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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
466416ed 23below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
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24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
fa816bf3 26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
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27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
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
04f74579 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %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 -%s resolved as -&%s()
93
94(S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
95string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
96the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
97write C<-foo()>.
98
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99=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
100
7c7af292 101(S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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102bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
103(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
104like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
105assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
106clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
107really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 108
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109=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
110
111(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
112asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
113named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 114the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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115function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
116and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
117
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118=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
119
120=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 121
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122(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
123the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
1242 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
125might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
126foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
127that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
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128
129In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
130to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
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131C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
132by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
133want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
134unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
135that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
136off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 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
f86702cc 173=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 174
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175(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
176that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
177will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 178
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179=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
180
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181(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
182system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
183take care of transforming data between external and internal
184representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
185point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
186didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
187result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 188
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189=item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
190
191(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
192operator which expects either a number or a string matching
193C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
194Auto-decrement> for details.
195
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196=item assertion botched: %s
197
21b5e840 198(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
a0d0e21e 199
0eacef8e 200=item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
a0d0e21e 201
21b5e840 202(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 203
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204=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
205
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206(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
207the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 208
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209=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
210
211(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
212must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
213know which context to supply to the right side.
214
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215=item <> at require-statement should be quotes
216
217(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
218C<require 'file'>.
219
2393f1b9 220=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 221
49293501 222(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 223the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 224
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225=item Attempt to bless into a freed package
226
227(F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
228the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
229do, so it throws up in hands in despair.
230
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231=item Attempt to bless into a reference
232
233(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 234the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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235supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
236
237 bless $self, $proto;
238
239when you intended
240
241 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
242
243If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
244of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
245example by:
246
247 bless $self, "$proto";
248
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249=item Attempt to clear deleted array
250
251(S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
252Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
253can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
254callback on the array.
255
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256=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
257
258(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
259which is not in its key set.
260
261=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
262
263(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
264declared readonly from a restricted hash.
265
de42a5a9 266=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 267
f84fe999 268(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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269that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
270outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 271
12578ffb 272=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 273
f84fe999 274(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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275strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
276strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
277of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 278
7d5b40b4 279=item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 280
f84fe999 281(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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282free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
283SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
284free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
285try to free it.
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286
287=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
288
f84fe999 289(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e 290
7d5b40b4 291=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 292
8f7e4d2c 293(S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
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294see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
295earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
296This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
297that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
298mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
299corrupted.
a0d0e21e 300
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301=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
302
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303(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
304function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
305means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
306invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
307literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
308avoid this warning.
84902520 309
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310=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
311
312(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
313compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
314unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
315L<perlvar/%INC>.
316
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317=item Attempt to set length of freed array
318
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319(W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
320been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
321scalar representing the last index of an array and later
322assigning through that reference. For example
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323
324 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
325 $$r = 503
326
b7a902f4 327=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
328
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329(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
330used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
331dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 332
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333=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
334
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335(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
336"locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
337obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
338will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
c32124fe 339
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340=item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
341
342(W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
343example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
344declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
345
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346=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
347
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348(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
349the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
350The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
351will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
f1a3ce43 352
ccce04a4
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353=item av_reify called on tied array
354
355(S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
356confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
357
de42a5a9 358=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 359
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360(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
361or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 362S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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363S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
364
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365=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
366
496a33f5 367(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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368substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
369most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
370
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371=item Bad filehandle: %s
372
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373(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
374symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
375open(), or did it in another package.
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376
377=item Bad free() ignored
378
be771a83 379(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
fa816bf3 380been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 381setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 382
9ea8bc6d 383This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 384dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 385which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 386
aa689395 387=item Bad hash
388
389(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
390
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391=item Badly placed ()'s
392
393(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
394of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
395Perl yourself.
396
a7cb8dae 397=item Bad name after %s
a0d0e21e 398
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399(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
400didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
401of quotes, so
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402
403 $var = 'myvar';
404 $sym = mypack::$var;
405
406is not the same as
407
408 $var = 'myvar';
409 $sym = "mypack::$var";
410
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411=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
412
413(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
414plugin API.
415
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416=item Bad realloc() ignored
417
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418(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
419had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
420be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 421
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422=item Bad symbol for array
423
424(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
425wasn't a symbol table entry.
426
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427=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
428
429(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
430that wasn't a symbol table entry.
431
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432=item Bad symbol for filehandle
433
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434(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
435that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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436
437=item Bad symbol for hash
438
439(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
440wasn't a symbol table entry.
