=item ioctl is not implemented
2482
2483(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2484strange for a machine that supports C.
2485
c289d2f7
JH
2486=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2487
2488(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 2489Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 2490
fe13d51d 2491=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2492
2493(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 2494you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
2495with 'useperlio'.
2496
80cbd5ad
JH
2497=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2498
2499(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 2500neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 2501
b4581f09
JH
2502=item $* is no longer supported
2503
a58ac25e 2504(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
6903afa2 2505perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
a58ac25e
FC
2506previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2507matching within a string.
4fd19576
B
2508
2509Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
6903afa2
FC
2510modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2511with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
570dedd4 2512then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2513
8ae1fe26
RGS
2514=item $# is no longer supported
2515
a58ac25e 2516(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
6903afa2 2517perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
a58ac25e 2518should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
8ae1fe26 2519
ccf3535a 2520=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 2521
6903afa2
FC
2522(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2523overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2524an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 2525
ccf3535a 2526=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 2527
04a80ee0
RGS
2528(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2529unaware of.
6ad11d81 2530
aec0ef10 2531=item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
2532
2533(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2534
2535=item Label not found for "last %s"
2536
be771a83
GS
2537(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2538of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2539L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2540
2541=item Label not found for "next %s"
2542
2543(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2544that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2545L<perlfunc/last>.
2546
2547=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2548
2549(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2550that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2551L<perlfunc/last>.
2552
85ab1d1d 2553=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2554
85ab1d1d 2555(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2556effective uids or gids failed.
2557
49704364
WL
2558=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2559
d7f8936a 2560(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
2561length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2562an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 2563
e508c8a4
MH
2564=item length() used on %s
2565
0d46a4e7
FC
2566(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2567probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
2568
2569Array size can be obtained by doing:
2570
2571 scalar(@array);
2572
2573The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2574
2575 scalar(keys %hash);
2576
f0e67a1d
Z
2577=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2578
2579(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
6903afa2
FC
2580(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2581couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2582of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
2583it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
2584
2585=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2586
2587(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2588detectable way.
2589
69282e91 2590=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2591
be771a83
GS
2592(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2593to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2594L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2595
6651ba0b
FC
2596=item List form of piped open not implemented
2597
2598(F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
2599form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
2600Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
2601
bcd05b94 2602=item localtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2603
e9200be3 2604(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
fc003d4b 2605than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
6903afa2 2606wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2607not-a-number value).
2608
bcd05b94 2609=item localtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2610
e9200be3 2611(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
fc003d4b 2612than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
e7a1a147 2613wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2614
58e23c8d 2615=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2616
2617(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 2618handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2619
b88df990
NC
2620=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2621
e63e8a91
FC
2622(W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
2623is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
2624accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
2625warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
2626when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
2627insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
b88df990 2628
93fad930 2629=item lstat() on filehandle%s
2f7da168
RK
2630
2631(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2632by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2633instead on the filehandle.)
2634
345d70e3 2635=item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
bb3abb05 2636
345d70e3
FC
2637(W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
2638attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
2639does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
2640want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
2641details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
2642if you really know what you are doing.
bb3abb05 2643
885ef6f5
GG
2644=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2645
345d70e3
FC
2646(W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
2647subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
2648not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
2649add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
2650foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
2651
2652See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
885ef6f5 2653
2db62bbc 2654=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 2655
2db62bbc 2656(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2657are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2658
2659=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2660
2db62bbc 2661(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2662are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2663
6df41af2
GS
2664=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2665
2666(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2667
2668 prefix1;prefix2
2669
2670or
6df41af2
GS
2671 prefix1 prefix2
2672
be771a83
GS
2673with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2674a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2675appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2676"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2677
2f758a16
ST
2678=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2679
d37a9538
ST
2680(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2681syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2682obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2683when the function is called.
2f758a16 2684
ba210ebe
JH
2685=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2686
4d6f11e5 2687(S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2575c402 2688encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2689
2575c402
JW
2690One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2691you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
6903afa2 26928-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2575c402
JW
2693
2694If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2695sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2696set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2697message.
2698
2699See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2700
ff3f963a
KW
2701=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2702
2703(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2704
4a5d3a93
FC
2705=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2706
2707(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2708rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2709
f337b084
TH
2710=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2711
2712(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2713rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2714
2715=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2716
2717(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2718rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2719
4a5d3a93 2720=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 2721
4a5d3a93
FC
2722(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2723doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2724
2725=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2726
2727(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2728regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2729shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2730See L<perlre>.
f337b084 2731
de42a5a9 2732=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 2733
6903afa2 2734(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2735usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2736too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2737resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 2738safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 2739
25f58aea
PN
2740=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2741
2742(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2743interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2744"use" or "my".
2745
0d2487cd 2746=item '%' may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2747
2748(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2749checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2750See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2751
a0d0e21e
LW
2752=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2753
2754(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2755doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2756
3cdd684c
TP
2757=item Method %s not permitted
2758
2759See Server error.
2760
a0d0e21e
LW
2761=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2762
2763(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2764by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2765ended earlier on the current line.
2766
2767=item Misplaced _ in number
2768
d4ced10d
JH
2769(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2770separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2771
7baa4690
HS
2772=item Missing argument in %s
2773
2774(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2775supplied.
2776
9e81e6a1
RGS
2777=item Missing argument to -%c
2778
2779(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2780immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2781
ff3f963a 2782=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2783
aec0ef10
FC
2784=item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2785
4a2d328f 2786(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
2787double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2788(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2789This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2790follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 2791
f0a2b745
KW
2792=item Missing braces on \o{}
2793
2794(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2795
a0d0e21e
LW
2796=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2797
2798(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2799"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2800
06eaf0bc
GS
2801=item Missing command in piped open
2802
be771a83
GS
2803(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2804C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2805blank.
06eaf0bc 2806
961ce445
RGS
2807=item Missing control char name in \c
2808
2809(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2810character name.
2811
6df41af2
GS
2812=item Missing name in "my sub"
2813
be771a83
GS
2814(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2815they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2816
2817=item Missing $ on loop variable
2818
be771a83
GS
2819(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2820are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2821can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2822
cc507455 2823=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2824
56da5a46
RGS
2825(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2826"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2827
aec0ef10 2828=item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 2829
ff3f963a
KW
2830(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2831
4a68bf9d 2832=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 2833
d32207c9
FC
2834(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2835
2836The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2837meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
fa816bf3 2838name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
d32207c9
FC
2839double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2840it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2841
2842Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2843in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2844for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2845
2846This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2847by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2848form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2849means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
28503; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2851C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2852
2853However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2854mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2855If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2856escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2857
d98d5fff 2858=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2859
be771a83
GS
2860(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2861ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2862were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2863
6df41af2
GS
2864=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2865
56da5a46
RGS
2866(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2867"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2868the previous line just because you saw this message.
2869
a0d0e21e
LW
2870=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2871
2872(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2873constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2874catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2875
2876 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2877 mod(2);
2878
2879Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2880
c5674021
PDF
2881Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2882is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2883
b7e4ecc1
FC
2884 $x = 1;
2885 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2886 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
2887 } # modify the 2
c5674021 2888
7a4340ed 2889=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2890
2891(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2892subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2893backwards.
2894
7a4340ed 2895=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2896
be771a83
GS
2897(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2898couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2899
2900=item Module name must be constant
2901
2902(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2903
be98fb35 2904=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2905
be98fb35
GS
2906(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2907you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2908about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2909
fe13d51d 2910=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 2911
6903afa2 2912(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
2913can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2914list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2915See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2916
a0d0e21e
LW
2917=item msg%s not implemented
2918
2919(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2920
2921=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2922
75b44862
GS
2923(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2924They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2925
49704364 2926=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2927
49704364
WL
2928(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2929follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2930See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2931
2932=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2933
be771a83
GS
2934(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2935that yet.