441
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442=item Bareword found in conditional
443
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444(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
445conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
446of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
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447
448 open FOO || die;
449
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450It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
451a bareword:
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452
453 use constant TYPO => 1;
454 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
455
456The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
457
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458=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
459
460(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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461subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
462symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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463
464=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
465
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466(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
467compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
468you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 469
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470=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
471
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472(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
473subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
474exited.
a0d0e21e 475
68dc0745 476=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
477
478(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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479implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
480occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
481be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
482depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 483
c782d7ee 484=item \%d better written as $%d
6df41af2 485
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486(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
487The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
488substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
489because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
490there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 491
252aa082
JH
492=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
493
e476b1b5 494(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
495(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
496L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 497
69282e91 498=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 499
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500(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
501check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 502
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503=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
504
505(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 506Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 507
c5a0f51a
JH
508=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
509
e476b1b5 510(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 511
043c750c 512=item Bizarre copy of %s
4633a7c4 513
be771a83 514(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
ab830aa0 515copiable.
4633a7c4 516
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517=item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
518
434f489b 519(P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
5a25739d
FC
520encountered an invalid data type.
521
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522=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
523
be771a83
GS
524(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
525iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
526which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 527
a0d0e21e
LW
528=item Callback called exit
529
4929bf7b 530(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
531exited by calling exit.
532
6df41af2 533=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 534
be771a83
GS
535(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
536parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
537that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
538early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
539subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
540checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
541function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
542the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 543
56feebad
FC
544=item Calling POSIX::%s() is deprecated
545
546(D deprecated) You called a function whose use is deprecated. See
547the function's name in L<POSIX> for details.
548
49704364 549=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
550
551(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
552compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
553attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
554See L<perlfunc/pack>.
555
49704364 556=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
557
558(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
559format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
560
5c1f4d79
NC
561=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
562
6903afa2
FC
563(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
564in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
565The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
566no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 567
4040665a 568=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
569
570(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 571be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 572
b5d97229
RGS
573=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
574
575(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
576either with open() or binmode().
577
7355df7e
FC
578=item Cannot set tied @DB::args
579
580(F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
581is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
582
ce65bc73
FC
583=item Cannot tie unreifiable array
584
585(P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
586keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
587do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
588Perl code, but are only used internally.
589
96ebfdd7
RK
590=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
591
592(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
593integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
594to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
595
a0d0e21e
LW
596=item Can't bless non-reference value
597
598(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
599encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
600
dc57907a
RGS
601=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
602
0d863452 603(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
6903afa2 604a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
0d863452
RH
605
606=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 607
0d863452
RH
608(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
609
6df41af2
GS
610=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
611
612(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
613object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
614like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
615
616 $BADREF = undef;
617 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
618 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
619
a0d0e21e
LW
620=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
621
54310121 622(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
623ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
624didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
625object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
626
627=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
628
629(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
630object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
631defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
632Something like this will reproduce the error:
633
634 $BADREF = 42;
635 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
636 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
637
dfe378f1
FC
638=item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
639
640(P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
641symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
642
2bf7e7b2
FC
643=item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
644
645(F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
646not attached to the symbol table.
647
a0d0e21e
LW
648=item Can't chdir to %s
649
f703fc96 650(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
a0d0e21e
LW
651that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
652
0545a864 653=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 654
be771a83
GS
655(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
656nosuid.
104d25b7 657
22e74366 658=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
659
660(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 661(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
662say things like:
663
664 *foo += 1;
665
666You CAN say
667
668 $foo = *foo;
669 $foo += 1;
670
671but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
672
0d863452 673=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 674
0d863452
RH
675(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
676or C<default> block.
677
a0d0e21e
LW
678=item Can't create pipe mailbox
679
be771a83
GS
680(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
681quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 682
eb64745e
GS
683=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
684
30c282f6
NC
685(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
686"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 687
fc7debfb
FC
688=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
689
690(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
691C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
692issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
693error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
694
6df41af2
GS
695=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
696
be771a83 697(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
df7075a8 698a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 699
a0d0e21e
LW
700=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
701
be771a83
GS
702(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
703reason.
a0d0e21e 704
54310121 705=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 706
be771a83
GS
707(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
708reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
709C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 710
10f9c03d 711=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 712
e476b1b5 713(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
714characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
715inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 716
a0d0e21e
LW
717=item Can't do waitpid with flags
718
be771a83
GS
719(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
720waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 721
a0d0e21e
LW
722=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
723
be771a83
GS
724(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
725point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
726line.
a0d0e21e 727
1109a392
MHM
728=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
729
730(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
731or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
732little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
733See L<perlfunc/pack>.