6df41af2 2936
fd1b7234 2937=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2938
be771a83
GS
2939(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2940sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2941local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2942
8149aa9f
FC
2943=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2944
2945(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2946If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2947again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2948provided for this purpose.
2949
2950NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2951%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2952the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2953will not trigger this warning.
2954
aec0ef10 2955=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
ff3f963a 2956
c3c41406 2957(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
f4e361c7
FC
2958character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses
2959its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not
2960what you want.
c3c41406 2961
aec0ef10 2962=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
c3c41406 2963
f4e361c7
FC
2964(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
2965sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
2966bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
7fae04b9 2967backslash in double-quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2968
2969 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2970 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2971 /$re/;
2972
b09c05e6 2973Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2974
2975 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2976 /$re/;
2977
2978The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2979components:
2980
2981 $re = '\N';
2982 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2983
2984It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2985doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2986
2987Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2988C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2989
2990 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2991 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2992
49704364
WL
2993=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2994
2995(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2996negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2997
a0d0e21e
LW
2998=item Negative length
2999
be771a83
GS
3000(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3001length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 3002
ed9aa3b7
SG
3003=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3004
3005(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3006greater than or equal to zero.
3007
7253e4e3 3008=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3009
6903afa2
FC
3010(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3011So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the
3012regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 3013
7253e4e3 3014Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 3015C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3016
6df41af2 3017=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 3018
be771a83
GS
3019(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3020scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 3021
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3022=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3023
3024(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3025real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3026See L<mro>.
3027
a0d0e21e
LW
3028=item No %s allowed while running setuid
3029
be771a83
GS
3030(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3031setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3032will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3033securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 3034
6651ba0b
FC
3035=item No code specified for -%c
3036
3037(F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3038you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3039argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3040
3041 perl -e ""
3042 perl -e0
3043 perl -e1
3044
a0d0e21e
LW
3045=item No comma allowed after %s
3046
6903afa2
FC
3047(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3048not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
3049Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3050
6903afa2
FC
3051One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3052a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3053importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3054system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3055use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3056please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3057explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3058it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3059still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3060the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3061constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 3062
748a9306
LW
3063=item No command into which to pipe on command line
3064
be771a83
GS
3065(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3066redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3067doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 3068
a0d0e21e
LW
3069=item No DB::DB routine defined
3070
be771a83 3071(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 3072for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
3073module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3074statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
3075
3076=item No dbm on this machine
3077
3078(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 3079supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 3080
ccafdc96 3081=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 3082
ccafdc96
RGS
3083(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3084for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3085module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3086of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 3087
6651ba0b
FC
3088=item No directory specified for -I
3089
3090(F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3091I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3092
c47ff5f1 3093=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 3094
be771a83
GS
3095(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3096redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3097find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 3098
49704364
WL
3099=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3100
3101(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 3102matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 3103
c47ff5f1 3104=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 3105
be771a83
GS
3106(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3107redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3108name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 3109
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3110=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3111
3112(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3113in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3114it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
fa816bf3 3115or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2c7d6b9c 3116
6df41af2
GS
3117=item "no" not allowed in expression
3118
be771a83
GS
3119(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3120returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 3121
c47ff5f1 3122=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 3123
be771a83
GS
3124(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3125redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3126doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 3127
c47ff5f1 3128=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 3129
be771a83
GS
3130(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3131redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3132find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 3133
1ec3e8de
GS
3134=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3135
be771a83
GS
3136(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3137declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3138semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 3139
a0d0e21e
LW
3140=item No Perl script found in input
3141
3142(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3143with #! and containing the word "perl".
3144
3145=item No setregid available
3146
3147(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3148your system.
3149
3150=item No setreuid available
3151
3152(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3153your system.
3154
e75d1f10
RD
3155=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3156
b7e4ecc1
FC
3157(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3158variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3159The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3160L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 3161
2c692339
RGS
3162=item No such class %s
3163
dc7e5945
FC
3164(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3165declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2c692339 3166
3c20a832
SP
3167=item No such hook: %s
3168
dc7e5945
FC
3169(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3170Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 3171
6df41af2
GS
3172=item No such pipe open
3173
3174(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
3175close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3176earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 3177
a0d0e21e
LW
3178=item No such signal: SIG%s
3179
be771a83
GS
3180(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3181not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3182names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
3183
3184=item Not a CODE reference
3185
3186(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3187subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3188use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3189also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3190
a0d0e21e
LW
3191=item Not a GLOB reference
3192
be771a83
GS
3193(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3194symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3195something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3196kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3197
3198=item Not a HASH reference
3199
be771a83
GS
3200(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3201reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3202find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3203
6df41af2
GS
3204=item Not an ARRAY reference
3205
be771a83
GS
3206(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3207a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3208to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 3209
d4fc4415
FC
3210=item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3211
3212(F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3213another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3214or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3215
a0d0e21e
LW
3216=item Not a SCALAR reference
3217
be771a83
GS
3218(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3219a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3220to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3221
3222=item Not a subroutine reference
3223
3224(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3225subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3226use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3227also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3228
e7ea3e70 3229=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3230
3231(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3232doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3233
a0d0e21e
LW
3234=item Not enough arguments for %s
3235
3236(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3237
6df41af2
GS
3238=item Not enough format arguments
3239
be771a83
GS
3240(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3241supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3242
3243=item %s: not found
3244
be771a83
GS
3245(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3246of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3247yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3248
3249=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3250
6df41af2
GS
3251(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3252timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3253to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3254F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3255need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3256
f0a2b745
KW
3257=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3258
fa816bf3
FC
3259(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3260unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3261is as indicated.
f0a2b745 3262
4ef2275c
GA
3263=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3264
3265(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3266Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
6903afa2 3267select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4ef2275c 3268
a0d0e21e
LW
3269=item Null filename used
3270
be771a83
GS
3271(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3272machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 3273
6df41af2
GS
3274=item NULL OP IN RUN
3275
f84fe999 3276(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 3277pointer.
6df41af2 3278
55497cff 3279=item Null picture in formline
3280
3281(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3282specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3283supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3284
a0d0e21e
LW
3285=item Null realloc
3286
3287(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3288
3289=item NULL regexp argument
3290
5f05dabc 3291(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3292
3293=item NULL regexp parameter
3294
3295(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3296
fc36a67e 3297=item Number too long
3298
be771a83 3299(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3300about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3301versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3302the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3303"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3304
f0a2b745
KW
3305=item Number with no digits
3306
1043934d 3307(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 3308a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 3309the braces.
f0a2b745 3310
271c8bde
FC
3311=item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3312
3313(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3314You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3315sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3316lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3317name, or rename the lexical variable.
3318
252aa082
JH
3319=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3320
75b44862 3321(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3322(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3323L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 3324
6ad11d81
JH
3325=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3326
04a80ee0 3327(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 3328arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3329
b21befc1
MG
3330=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3331
3332(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3333which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3334
1930e939 3335=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3336
be771a83
GS
3337(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3338which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3339
bbce6d69 3340=item Offset outside string
3341
1fa582fa 3342(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 3343with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3344imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3345take place when going past the end of the string when either
3346C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3347for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3348with real files).
bbce6d69 3349
c289d2f7 3350=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3351
3352(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3353never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3354call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3355
96ebfdd7
RK
3356=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3357
3358(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3359that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3360
a0d0e21e
LW
3361=item oops: oopsAV
3362
e476b1b5 3363(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3364
3365=item oops: oopsHV
3366
e476b1b5 3367(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3368
abc718f2
RGS
3369=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3370
713e2616 3371(D io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3372a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3373Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3374and is deprecated.
3375
3376=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3377
28038637 3378(D io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3379a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3380Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3381and is deprecated.
3382
a0288114 3383=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3384
be771a83
GS
3385(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3386handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3387of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 3388the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3389
5ff1373f 3390=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 3391
3fc8aa03 3392(S utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
73c4e9dc
FC
3393semantics on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do
3394is not defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3395
3396If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3397matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3398
3399If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3400C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 3401
5ff1373f 3402=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 3403
3fc8aa03 3404(S utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
73c4e9dc
FC
3405semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of
3406surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics
3407are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and they are to do
3408nothing for this operation. Because the use of surrogates can be
3409dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3410
3411If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3412matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3413
3414If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3415C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 3416
748a9306
LW
3417=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3418
be771a83
GS
3419(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3420was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3421use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3422example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3423"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3424
6df41af2
GS
3425=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3426
be771a83
GS
3427(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3428in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3429
a80b8354
GS
3430=item Out of memory!
3431
3432(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3433remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3434no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3435
19a52907
JH
3436At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3437process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3438C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3439the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3440and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3441
6d3b25aa
RGS
3442=item Out of memory during %s extend
3443
3444(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3445the largest possible memory allocation.
3446
6df41af2 3447=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 3448
6df41af2 3449(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
6903afa2 3450remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
3451the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3452possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 3453
1b979e0a 3454=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 3455
1fa582fa 3456(X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
be771a83
GS
3457insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3458request.
eff9c6e2
CS
3459
3460The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3461depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
3462However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3463emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
3464is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3465where the failed request happened.
55497cff 3466
1b979e0a
IZ
3467=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3468
3469(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
3470is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3471C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 3472
6df41af2
GS
3473=item Out of memory for yacc stack
3474
be771a83
GS
3475(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3476parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3477otherwise.
6df41af2 3478
28be1210
TH
3479=item '.' outside of string in pack
3480
3481(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3482position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3483
49704364 3484=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 3485
49704364 3486(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
3487the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3488
f337b084
TH
3489=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3490
3491(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6903afa2 3492the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
fa816bf3 3493UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
f337b084 3494
7778d804
FC
3495=item overload arg '%s' is invalid
3496
3497(W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
3498recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
3499
7cb0cfe6
BM
3500=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3501
3502(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
6903afa2 3503but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
7cb0cfe6
BM
3504L<overload>.
3505
3506=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3507
3508(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
6903afa2 3509overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
7cb0cfe6 3510
6df41af2
GS
3511=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3512
be771a83
GS
3513(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3514package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3515some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3516mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 3517
96ebfdd7
RK
3518=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3519
3520(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3521signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3522
a0d0e21e
LW
3523=item page overflow
3524
be771a83
GS
3525(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3526page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 3527
6df41af2
GS
3528=item panic: %s
3529
3530(P) An internal error.
3531
c99a1475
NC
3532=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3533
3534(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3535an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3536platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3537enter this branch on this platform.
3538
5637ef5b 3539=item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3540
3541(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3542
5637ef5b 3543=item panic: ck_split, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3544
3545(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3546
5637ef5b 3547=item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
a0d0e21e 3548
be771a83
GS
3549(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3550there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 3551
810b8aa5
GS
3552=item panic: del_backref
3553
3554(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3555reference.
3556
a0d0e21e
LW
3557=item panic: die %s
3558
3559(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3560it wasn't an eval context.
3561
a0d0e21e
LW
3562=item panic: do_subst
3563
be771a83
GS
3564(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3565data.
a0d0e21e 3566
2269b42e 3567=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 3568
2269b42e 3569(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 3570data.
a0d0e21e 3571
b7f7fd0b
NC
3572=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3573
10203f38 3574(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
3575failure was caught.
3576
c635e13b 3577=item panic: frexp
3578
3579(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3580
5637ef5b 3581=item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
a0d0e21e
LW
3582
3583(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3584and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3585
b0d55c99
FC
3586=item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
3587
3588(P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
6903afa2
FC
3589repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
3590Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
3591the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
b0d55c99 3592
5637ef5b 3593=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3594
3595(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3596
5637ef5b 3597=item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3598
3599(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3600
e446cec8
IZ
3601=item panic: kid popen errno read
3602
3603(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3604
5637ef5b 3605=item panic: last, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3606
3607(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3608it wasn't a block context.
3609
3610=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3611
be771a83
GS
3612(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3613scope.
a0d0e21e 3614
5637ef5b 3615=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
a0d0e21e
LW
3616
3617(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3618invalid enum on the top of it.
3619
810b8aa5
GS
3620=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3621
3622(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3623references to an object.
3624
5637ef5b 3625=item panic: malloc, %s
6df41af2
GS
3626
3627(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3628
27d5b266
JH
3629=item panic: memory wrap
3630
3631(P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3632
5637ef5b 3633=item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3634
3635(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3636and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3637
5637ef5b 3638=item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3639
3640(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3641and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3642
3643=item panic: pad_free po
3644
3645(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3646
5637ef5b 3647=item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3648
3649(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3650and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3651
3652=item panic: pad_sv po
3653
3654(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3655
5637ef5b 3656=item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3657
3658(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3659and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3660
3661=item panic: pad_swipe po
3662
3663(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3664
5637ef5b 3665=item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3666
3667(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3668
96ebfdd7
RK
3669=item panic: pp_match%s
3670
3671(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3672data.
3673
5637ef5b 3674=item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
2269b42e
JH
3675
3676(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3677
5637ef5b 3678=item panic: realloc, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3679
3680(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3681
ccfb6d2e
FC
3682=item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
3683
3684(P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
3685reference count other than 1.
3686
5637ef5b 3687=item panic: restartop in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3688
3689(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3690didn't supply the destination.
3691
5637ef5b 3692=item panic: return, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3693
3694(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3695then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3696
5637ef5b 3697=item panic: scan_num, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3698
3699(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3700
d24ca0c5
DM
3701=item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found
3702
3703(P) while compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
3704blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
3705seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
3706
6c65d5f9
NC
3707=item panic: sv_chop %s
3708
3709(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3710scalar's string buffer.
3711
5637ef5b 3712=item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
3713
3714(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3715was string.
3716
ad49ad39
NC
3717=item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
3718
3719(P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
3720In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab" is
3721shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
3722
a0d0e21e
LW
3723=item panic: top_env
3724
6224f72b 3725(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 3726
65bca31a
NC
3727=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3728
a1efa96e
FC
3729(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
3730permitted at run time.
65bca31a 3731
dea0fc0b
JH
3732=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3733
3734(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 3735to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 3736
e0ea5e2d
NC
3737=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3738
3739(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3740to even) byte length.
3741
5637ef5b 3742=item panic: yylex, %s
2f7da168
RK
3743
3744(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3745
28ac2b49
Z
3746=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3747
3748(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3749a detectable way.
3750
1a147d38
YO
3751=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3752
3753(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
6903afa2
FC
3754consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
3755the nesting limit is exceeded.
1a147d38
YO
3756
3757The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3758discovered.
3759
7b8d334a 3760=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 3761
e476b1b5 3762(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
3763
3764 my $foo, $bar = @_;
3765
3766when you meant
3767
3768 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3769
30c282f6 3770Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 3771
96ebfdd7
RK
3772=item C<-p> destination: %s
3773
3774(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3775command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3776redirected it with select().)
3777
3778=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3779
3780(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3781"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3782that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3783
801eb083 3784=item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%x; please use the perlbug utility to report
d50a4f90
KW
3785
3786(W regex, deprecated) You used a regular expression with
3787case-insensitive matching, and there is a bug in Perl in which the
3788built-in regular expression folding rules are not accurate. This may
3789lead to incorrect results. Please report this as a bug using the
3790"perlbug" utility. (This message is marked deprecated, so that it by
3791default will be turned-on.)
3792
1109a392
MHM
3793=item Perl_my_%s() not available
3794
3795(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3796so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3797conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3798'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3799
6651ba0b
FC
3800=item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
3801
3802(F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
3803Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
3804of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
3805interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
3806decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
3807is equivalent to v5.100.