734
a0d0e21e
LW
735=item Can't exec "%s": %s
736
d1be9408 737(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
738named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
739permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
740C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
741architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
742can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
743#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
744
745=item Can't exec %s
746
be771a83
GS
747(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
748that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
749need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
750
751=item Can't execute %s
752
be771a83
GS
753(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
754found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 755
6df41af2 756=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 757
be771a83
GS
758(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
759is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 760
56ca2fc0
JH
761=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
762
763(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
6903afa2 764could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
e1b711da 765See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
9b73678d 766for a complete list of available official properties.
56ca2fc0 767
6df41af2
GS
768=item Can't find label %s
769
be771a83
GS
770(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
771possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
772
773=item Can't find %s on PATH
774
be771a83
GS
775(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
776found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 777
6df41af2 778=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 779
be771a83
GS
780(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
781found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
782script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
783
784=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
785
be771a83
GS
786(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
787that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
788nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 789
fb73857a 790 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
791
97b3d10f 792If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
793included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
794may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
795a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
796L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 797
660a4616
TS
798=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
799
5f8ad6b6
FC
800(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
801property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
fa816bf3 802letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
e1b711da 803L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
6903afa2 804for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
fa816bf3
FC
805mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by
806C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
5f8ad6b6 807until C<\E>).
660a4616 808
b3647a36 809=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 810
be771a83
GS
811(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
812pipeline.
a0d0e21e 813
b3647a36
SR
814=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
815
c973c02e 816(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
817after five seconds.
818
748a9306
LW
819=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
820
be771a83
GS
821(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
822between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
823Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
824the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
825account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
826the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 827the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
828the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
829if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
830because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
831appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
832and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
833routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
834shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
835only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 836
a0d0e21e
LW
837=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
838
be771a83
GS
839(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
840pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
841
842=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
843
748a9306
LW
844(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
845mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 846
6df41af2 847=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 848
be771a83
GS
849(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
850loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
851
852=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
853
be771a83
GS
854(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
855a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
856you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
857See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 858
5a25739d
FC
859=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
860
861(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
862"string" or block.
863
9850bf21 864=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 865
9850bf21
RH
866(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
867comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
868as the reduce() function in List::Util).
869
6df41af2
GS
870=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
871
be771a83
GS
872(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
873subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
874cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
875routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 876
0b5b802d
GS
877=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
878
be771a83
GS
879(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
880signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
881signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
882processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
883situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
884may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 885
e2c0f81f
DG
886=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
887
888(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
889attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
890process identifier.
891
6df41af2 892=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 893
6df41af2 894(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
895except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
896block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
897block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
898usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
899inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
900L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 901
2c7d6b9c
RGS
902=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
903
904(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
905package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
906
b8170e59
JB
907=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
908
6903afa2
FC
909(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
910This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
911that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
912to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
913dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
914that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
915dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 916
748a9306
LW
917=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
918
2ba9eb46 919(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
920lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
921want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
922the package name.
748a9306 923
6df41af2 924=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 925
6df41af2
GS
926(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
927handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 928pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 929that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 930
ea071790 931=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a 932
fa816bf3
FC
933(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
934Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
935the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
936to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
937extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
be771a83
GS
938to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
939L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 940
6df41af2
GS
941=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
942
be771a83
GS
943(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
944autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
945are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
946the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 947
b8170e59
JB
948=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
949
950(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 951for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
952unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
953
a0d0e21e
LW
954=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
955
956(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
957functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 958method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
959
960=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
961
be771a83
GS
962(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
963doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 964
2f7da168
RK
965=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
966
967(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
968e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
969
f4ad53f4 970=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 971
be771a83
GS
972(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
973VMS.
3e3baf6d 974
cd40cd58
NC
975=item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
976
ff9c1ae8 977(S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
cd40cd58
NC
978that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
979process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
980the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
981from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
982functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
983
a0d0e21e
LW
984=item Can't modify %s in %s
985
be771a83
GS
986(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
987to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 988
54310121 989=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
990
991(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
992a NULL.
993
6df41af2
GS
994=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
995
996(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 997such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 998
5f05dabc 999=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 1000
5f05dabc 1001(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1002buffer.
1003
6df41af2
GS
1004=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1005
1006(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1007there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1008count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1009grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1010though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1011once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1012
a0d0e21e
LW
1013=item Can't open %s: %s
1014
c47ff5f1 1015(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e 1016filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
46fa9b26
FC
1017switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1018this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1019you named on the command line.
1020
1021(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1022your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
a0d0e21e 1023
9a869a14
RGS
1024=item Can't open a reference
1025
1026(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1027using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1028
1029 open FH, '>', $ref;
1030
1031but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1032open is not supported.
1033
a0d0e21e
LW
1034=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1035
be771a83
GS
1036(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1037You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1038as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1039">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1040
748a9306
LW
1041=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1042
be771a83
GS
1043(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1044redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1045the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1046
1047=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1048
be771a83
GS
1049(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1050redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1051command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1052
1053=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1054
be771a83
GS
1055(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1056redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1057the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1058
1059=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1060
be771a83
GS
1061(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1062redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1063for stdout.
748a9306 1064
3b1cf97d 1065=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1066
1067(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1068
fa3aa65a
JC
1069If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1070shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1071you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1072
6df41af2
GS
1073=item Can't read CRTL environ
1074
1075(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1076from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1077missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1078or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1079searched.
6df41af2 1080
6df41af2
GS
1081=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1082
1083(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1084there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1085count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1086or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1087though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1088loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1089
64977eb6 1090=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1091
be771a83
GS
1092(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1093file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1094the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1095
a0d0e21e
LW
1096=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1097
e476b1b5 1098(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1099probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1100
748a9306
LW
1101=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1102
be771a83
GS
1103(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1104to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1105
4f12ec0e
FC
1106=item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1107
1108(F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1109all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1110the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1111supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1112
fe13d51d 1113=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1114
1fa582fa
FC
1115(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1116opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1117package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1118
cd06dffe
GS
1119=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1120
be771a83
GS
1121(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1122temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1123is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1124
96ebfdd7
RK
1125=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1126
1127(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1128there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1129
78f9721b
SM
1130=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1131
6903afa2
FC
1132(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1133subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1134think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1135write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1136Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1137
a0d0e21e
LW
1138=item Can't stat script "%s"
1139
be771a83
GS
1140(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1141open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1142
a0d0e21e
LW
1143=item Can't take log of %g
1144
fb73857a 1145(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1146negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1147standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1148negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1149
1150=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1151
1152(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1153negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1154with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1155
1156=item Can't undef active subroutine
1157
1158(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1159however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1160redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1161
c81225bc 1162=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1163
be771a83
GS
1164(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1165into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1166specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1167indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1168
6651ba0b
FC
1169=item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1170
1171(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1172other than "=" after the module name.
1173
1f1ec7b5
KW
1174=item Can't use a hash as a reference
1175
1176(F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1177C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1178<= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1179have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5
KW
1180
1181=item Can't use an array as a reference
1182
1183(F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1184C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1185used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1186was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5 1187
1db89ea5
BS
1188=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1189
e27ad1f2 1190(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1191table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1192for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1193
96ebfdd7
RK
1194=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1195
1196(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1197be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1198
6df41af2
GS
1199=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1200
be771a83
GS
1201(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1202references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1203
90b75b61 1204=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1205
20561843 1206(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1207Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1208provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1209
1109a392
MHM
1210=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1211
1212(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1213byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1214allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1215
e35475de
KW
1216=item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1217
1218(F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1219checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1220array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1221
1222=item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1223
1224(F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1225
1226Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1227becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1228weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1229These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1230generates a fatal error.
1231
1232If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1233context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1234
1235 if (%hash) {
1236 # not empty
1237 }
1238
1239If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1240variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1241a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1242it's loaded, etc.
1243
6df41af2
GS
1244=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1245
be771a83
GS
1246(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1247foreach.
6df41af2 1248
aab6a793 1249=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1250
be771a83
GS
1251(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1252is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1253(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1254have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1255weren't.
1256
6d3b25aa
RGS
1257=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1258
1259(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1260that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1261For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1262is inside a big-endian group.
1263
c07a80fd 1264=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1265
1266(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1267You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1268and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1269Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1270lexical variable.
1271
a0d0e21e
LW
1272=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1273
1274(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1275reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1276test the type of the reference, if need be.
1277
748a9306 1278=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1279
5e634d20
FC
1280=item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1281
b41bf23f
FC
1282(F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1283C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1284L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1285in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1286for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1287of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1288symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
a0d0e21e 1289
748a9306
LW
1290=item Can't use subscript on %s
1291
1292(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1293subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1294didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1295
6df41af2
GS
1296=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1297
75b44862
GS
1298(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1299creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1300backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1301expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1302value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1303instead.
6df41af2 1304
810b8aa5
GS
1305=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1306
1307(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1308references can be weakened.