3808
6d3b25aa
RGS
3809=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3810
3811(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3812recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3813you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3814
6df41af2
GS
3815=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3816
fa816bf3 3817(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 3818C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3819
96ebfdd7
RK
3820=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3821
806b6d07 3822(X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
96ebfdd7 3823
6651ba0b
FC
3824=item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
3825
3826(F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
3827on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
3828Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
3829wrong and the version check should just be removed.
3830
6df41af2
GS
3831=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3832
3833(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3834
3835 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3836 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3837 LC_ALL = "En_US",
3838 LANG = (unset)
3839 are supported and installed on your system.
3840 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3841
3842Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3843settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
3844This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3845system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3846locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3847dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4b07a369
FC
3848Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
3849fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
3850time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
0ea6b70f 3851L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 3852
bd3fa61c 3853=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 3854
be771a83
GS
3855(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3856process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3857fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 3858
49704364 3859=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
3860
3861(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3862
96ebfdd7
RK
3863=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3864
3865(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3866shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3867Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3868the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3869not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3870
3871=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3872
3873(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3874the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3875
49704364 3876=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3877
9a0b3859 3878(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
3879I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3880/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3881implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3882cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3883where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3884
49704364 3885=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3886
3887(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
3888beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3889If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3890expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3891backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3892about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3893
49704364 3894=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3895
7253e4e3
RK
3896(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3897with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3898need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3899character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3900and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3901problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3902
bbce6d69 3903=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3904
e476b1b5 3905(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 3906strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
3907literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3908parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3909
774d564b 3910You probably wrote something like this:
3911
54310121 3912 @list = qw(
774d564b 3913 a # a comment
bbce6d69 3914 b # another comment
774d564b 3915 );
bbce6d69 3916
3917when you should have written this:
3918
774d564b 3919 @list = qw(
54310121 3920 a
3921 b
774d564b 3922 );
3923
3924If you really want comments, build your list the
3925old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3926
3927 @list = (
3928 'a', # a comment
3929 'b', # another comment
3930 );
bbce6d69 3931
3932=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3933
be771a83
GS
3934(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3935commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3936different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3937frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3938
54310121 3939You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 3940
774d564b 3941 qw! a, b, c !;
3942
3943which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3944commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 3945
774d564b 3946 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 3947
a0d0e21e
LW
3948=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3949
3950(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3951Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3952end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3953Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3954
276b2a0c
RGS
3955=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3956
3957(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3958with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3959
3960 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3961
3962This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
6903afa2 3963higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
96a925ab
YST
3964really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3965parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
276b2a0c 3966
77772344
B
3967=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3968
3969(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3970The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 3971record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
3972followed by the word 'bar'.
3973
3974If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3975C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3976
3977If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3978followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3979C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3980
e5035638
FC
3981=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3982
ccf3535a 3983(W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
6903afa2 3984but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
e5035638
FC
3985literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3986to the array you apparently lost track of.
3987
a0d0e21e
LW
3988=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3989
e476b1b5 3990(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 3991
a0d0e21e
LW
3992 open FOO || die;
3993
3994is now misinterpreted as
3995
3996 open(FOO || die);
3997
be771a83
GS
3998because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3999list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
4000parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
4001of "||".
a0d0e21e 4002
3cdd684c
TP
4003=item Premature end of script headers
4004
4005See Server error.
4006
6df41af2
GS
4007=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
4008
be771a83 4009(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4010before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 4011
9a7dcd9c 4012=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4013
be771a83 4014(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4015before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4016
6df41af2 4017=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 4018
6df41af2
GS
4019(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
4020applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
4021port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
4022L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 4023in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 4024
327323c1
RGS
4025=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
4026
fa816bf3
FC
4027(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
4028useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
327323c1 4029
3fe9a6f1 4030=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 4031
9a0b3859 4032(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 4033declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 4034
ed9aa3b7
SG
4035=item Prototype not terminated
4036
2a6fd447 4037(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
4038definition.
4039
f9eb106c
FC
4040=item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
4041
4042(W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
4043match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
4044use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
4045class, which should know about the locale's rules.
4046(See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
4047
4048Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
4049Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
4050subset.
4051
4052Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
4053locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
4054CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
4055"MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
4056meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
4057should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
4058positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
4059incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
4060is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
4061case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
4062change when upper cased.
4063
96ebfdd7
RK
4064=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4065
6903afa2
FC
4066(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
4067you meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4068about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 4069
49704364 4070=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 4071
6903afa2
FC
4072(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
4073the {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4074about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 4075
49704364 4076=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 4077
b45f050a
JF
4078(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
4079it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
4080quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
4081"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
4082C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 4083
7253e4e3
RK
4084The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4085discovered.
4086
89ea2908
GA
4087=item Range iterator outside integer range
4088
4089(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
4090are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
4091One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
4092by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 4093
3b7fbd4a
SP
4094=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4095
1a147d38 4096(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
4097a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4098
96ebfdd7
RK
4099=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
4100
4101(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
4102before now. Check your control flow.
4103
b5fe5ca2
SR
4104=item read() on closed filehandle %s
4105
4106(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4107
4108=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
4109
4110(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4111
de42a5a9 4112=item Reallocation too large: %x
6df41af2
GS
4113
4114(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
4115
4ad56ec9
IZ
4116=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
4117
be771a83
GS
4118(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
4119already been freed.
4ad56ec9 4120
a0d0e21e
LW
4121=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
4122
be771a83
GS
4123(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
4124the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
4125which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
4126
6651ba0b
FC
4127=item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
4128
4129(P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
4130a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
4131$fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
4132loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
4133
3e0ccd42 4134=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 4135
2c7d6b9c
RGS
4136(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
4137believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
4138crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 4139
12605ff9
FC
4140=item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
4141
2e0cfa16
FC
4142=item refcnt: fd %d%s
4143
12605ff9
FC
4144=item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
4145
fa816bf3 4146(P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
2e0cfa16
FC
4147you see this message, something is very wrong.
4148
1930e939
TP
4149=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
4150
be771a83 4151(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
6903afa2
FC
4152with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
4153usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
4154to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
4155
4156 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
4157 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
4158 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
4159 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
4160
810b8aa5
GS
4161=item Reference is already weak
4162
e476b1b5 4163(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
4164Doing so has no effect.
4165
aec0ef10 4166=item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b72d83b2 4167
6903afa2
FC
4168(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
4169to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
4170(normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4171backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
b72d83b2 4172
49704364 4173=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4174
4175(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
6903afa2 4176not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
bbaee129
FC
4177you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4178expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 4179
7253e4e3 4180The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 4181discovered.
9baa0206 4182
1a147d38
YO
4183=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4184
4185(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
9381611c 4186expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
6903afa2 4187such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
9381611c 4188spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
1a147d38
YO
4189
4190The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4191discovered.
4192
bcb95744 4193=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1a147d38 4194
bcb95744
FC
4195(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4196are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4197expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
1a147d38
YO
4198
4199The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4200discovered.
4201
a0d0e21e
LW
4202=item regexp memory corruption
4203
4204(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4205expression compiler gave it.
4206
ff3f26d2
KW
4207=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4208
3955e1a9
KW
4209=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4210
f6a766d5 4211(F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
ff3f26d2 4212of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
3955e1a9 4213
aec0ef10 4214=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9442e3b8 4215
f8b5bc72
FC
4216(F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
4217another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
9442e3b8
KW
4218expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4219the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4220
3955e1a9
KW
4221=item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4222
f6a766d5 4223(F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
3955e1a9
KW
4224mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4225supposed to be there.
4226
aec0ef10 4227=item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4228
be771a83
GS
4229(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4230earlier.
a0d0e21e 4231
a1b95068
WL
4232=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
4233
d7f8936a 4234(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068 4235numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
6903afa2 4236terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
a1b95068 4237
b08e453b
RB
4238=item Replacement list is longer than search list
4239
4240(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
fa816bf3 4241search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
b08e453b
RB
4242are meaningless.