1309
fc7debfb
FC
1310=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1311
1312(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1313loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1314from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1315or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1316
5f05dabc 1317=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1318
be771a83
GS
1319(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1320with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1321Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1322
a04e6aad 1323=item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
f9d13529 1324
7357bd17 1325(F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
17a3df4c 1326
727b6379 1327Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
7357bd17 1328discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
727b6379 1329L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
f9d13529 1330
1f4ef0f1
JH
1331=item Character in 'C' format overflow in pack
1332
1333(W pack) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an
1334unsigned character, which makes no sense. Perl behaved as if you
1335tried to pack 0xFF.
1336
65d01372
FC
1337=item Character in 'c' format overflow in pack
1338
1339(W pack) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to a
1340signed character, which makes no sense. Perl behaved as if you
1341tried to pack 0xFF.
1342
f337b084 1343=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1344
1345(W pack) You said
1346
1347 pack("C", $x)
1348
1349where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1350only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1351and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1352
1353 pack("C", $x & 255)
1354
1355If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1356instead.
1357
f337b084 1358=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1359
1360(W pack) You said
1361
1362 pack("c", $x)
1363
1364where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1365is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1366and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1367
1368 pack("c", $x & 255);
1369
1370If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1371instead.
1372
f337b084
TH
1373=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1374
1375(W unpack) You tried something like
1376
1377 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1378
1a147d38 1379where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1380below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1381value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1382
1383 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1384
5a25739d
FC
1385=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1386
1387(W pack) You said
1388
1389 pack("U0W", $x)
1390
1391where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1392expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1393as if you meant:
1394
1395 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1396
f337b084
TH
1397=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1398
1399(W pack) You tried something like
1400
1401 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1402
1a147d38 1403where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1404value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1405uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1406
1407 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1408
1409=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1410
1411(W unpack) You tried something like
1412
1413 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1414
1a147d38 1415where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1416value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1417uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1418
1419 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1420
f51551f7
FC
1421=item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple spaces
1422
1423(F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1424in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1425defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1426could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1427L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1428
1429=item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space
1430
1431(F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1432character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1433defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1434could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1435See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1436
1437=item \C is deprecated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1438
1439(D deprecated, regexp) The \C character class is deprecated, and will
1440become a compile-time error in a future release of perl (tentatively
1441v5.24). This construct allows you to match a single byte of what makes up
1442a multi-byte single UTF8 character, and breaks encapsulation. It is
1443currently also very buggy. If you really need to process the individual
1444bytes, you probably want to convert your string to one where each
1445underlying byte is stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1446
f866a7cd
FC
1447=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1448
1449(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
7ed0dd93
FC
1450non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1451is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1452for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1453between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
f866a7cd 1454
6651ba0b
FC
1455=item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1456
1457(F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1458
abc7ecad
SP
1459=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1460
1461(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1462a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1463
5a25739d
FC
1464=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1465
1466(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1467
541ed3a9
FC
1468=item Closure prototype called
1469
1470(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1471handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1472This subroutine cannot be called.
1473
49704364
WL
1474=item Code missing after '/'
1475
6903afa2
FC
1476(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1477another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1478
5a25739d
FC
1479=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1480
2d88a86a 1481(S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1b64326b
FC
1482of U+10FFFF.
1483
1484Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1485to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1486but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1487it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1488but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
148932 bit word.
0876b9a0 1490
6df41af2
GS
1491=item %s: Command not found
1492
a892b81a 1493(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
66a1f5ec
FC
1494instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1495Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
8f721816
MM
1496
1497 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
6df41af2 1498
7a2e2cd6 1499=item Compilation failed in require
1500
1501(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1502Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1503encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1504
c3464db5
DD
1505=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1506
be771a83
GS
1507(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1508situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1509to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1510arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1511recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1512under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1513in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1514that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1515on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1516
69282e91 1517=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1518
be771a83
GS
1519(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1520to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1521L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1522
e21e7c6a
FC
1523=item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1524
1525(F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1526(see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1527L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1528
1529=item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1530
1531(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1532overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
f738a371 1533L<overload> pragma?
e21e7c6a 1534
779c5bc9
GS
1535=item Constant is not %s reference
1536
1537(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1538is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1539The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1540usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1541See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1542
4cee8e80
CS
1543=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1544
aeb94125
FC
1545(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1546been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1547for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1548
9607fc9c 1549=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1550
be771a83
GS
1551(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1552for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1553workarounds.
9607fc9c 1554
5a25739d
FC
1555=item Constant(%s) unknown
1556
1557(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1558to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1559character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1560forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?.
1561
e7ea3e70
IZ
1562=item Copy method did not return a reference
1563
6903afa2 1564(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1565L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1566
4aaa4757
FC
1567=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1568
1569(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1570with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1571in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1572called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1573
1574 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1575 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1576
6798c92b
GS
1577=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1578
1579(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1580
675fa9ff
FC
1581=item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1582
1583(P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1584one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1585latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1586
a0d0e21e
LW
1587=item corrupted regexp pointers
1588
1589(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1590expression compiler gave it.
1591
1592=item corrupted regexp program
1593
be771a83
GS
1594(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1595valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1596
de42a5a9 1597=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1598
1599(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1600
49704364
WL
1601=item Count after length/code in unpack
1602
1603(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1604you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1605L<perlfunc/pack>.
1606
f2cccb4c
KW
1607=for comment
1608The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1609share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1610
6651ba0b
FC
1611=item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1612
a0d0e21e
LW
1613=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1614
be771a83
GS
1615(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1616100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1617infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1618which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1619
aad1d01f
NC
1620This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1621setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1622
e0e4a6e3
FC
1623=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1624S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
bcb95744 1625
6903afa2 1626(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1627most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1628of the C<....> part.
1629
9e3ec65c 1630The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
bcb95744
FC
1631discovered.
1632
62658f4d
PM
1633=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1634
1635(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1636there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1637
36447869
FC
1638=item delete argument is index/value array slice, use array slice
1639
1640(F) You used index/value array slice syntax (C<%array[...]>) as
1641the argument to C<delete>. You probably meant C<@array[...]> with
1642an @ symbol instead.
1643
1644=item delete argument is key/value hash slice, use hash slice
1645
1646(F) You used key/value hash slice syntax (C<%hash{...}>) as the argument to
1647C<delete>. You probably meant C<@hash{...}> with an @ symbol instead.
1648
0ffcbc25
FC
1649=item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1650
4a0af295 1651(F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
0ffcbc25
FC
1652such as:
1653
1654 $foo{$bar}
1655 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
1656
1657or a hash or array slice, such as:
1658
1659 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1660 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
1661
fc36a67e 1662=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1663
be771a83
GS
1664(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1665long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1666that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1667
6d3b25aa
RGS
1668=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1669
fa816bf3
FC
1670(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1671has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6d3b25aa 1672not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 1673conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
fa816bf3 1674static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 1675relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 1676declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1677
6d3b25aa
RGS
1678 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1679
1680becomes
1681
1682 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1683
ea9d9ebc 1684Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
fa816bf3 1685lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
36fb85f3
RGS
1686
1687 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1688
500ab966
RGS
1689=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1690
1691(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
1692just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1693than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 1694
3cdd684c
TP
1695=item Did not produce a valid header
1696
1697See Server error.
1698
6df41af2
GS
1699=item %s did not return a true value
1700
1701(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1702it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1703traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1704do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1705
cc507455 1706=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1707
413ff9f6
FC
1708(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1709some such.
4633a7c4 1710
cc507455 1711=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1712
be771a83
GS
1713(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1714variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1715seems superfluous.
33633739 1716
cc507455 1717=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1718
be771a83
GS
1719(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1720@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1721carried away.
748a9306 1722
7e1af8bc 1723=item Died
5f05dabc 1724
1725(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 1726you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 1727
3cdd684c
TP
1728=item Document contains no data
1729
1730See Server error.
1731
62658f4d
PM
1732=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1733
1734(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
943fc58e 1735define a C<$VERSION>.
62658f4d 1736
49704364
WL
1737=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1738
1739(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1740See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1741
95cb0d72
FC
1742=item Don't know how to get file name
1743
1744(P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
1745somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
1746
4021c788 1747=item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
a0d0e21e
LW
1748
1749(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1750
1751=item do_study: out of memory
1752
1753(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1754
6df41af2
GS
1755=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1756
56da5a46
RGS
1757(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1758"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1759name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1760because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1761"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1762something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1763subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1764"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1765
ac206dc8
RGS
1766=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1767
1768(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1769qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1770
84d78eb7
YO
1771=item dump is not supported
1772
1773(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1774
a0d0e21e
LW
1775=item Duplicate free() ignored
1776
be771a83
GS
1777(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1778already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1779
1109a392
MHM
1780=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1781
35f0cd76
FC
1782(W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
1783type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1109a392 1784
0953b66b
FC
1785=item each on reference is experimental
1786
0773cb3e
FC
1787(S experimental::autoderef) C<each> with a scalar argument is experimental
1788and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
1789take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
0953b66b 1790
d401967c 1791 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
0953b66b 1792
4633a7c4
LW
1793=item elseif should be elsif
1794
fa816bf3
FC
1795(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
1796it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1797named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1798unlikely to be what you want.