4243
a0d0e21e
LW
4244=item Reversed %s= operator
4245
be771a83 4246(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
964742a1 4247always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 4248
abc7ecad
SP
4249=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4250
4251(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
4252really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4253
96ebfdd7
RK
4254=item Scalars leaked: %d
4255
4f5966a5
FC
4256(W internal) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping
4257of scalars: not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time
4258Perl exited. What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which
4259is of course bad, especially if the Perl program is intended to be
4260long-running.
96ebfdd7 4261
a0d0e21e
LW
4262=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4263
be771a83
GS
4264(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4265single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4266value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4267behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4268argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4269and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4270if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 4271
748a9306 4272On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 4273element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
4274Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4275L<perlref>.
4276
a6006777 4277=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4278
75b44862 4279(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
4280element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4281(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4282like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4283argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4284and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4285if you're expecting only one subscript.
4286
4287On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4288as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4289not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 4290L<perlref>.
4291
a0d0e21e
LW
4292=item Search pattern not terminated
4293
4294(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4295construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4296Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4297
0cb1bcd7 4298Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd
JH
4299construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
4300in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4301misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4302
25c09cbf
SF
4303=item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
4304
4305(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
4306construct.
4307
4308The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
4309C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
6903afa2 4310parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
25c09cbf
SF
4311the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
4312
abc7ecad
SP
4313=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4314
4315(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4316really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4317
3257ea4f
FC
4318=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4319
4320(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4321filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4322
a0d0e21e
LW
4323=item select not implemented
4324
4325(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4326
ae21d580 4327=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 4328
ae21d580
JH
4329(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4330the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 4331
6df41af2 4332=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 4333
75b44862
GS
4334(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4335semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
4336
4337=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4338
be771a83
GS
4339(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4340scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 4341
6df41af2 4342=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 4343
6df41af2 4344(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 4345
69282e91 4346=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4347
be771a83 4348(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4349before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4350
7253e4e3 4351=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 4352
6903afa2
FC
4353(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
4354<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4355discovered. See L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 4356
49704364 4357=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4358
6903afa2
FC
4359(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
4360but has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
4361expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4362
49704364 4363=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4364
7253e4e3
RK
4365(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4366<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
fb85c044
KW
4367discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4368Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9442e3b8 4369redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
9de15fec 4370causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4371
4a68bf9d 4372=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1f1031fe
YO
4373
4374(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4375sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4376
aec0ef10 4377=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
4378
4379(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
aec0ef10 4380parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See
7253e4e3 4381L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4382
9da1dd8f
DM
4383=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
4384
be149b43
DM
4385(F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
4386followed immediately by a ')'.
9da1dd8f 4387
d7201950 4388=item Z<>500 Server error
6df41af2
GS
4389
4390See Server error.
4391
a5f75d66
AD
4392=item Server error
4393
6903afa2
FC
4394(A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
4395when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
4396actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
4397frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
4398not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
4399headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 4400
4401B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4402
6903afa2
FC
4403You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
4404the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
4405user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
4406variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
4407in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
4408less. Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 4409
06a5f41f
JH
4410 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4411 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4412 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 4413
be94a901
GS
4414You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4415
a0d0e21e
LW
4416=item setegid() not implemented
4417
be771a83
GS
4418(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4419support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4420didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4421
4422=item seteuid() not implemented
4423
be771a83
GS
4424(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4425support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4426didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4427
81777298
GS
4428=item setpgrp can't take arguments
4429
be771a83
GS
4430(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4431arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4432group ID.
81777298 4433
a0d0e21e
LW
4434=item setrgid() not implemented
4435
be771a83
GS
4436(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4437support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4438didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4439
4440=item setruid() not implemented
4441
be771a83
GS
4442(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4443support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4444didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4445
6df41af2
GS
4446=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4447
be771a83
GS
4448(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4449forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
4450L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4451
a0d0e21e
LW
4452=item shm%s not implemented
4453
4454(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4455
984200d0
YST
4456=item !=~ should be !~
4457
4458(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4459interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4460operators: probably not what you intended.
4461
6df41af2
GS
4462=item <> should be quotes
4463
4464(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4465C<require 'file'>.
4466
4467=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4468
4469(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
4470as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4471result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4472probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 4473
69282e91 4474=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4475
75b44862
GS
4476(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4477superfluous.
a0d0e21e 4478
f86702cc 4479=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 4480
be771a83
GS
4481(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4482Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 4483
efc859fb
FC
4484=item Slab leaked from cv %p
4485
4486(S) If you see this message, then something is seriously wrong with the
4487internal bookkeeping of op trees. An op tree needed to be freed after
4488a compilation error, but could not be found, so it was leaked instead.
4489
229c18ce
RGS
4490=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4491
4492(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4493overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4494the smart match.
4495
a0d0e21e
LW
4496=item sort is now a reserved word
4497
4498(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4499But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4500
a0d0e21e
LW
4501=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4502
4503(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4504or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4505
f1c31c52
FC
4506=item Source filters apply only to byte streams
4507
4508(F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
4509source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
4510not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
4511C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
4512
8cbc2e3b
JH
4513=item splice() offset past end of array
4514
4515(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
fa816bf3
FC
4516the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
4517end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
4518try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
4519See L<perlfunc/splice>.
8cbc2e3b 4520
a0d0e21e
LW
4521=item Split loop
4522
be771a83
GS
4523(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4524iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
6903afa2 4525happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 4526
a0d0e21e
LW
4527=item Statement unlikely to be reached
4528
be771a83
GS
4529(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4530die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4531unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4532instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4533a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 4534
fd1b7234
FC
4535=item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
4536
4537(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
4538sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
4539local() if you want to localize a package variable.
4540
a2e39214
FC
4541=item "state %s" used in sort comparison
4542
4543(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
4544You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
4545sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
4546lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
4547name, or rename the lexical variable.
4548
9ddeeac9 4549=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 4550
355b1299
JH
4551(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4552was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 4553
fe13d51d 4554=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 4555
be771a83
GS
4556(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4557stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4558C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 4559
a0d0e21e
LW
4560=item Subroutine %s redefined
4561
e476b1b5 4562(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
4563
4564 {
271595cc 4565 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
4566 eval "sub name { ... }";
4567 }
4568
4569=item Substitution loop
4570
be771a83
GS
4571(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4572shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4573is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 4574L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
4575
4576=item Substitution pattern not terminated
4577
d1be9408 4578(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4579construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4580Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4581
4582=item Substitution replacement not terminated
4583
d1be9408 4584(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4585construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4586Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4587
4588=item substr outside of string
4589
8a9eb13d 4590(W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
be771a83
GS
4591a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4592length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4593substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4594assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 4595
bf1320bf
RGS
4596=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4597
9d277376 4598(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
bf1320bf
RGS
4599inferior to its current type.
4600
49704364 4601=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 4602
fa816bf3
FC
4603(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
4604two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
4605both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
4606it in clustering parentheses:
b45f050a
JF
4607
4608 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4609
fa816bf3
FC
4610The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4611was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4612
49704364 4613=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 4614
39ef1de7 4615(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is
fa816bf3 4616a number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
6903afa2 4617expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4618
85ab1d1d
JH
4619=item switching effective %s is not implemented
4620
be771a83
GS
4621(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4622and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 4623
ae7df085 4624=item %s syntax OK
2f7da168
RK
4625
4626(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4627
a0d0e21e
LW
4628=item syntax error
4629
4630(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4631
4632 A keyword is misspelled.
4633 A semicolon is missing.
4634 A comma is missing.
4635 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4636 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4637 A closing quote is missing.
4638
4639Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4640error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4641The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4642it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 4643before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
4644Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4645the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4646C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
524e9188 4647if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
a0d0e21e 4648
ccf3535a 4649=item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
cb1a09d0 4650
be771a83
GS
4651(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4652of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4653yourself.
cb1a09d0 4654
25f58aea
PN
4655=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4656
4657(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4658a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4659or "my $var" or "our $var".