1799
e0e4a6e3 1800=item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 1801
af6f566e 1802(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
6903afa2 1803described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
af6f566e 1804a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1805
85ab1d1d 1806=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1807
85ab1d1d 1808(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1809effective uids or gids failed.
1810
c038024b
RGS
1811=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1812
1813(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1814aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 1815program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 1816
748a9306
LW
1817=item Error converting file specification %s
1818
5f05dabc 1819(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1820specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1821single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1822an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1823conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1824
ad19ef22 1825=item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
e4d48cc9 1826
be771a83
GS
1827(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1828expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1829is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1830
ad19ef22 1831=item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
e4d48cc9 1832
be771a83
GS
1833(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1834C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
1835pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1836it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1837C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1838interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1839L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1840
ad19ef22 1841=item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 1842
be771a83
GS
1843(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1844assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1845pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1846
e0e4a6e3
FC
1847=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
1848S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
1849
1850(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 1851any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38 1852
9e3ec65c 1853The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
1854discovered.
1855
fc36a67e 1856=item Excessively long <> operator
1857
1858(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1859Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1860filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1861variable and glob that.
1862
ed9aa3b7
SG
1863=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1864
af8bb25a 1865(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 1866OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 1867
fe13d51d 1868=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1869
1870(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1871
0ffcbc25
FC
1872=item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
1873
4a0af295 1874(F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
0ffcbc25
FC
1875subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
1876
1877 $foo{$bar}
1878 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
1879 &do_something
1880
1881=item exists argument is not a subroutine name
1882
ccfc2567
FC
1883(F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
1884and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
0ffcbc25 1885
a0d0e21e
LW
1886=item Exiting eval via %s
1887
be771a83
GS
1888(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1889goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1890
1891=item Exiting format via %s
1892
9a2ff54b 1893(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1894goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1895
0a753a76 1896=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1897
be771a83
GS
1898(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1899sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1900loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1901
a0d0e21e
LW
1902=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1903
be771a83
GS
1904(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1905as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1906
1907=item Exiting substitution via %s
1908
be771a83
GS
1909(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1910as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1911
e0e4a6e3 1912=item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 1913
675fa9ff 1914(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
1915
1916 (?13
1917
1918to denote a capturing group of the form
1919L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
1920but omitted the C<")">.
1921
e0e4a6e3 1922=item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
27350048 1923
8b6fbf55
FC
1924(F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
1925only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
1926C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
1927containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
27350048
FC
1928This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
1929interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
1930have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
1931L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
1932
30d9c59b
Z
1933=item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
1934
1935(F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
1936
caa35032 1937 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
30d9c59b
Z
1938 use feature "signatures";
1939 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
1940
6da34ecb
FC
1941=item Experimental "%s" subs not enabled
1942
1943(F) To use lexical subs, you must first enable them:
1944
1945 no warnings 'experimental::lexical_subs';
1946 use feature 'lexical_subs';
1947 my sub foo { ... }
1948
7b8d334a
GS
1949=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1950
be771a83
GS
1951(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1952the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1953usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1954e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1955
6df41af2
GS
1956=item %s: Expression syntax
1957
be771a83
GS
1958(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1959Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1960
1961=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1962
3c10abe3
AG
1963(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1964CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1965queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1966
e0e4a6e3 1967=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
73b437c8 1968
98d31c73 1969(W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3 1970character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
3c6ca74a
FC
1971in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
1972construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
e0e4a6e3 1973the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
3c6ca74a 1974the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1975
1b1ee2ef 1976=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1977
be771a83
GS
1978(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1979system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1980details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1981you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1982
1983=item fcntl is not implemented
1984
1985(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1986PDP-11 or something?
1987
22846ab4
AB
1988=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1989
1990(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1991is not possible.
1992
f337b084
TH
1993=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1994
d8b5cc61 1995(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
1996which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1997a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 1998C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 1999
af8c498a 2000=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 2001
6c8d78fb
HS
2002(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2003it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2004"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2005write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 2006
af8c498a 2007=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 2008
6c8d78fb
HS
2009(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2010you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
2011with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2012read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2013is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2014output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
2015
2016=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2017
2018(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 2019as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
2020previously.
2021
2022=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2023
2024(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
fa816bf3 2025as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
2026
2027=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2028
2029(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
2030a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2031happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2032name.
a0d0e21e 2033
56e90b21
GS
2034=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2035
be771a83 2036(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 2037some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
2038filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2039same name?