4660
b5fe5ca2
SR
4661=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4662
4663(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4664
4665=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4666
4667(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4668
6087ac44 4669=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 4670
6087ac44
JH
4671(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4672"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4673machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4674unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 4675
69282e91 4676=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4677
be771a83 4678(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4679before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4680
96ebfdd7
RK
4681=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4682
4683(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4684know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4685
fc36a67e 4686=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4687
be771a83
GS
4688(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4689for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 4690
abc7ecad
SP
4691=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4692
4693(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4694a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4695
c2771421
FC
4696=item tell() on unopened filehandle
4697
4698(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4699was either never opened or has since been closed.
4700
b82b06b8
FC
4701=item That use of $[ is unsupported
4702
4703(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4704as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4705
4706 $[ = 0;
4707 $[ = 1;
4708 ...
4709 local $[ = 0;
4710 local $[ = 1;
4711 ...
4712
4713This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4714from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[> and L<arybase>.
4715
f86702cc 4716=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
4717
4718(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4719probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 4720think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
4721will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4722will deny it.
4723
6df41af2
GS
4724=item The %s function is unimplemented
4725
a4a4c9e2 4726(F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
6df41af2
GS
4727to the probings of Configure.
4728
5e1c7ca2 4729=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 4730
be771a83
GS
4731(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4732linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4733past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4734instead.
a0d0e21e 4735
371fce9b
DM
4736=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4737
1108974d 4738(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 4739
437784d6 4740=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
4741
4742=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4743
75b44862 4744(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
4745element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4746wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4747need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4748F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4749target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
4750%ENV which produced the warning.
4751
6b3c7930
JH
4752=item thread failed to start: %s
4753
4447dfc1 4754(W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
6b3c7930 4755
a0d0e21e
LW
4756=item times not implemented
4757
be771a83
GS
4758(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4759suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 4760
6d3b25aa
RGS
4761=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4762
b7e4ecc1
FC
4763(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
4764the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
4765B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
4766Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
4767everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4768
4769If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
b7e4ecc1
FC
4770mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
4771fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
4772Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4773
4774If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 4775B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 4776
3a2263fe
RGS
4777=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4778
4779(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4780uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4781specified an illegal mapping.
4782See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4783
49704364
WL
4784=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4785
1a147d38 4786(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 4787
a0d0e21e
LW
4788=item Too few args to syscall
4789
4790(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4791system call to call, silly dilly.
4792
96ebfdd7
RK
4793=item Too late for "-%s" option
4794
4795(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
4796B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4797
6903afa2
FC
4798In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
4799are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4ba71d51 4800
6903afa2
FC
4801The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
4802well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
4803specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
4804it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
4805it to perl.
96ebfdd7 4806
ddda08b7
GS
4807=item Too late to run %s block
4808
4809(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4810when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
4811loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4812instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4813BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 4814
a0d0e21e
LW
4815=item Too many args to syscall
4816
5f05dabc 4817(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
4818
4819=item Too many arguments for %s
4820
4821(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4822
6df41af2
GS
4823=item Too many )'s
4824
49704364
WL
4825(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4826Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4827
8c40cb74
NC
4828=item Too many ('s
4829
be771a83
GS
4830(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4831Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4832
7253e4e3 4833=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4834
be771a83
GS
4835(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4836Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4837
2c268ad5 4838=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
4839
4840(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 4841or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4842C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4843
2c268ad5 4844=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 4845
6a36df5d
YST
4846(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4847y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 4848
96ebfdd7
RK
4849=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4850
4851(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
6903afa2 4852disallowed. See L<Safe>.
96ebfdd7 4853
a0d0e21e
LW
4854=item truncate not implemented
4855
4856(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4857Configure knows about.
4858
19c481f4
FC
4859=item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
4860
4861(F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
4862to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
4863ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
4864nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
4865
a0d0e21e
LW
4866=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4867
4868(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 4869certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4870%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
4871{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4872
7ac5715b 4873=item Type of argument to %s must be unblessed hashref or arrayref
cba5a3b0 4874
7ac5715b
FC
4875(F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with a scalar argument that
4876was not a reference to an unblessed hash or array.
cba5a3b0 4877
eec2d3df
GS
4878=item umask not implemented
4879
be771a83
GS
4880(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4881use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e
LW
4882
4883=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4884
c632e777 4885(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 4886many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4887
4888=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4889
4a983e45 4890(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 4891many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
4892
4893=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4894
090cebb2 4895(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 4896many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e 4897
6651ba0b
FC
4898=item Unbalanced string table refcount: (%d) for "%s"
4899
4900(W internal) On exit, Perl found some strings remaining in the shared
4901string table used for copy on write and for hash keys. The entries
4902should have been freed, so this indicates a bug somewhere.
4903
a0d0e21e
LW
4904=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4905
2092d7c1 4906(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 4907many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
4908
4909=item Undefined format "%s" called
4910
4911(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4912another package? See L<perlform>.
4913
4914=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4915
be771a83
GS
4916(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4917Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4918
4919=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4920
be771a83
GS
4921(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4922since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
4923
4924=item Undefined subroutine called
4925
4926(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4927or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4928
4929=item Undefined subroutine in sort
4930
be771a83
GS
4931(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4932to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 4933
4633a7c4
LW
4934=item Undefined top format "%s" called
4935
4936(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4937another package? See L<perlform>.
4938
20408e3c
GS
4939=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4940
be771a83
GS
4941(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4942C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4943C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 4944
6df41af2
GS
4945=item %s: Undefined variable
4946
be771a83
GS
4947(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4948Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4949
2a53d331
KW
4950=item Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated, passed through
4951
4952(D) You used a literal C<"{"> character in a regular expression pattern.
4953You should change to use C<"\{"> instead, because a future version of
4954Perl (tentatively v5.20) will consider this to be a syntax error. If
4955the pattern delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace
4956(C<"}">) should also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for
4957example,
4958
4959 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
4960
a0d0e21e
LW
4961=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4962
4963(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4964representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4965
6651ba0b
FC
4966=item Unexpected constant lvalue entersub entry via type/targ %d:%d
4967
4968(P) When compiling a subroutine call in lvalue context, Perl failed an
4969internal consistency check. It encountered a malformed op tree.
4970
0876b9a0
KW
4971=item Unicode non-character U+%X is illegal for open interchange
4972
e2f7b30e 4973(S utf8, nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
6903afa2
FC
4974defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are
4975legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so, applications
4976shouldn't attempt to exchange them. If you know what you are doing
4977you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
b45f050a 4978
c794c51b
FC
4979=item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
4980
d2bb714f 4981(S utf8, surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
c794c51b
FC
4982not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
4983U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
4984internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
4985available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
4986problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
4987came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 4988off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
c794c51b 4989
a0d0e21e
LW
4990=item Unknown BYTEORDER
4991
be771a83
GS
4992(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4993order.
a0d0e21e 4994
04177465
FC
4995=item Unknown error
4996
4997(P) Perl was about to print an error message in C<$@>, but the C<$@> variable
4998did not exist, even after an attempt to create it.
4999
6170680b
IZ
5000=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
5001
437784d6 5002(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 5003of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 5004C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 5005
b4581f09
JH
5006=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
5007
5008(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
5009system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
5010internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
5011are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
5012explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
5013value of the environment variable PERLIO.
5014
f675dbe5
CB
5015=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
5016
5017(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
5018iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
5019data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
5020subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 5021
2f7da168
RK
5022=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
5023
a4a4c9e2 5024(W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
2f7da168 5025
0da72d5e
KW
5026=item Unknown regex modifier "%s"
5027
5028(F) Alphanumerics immediately following the closing delimiter
5029of a regular expression pattern are interpreted by Perl as modifier
5030flags for the regex. One of the ones you specified is invalid. One way
5031this can happen is if you didn't put in white space between the end of
5032the regex and a following alphanumeric operator:
5033
5034 if ($a =~ /foo/and $bar == 3) { ... }
5035
5036The C<"a"> is a valid modifier flag, but the C<"n"> is not, and raises
5037this error. Likely what was meant instead was:
5038
5039 if ($a =~ /foo/ and $bar == 3) { ... }
5040
bcd05b94 5041=item Unknown switch condition (?(%s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
96ebfdd7
RK
5042
5043(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6903afa2 5044is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5fecf430 5045
674f6ed9
FC
5046 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
5047 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
5048 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
5049 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
5050 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
5051 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
5052 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
5053 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
5054 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
96ebfdd7
RK
5055
5056The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
5057discovered. See L<perlre>.
5058
a05d7ebb
JH
5059=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
5060
a4a4c9e2 5061(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb
JH
5062of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
5063
5064=item Unknown Unicode option value %x
5065
a4a4c9e2 5066(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb 5067of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 5068
e2e6a0f1
YO
5069=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5070
5071(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
5072after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
5073L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
5074
c2771421
FC
5075=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
5076
6903afa2 5077(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
c2771421
FC
5078category that is unknown to perl at this point.
5079
14ef4c80
FC
5080Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
5081module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
5082module first.
c2771421 5083
aec0ef10 5084=item Unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 5085
6903afa2 5086(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 5087include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
6903afa2
FC
5088first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
5089problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 5090
aec0ef10
FC
5091=item Unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5092
5093=item Unmatched ) in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
5094
5095(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
6903afa2
FC
5096expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
5097the matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
5098about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 5099
d98d5fff 5100=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 5101
be771a83
GS
5102(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
5103ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
5104general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
5105you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 5106
a0d0e21e
LW
5107=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
5108
be771a83
GS
5109(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
5110reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
5111somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
5112subroutine.
a0d0e21e 5113
b1fc3636 5114=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
a0d0e21e 5115
54310121 5116(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
b1fc3636 5117in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
356c7adf 5118to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 5119
4a68bf9d 5120=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 5121
be771a83
GS
5122(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
5123recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 5124understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
2628b4e0
TS
5125The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
5126escape was discovered.
6df41af2 5127
4a68bf9d 5128=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 5129
2628b4e0 5130(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
5131recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
5132change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 5133
216bfc0a 5134=item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 5135
be771a83 5136(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b7e4ecc1
FC
5137recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
5138this may change in a future version of Perl. The <-- HERE shows in
5139the regular expression about where the escape was discovered.
6df41af2 5140
a0d0e21e
LW
5141=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
5142
be771a83
GS
5143(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
5144recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
5145on your system.
a0d0e21e 5146
90248788 5147=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 5148
be771a83
GS
5149(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
5150think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
5151bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
5152
5153=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
5154
be771a83
GS
5155(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
5156operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 5157PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
5158
5159=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
5160
5161(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
5162
6df41af2
GS
5163=item Unsupported function %s
5164
5165(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
5166At least, Configure doesn't think so.
5167
54310121 5168=item Unsupported function fork
5169
5170(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
5171
be771a83 5172Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6903afa2 5173of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
be771a83 5174changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 5175
7aa207d6 5176=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
5177
5178(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 5179declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 5180
a0d0e21e
LW
5181=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
5182
5183(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
5184least that's what Configure thought.
5185
6df41af2 5186=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 5187
be771a83
GS
5188(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
5189start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
5190block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
5191attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 5192
09bef843
SB
5193=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
5194
be771a83
GS
5195(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
5196an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
5197character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
5198character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
5199
f1991046
GS
5200=item Unterminated compressed integer
5201
5202(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
5203compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
5204See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5205
2bf803e2
YO
5206=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5207
5208(F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
fa816bf3 5209a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 5210
6df41af2 5211=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 5212
6df41af2 5213(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
5214a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
5215not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
5216earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 5217
905fe053
FC
5218=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5219
5220(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 5221the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053
FC
5222
5223=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5224
5225(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 5226the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 5227
6df41af2 5228=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 5229
be771a83
GS
5230(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
5231still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 5232
8e11cd2b
JC
5233=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
5234
5235(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
5236See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
5237
5238=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
5239
5240(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
5241See L<Win32> for more information.
5242
89474f50
FC
5243=item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
5244
5245(W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
5246
5247 if ($[ > 5.006) {
5248 ...
5249 }
5250
5251You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
5252arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
5253
8fe85e3f
FC
5254=item Useless assignment to a temporary
5255
5256(W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
5257the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
5258be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
5259
96ebfdd7 5260=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 5261
96ebfdd7
RK
5262(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
5263meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 5264
96ebfdd7 5265 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5266
5267must be written as
5268
96ebfdd7 5269 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5270
5271The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
6903afa2 5272where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 5273
b4581f09
JH
5274=item Useless localization of %s
5275
6903afa2
FC
5276(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
5277but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
b4581f09
JH
5278some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
5279
96ebfdd7 5280=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 5281
96ebfdd7
RK
5282(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
5283meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 5284
96ebfdd7 5285 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5286
5287must be written as
5288
96ebfdd7 5289 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
5290
5291The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
6903afa2 5292where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 5293
b08e453b
RB
5294=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
5295
5296(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6903afa2 5297same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
b08e453b
RB
5298about the /d modifier.
5299
820438b1
FC
5300=item Useless use of \E
5301
5302(W misc) You have a \E in a double-quotish string without a C<\U>,
5303C<\L> or C<\Q> preceding it.
5304
6df41af2 5305=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 5306
75b44862 5307(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
5308nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
5309value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
5310often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
5311to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
5312get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
5313said
a0d0e21e 5314
6df41af2 5315 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 5316
6df41af2
GS
5317when you meant to say
5318
5319 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
5320
5321Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
5322reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
5323example, if you say
5324
5325 $array = (1,2);
5326
5327when you should have said
5328
5329 $array = [1,2];
5330
5331The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
5332while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
5333a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
5334throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
5335L<perlref> for more on this.
5336
65191a1e
BS
5337This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
5338since they are often used in statements like
5339
4358a253 5340 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
5341
5342String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
5343about.
5344
6df41af2
GS
5345=item Useless use of "re" pragma
5346
6903afa2 5347(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6df41af2 5348
a801c63c
RGS
5349=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
5350
5351(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
5352
5353 my $x = sort @y;
5354
5355This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
5356
de4864e4
JH
5357=item Useless use of %s with no values
5358
f87c3213 5359(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6903afa2
FC
5360apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
5361usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
de4864e4 5362possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6903afa2 5363if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
de4864e4
JH
5364you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
5365
6df41af2
GS
5366=item "use" not allowed in expression
5367
be771a83
GS
5368(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
5369returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 5370
36b2db7e
FC
5371=item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
5372
5373(D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
6903afa2 5374is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
36b2db7e 5375
c47ff5f1 5376=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 5377
8ab8f082 5378(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
83ce3e12
RGS
5379form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
5380
5381=item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
5382
8ab8f082 5383(D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
83ce3e12 5384separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4633a7c4 5385
96ebfdd7
RK
5386=item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
5387
5388(D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
5389$ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
5390behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
5391will simply fail.
5392
5393Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
5394blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
5395
64e578a2
MJD
5396=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
5397
5398(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
5399modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
5400
4ac733c9
MJD
5401=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
5402
5403(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
5404use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
5405used. (This may change in the future.)
5406
2dc78664 5407=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
036e1e65 5408
2dc78664
NC
5409(F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
5410C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
5411This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
5412error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
5413
5414If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
5415a space before the C<=>.
036e1e65 5416
b6c83531 5417=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 5418
b6c83531
JH
5419(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
5420This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
5421
5422 @a = (3,4);
5423 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
5424
5425You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
5426For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
5427reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
5428middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
5429
39b99f21 5430=item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
5431
5432(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
5433to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
5434
96ebfdd7 5435=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 5436
96ebfdd7
RK
5437(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
5438operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
5439repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 5440
0b98bec9
RGS
5441=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
5442
5443(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
5444scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
5445
dc848c6f 5446=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
5447
1da25648
FC
5448(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD>
5449subroutines are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy)
5450even when the subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain
5451functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or
5452C<< $obj->bar() >>).
dc848c6f 5453
be771a83
GS
5454This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
5455methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
5456code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
5457currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
5458C<AUTOLOAD>s.
dc848c6f 5459
5460The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
be771a83
GS
5461non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
5462to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
5463named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
5464startup.
dc848c6f 5465
be771a83
GS
5466In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
5467you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 5468C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
fb73857a 5469
6df41af2
GS
5470=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
5471
5472(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
5473only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
5474
6df41af2
GS
5475=item Use of %s is deprecated
5476
75b44862 5477(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
be771a83
GS
5478generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
5479old way has bad side effects.
6df41af2 5480
5a7abfcc
FC
5481=item Use of -l on filehandle %s
5482
5483(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
5484it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
5485The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
5486
7c7df812
FC
5487=item Use of %s on a handle without * is deprecated
5488
22d6fc57 5489(D deprecated) You used C<tie>, C<tied> or C<untie> on a scalar but that scalar
fa816bf3 5490happens to hold a typeglob, which means its filehandle will be tied. If
22d6fc57
FC
5491you mean to tie a handle, use an explicit * as in C<tie *$handle>.
5492
5493This was a long-standing bug that was removed in Perl 5.16, as there was
5494no way to tie the scalar itself when it held a typeglob, and no way to
5495untie a scalar that had had a typeglob assigned to it. If you see this
5496message, you must be using an older version.
7c7df812 5497
905fe053
FC
5498=item Use of ?PATTERN? without explicit operator is deprecated
5499
5500(D deprecated) You have written something like C<?\w?>, for a regular
5501expression that matches only once. Starting this term directly with
5502the question mark delimiter is now deprecated, so that the question mark
5503will be available for use in new operators in the future. Write C<m?\w?>
5504instead, explicitly using the C<m> operator: the question mark delimiter
5505still invokes match-once behaviour.
5506
1f1cc344 5507=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 5508
77b96956 5509(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
5510isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
5511to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 5512
64977eb6 5513If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344 5514C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
54e0f05c 5515however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
c69ca1d4 5516operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 5517
85b81015
LW
5518=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
5519
be771a83
GS
5520(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
5521versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
5522explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
5523use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
5524suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
5525a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
85b81015 5526
bbd7eb8a
RD
5527=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5528
159f47d9 5529(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
5530arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5531but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5532arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5533
cc95b072 5534=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 5535
be771a83
GS
5536(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5537defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5538To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 5539
6903afa2
FC
5540To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
5541the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
5542it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
5543undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
5544anid the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
5545literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
5546optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
5547C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
5548your program.
e5be4a53 5549
a1063b2d
RH
5550=item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5551
496a33f5 5552(D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1b1f1335 5553C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
6903afa2
FC
5554used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now
5555deprecated, and will be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d
RH
5556
5557=item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5558
496a33f5 5559(D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1b1f1335 5560C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
6903afa2
FC
5561allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated,
5562and will be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d 5563
ff3f963a
KW
5564=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5565
5566(W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5567Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5568expression pattern bracketed character class.
5569
c794c51b
FC
5570=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
5571
5572(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
5573currently reserved for future use, as the exact behaviour has not
6903afa2 5574been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
c794c51b 5575modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
0876b9a0 5576
949cf498
KW
5577=item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
5578
968342a3 5579(S utf8, surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
949cf498
KW
5580not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
5581U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
5582internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
5583available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
5584problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
5585came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 5586off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9466bab6 5587
68dc0745 5588=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 5589
75b44862 5590(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
5591C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5592can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5593false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5594constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5595C<defined> operator.
a6006777 5596
f675dbe5
CB
5597=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5598
be771a83
GS
5599(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5600%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5601longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
56021024 characters.
f675dbe5 5603
b5c19bd7 5604=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 5605
b5c19bd7
DM
5606(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5607attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6903afa2 5608This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
5609declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5610(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6903afa2 5611subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 5612
b5c19bd7 5613 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 5614
b5c19bd7 5615At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6903afa2 5616since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
b5c19bd7
DM
5617the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5618now been created and is live:
be771a83 5619
b5c19bd7
DM
5620 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5621
5622The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5623gone out of scope, for example,
5624
5625 sub f {
5626 my $a;
5627 sub { eval '$a' }
5628 }
5629 f()->();
5630
5631Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5632executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 5633
b4581f09
JH
5634=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5635
120b0f81 5636(S misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
413ff9f6 5637that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
5638something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5639that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5640front of your variable.
5641
aec0ef10 5642=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
5643
5644(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
58e23c8d 5645known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
b4581f09
JH
5646
5647=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5648
b9cc85ad
FC
5649(W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
5650current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
5651previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
5652that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
5653or until all closure referents to it are destroyed.
b4581f09 5654
6df41af2
GS
5655=item Variable syntax
5656
5657(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5658of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5659Perl yourself.
5660
44a8e56a 5661=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5662
be771a83 5663(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 5664lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 5665
b5c19bd7 5666When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
5667the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5668call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5669outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5670longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5671variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 5672
44a8e56a 5673This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5674anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 5675reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 5676are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 5677
6651ba0b
FC
5678=item vector argument not supported with alpha versions
5679
5680(W internal) The %vd (s)printf format does not support version objects
5681with alpha parts.
5682
e2e6a0f1
YO
5683=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5684
6903afa2
FC
5685(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
5686argument or check that you are using the right verb.
e2e6a0f1
YO
5687
5688=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5689
6903afa2 5690(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
e2e6a0f1
YO
5691argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5692
084610c0
GS
5693=item Version number must be a constant number
5694
5695(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5696its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5697the version number.
5698
808ee47e
SP
5699=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5700
32e998fd
RGS
5701(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5702are being ignored.
808ee47e 5703
7e1af8bc 5704=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 5705
5706(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 5707you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 5708
f86702cc 5709=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 5710
be771a83
GS
5711(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5712the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5713space.
a0d0e21e 5714
5f05dabc 5715=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 5716
be771a83
GS
5717(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5718looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5719term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5720function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
5721
5722 rand + 5;
5723
5724you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5725
5726 rand() + 5;
5727
5728but in actual fact, you got
5729
5730 rand(+5);
5731
5f05dabc 5732So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 5733
4b3603a4
JH
5734=item Wide character in %s
5735
c8f79457 5736(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
5737one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5738way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5739output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5740warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5741cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5742filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 5743
49704364
WL
5744=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5745
fa816bf3
FC
5746(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]>
5747only if C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that
5748can be determined from the template alone. This is not possible if
5749it contains any of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign
5750the template.
49704364 5751
9a7dcd9c 5752=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5753
be771a83 5754(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5755before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5756
9ae3ac1a 5757=item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
b4581f09 5758
a4a4c9e2 5759(F) When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
b4581f09
JH
5760into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5761this encoding, for example
5762
5763 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5764
5765if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5766
49704364 5767=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 5768
49704364
WL
5769(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5770the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 5771
49704364 5772=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
5773
5774(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5775the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5776
a0d0e21e
LW
5777=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5778
5f05dabc 5779(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 5780sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 5781about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 5782your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
5783
5784=item You need to quote "%s"
5785
be771a83
GS
5786(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5787Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5788which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5789assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5790what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 5791
6cfd5ea7
JH
5792=item Your random numbers are not that random
5793
5794(F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5795not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5796Something Very Wrong.
5797
a0d0e21e
LW
5798=back
5799
00eb3f2b
RGS
5800=head1 SEE ALSO
5801
ed3f9c4f 5802L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>, L<diagnostics>.
00eb3f2b 5803
56e90b21 5804=cut