56e90b21 2040
6df41af2
GS
2041=item Format not terminated
2042
2043(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2044to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2045
a0d0e21e
LW
2046=item Format %s redefined
2047
e476b1b5 2048(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
2049
2050 {
271595cc 2051 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
2052 eval "format NAME =...";
2053 }
2054
a0d0e21e
LW
2055=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2056
e476b1b5 2057(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
2058
2059 if ($foo = 123)
2060
2061when you meant
2062
2063 if ($foo == 123)
2064
2065(or something like that).
2066
6df41af2
GS
2067=item %s found where operator expected
2068
56da5a46
RGS
2069(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2070If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
2071operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2072operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 2073
a0d0e21e
LW
2074=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2075
2076(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2077
2078=item gethostent not implemented
2079
2080(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2081because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2082on the Internet.
2083
69282e91 2084=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2085
be771a83
GS
2086(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2087socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 2088
748a9306
LW
2089=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2090
2091(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2092C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2093
6df41af2
GS
2094=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2095
be771a83
GS
2096(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2097forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2098L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2099
0f539b13
BF
2100=item given is experimental
2101
675fa9ff
FC
2102(S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2103is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2104in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2105L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 2106
6df41af2
GS
2107=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
2108
a4edf47d 2109(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 2110that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
2111declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2112which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 2113
e476b1b5
GS
2114=item glob failed (%s)
2115
5ead438e 2116(S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
73c4e9dc
FC
2117for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2118pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 2119nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
2120resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2121is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2122in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2123if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2124all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 2125think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 2126C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 2127
a0d0e21e
LW
2128=item Glob not terminated
2129
2130(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
2131a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2132not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2133earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 2134
b35b96b6
JH
2135=item gmtime(%f) failed
2136
2137(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2138too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2139
bcd05b94 2140=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2141
e9200be3 2142(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2143it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2144date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2145not-a-number value).
2146
bcd05b94 2147=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2148
e9200be3 2149(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2150it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2151
6df41af2 2152=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2153
6df41af2
GS
2154(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2155version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2156
2157=item goto must have label
2158
2159(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2160unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2161
6651ba0b
FC
2162=item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2163
2164(F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2165the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2166has since been undefined.
2167
6fbc9859 2168=item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 2169S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1f4f6bf1
YO
2170
2171(F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
f26c79ba
FC
2172they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2173this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
1f4f6bf1 2174
5a25739d
FC
2175=item ()-group starts with a count
2176
2177(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2178something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2179
fe13d51d 2180=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2181
2182(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2183
a0d0e21e
LW
2184=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2185
be771a83
GS
2186(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2187to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2188created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e 2189
6df41af2
GS
2190=item %s has too many errors
2191
2192(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2193Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2194
61e61fbc
JH
2195=item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2196
d8f2b442 2197(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
61e61fbc
JH
2198than the floating point supports.
2199
2200=item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2201
d8f2b442 2202(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
61e61fbc
JH
2203than the floating point supports.
2204
cf4f6003
JH
2205=item Hexadecimal float: internal error
2206
2207(F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2208
61e61fbc
JH
2209=item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2210
2211(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2212the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2213the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2214
40bca5ae
JH
2215=item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2216
2217(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2218digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2219long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2220(needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2221
2222=item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2223
2224(F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
d8f2b442 2225the internals of the long double format are unknown;
40bca5ae
JH
2226therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2227
252aa082
JH
2228=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2229
e476b1b5 2230(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2231(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2232L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2233
8903cb82 2234=item Identifier too long
2235
2236(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2237about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2238names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2239of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2240
e0e4a6e3
FC
2241=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2242S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
fc8cd66c 2243
b5e3739b
FC
2244(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a
2245zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
2246its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
2247been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2248
6df41af2 2249=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 2250
6df41af2 2251(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2252
6df41af2 2253=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2254
be771a83
GS
2255(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2256binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2257offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2258
6597eb22
FC
2259=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2260
e4d150f1
FC
2261(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2262declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2263indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2264or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
6597eb22 2265
78d0fecf 2266=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
4fdae800 2267
d5898338 2268(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2269would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2270when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2271version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2272to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2273
d37a9538
ST
2274=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2275
197afce1 2276(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2277Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
30d9c59b
Z
2278Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2279that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2280instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
d37a9538 2281
904d85c5
RGS
2282=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2283
2284(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2285you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2286
8e742a20
MHM
2287=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2288
6903afa2 2289(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2290
a0d0e21e
LW
2291=item Illegal division by zero
2292
be771a83
GS
2293(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2294your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2295meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2296
6df41af2
GS
2297=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2298
be771a83
GS
2299(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2300A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2301number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2302
a0d0e21e
LW
2303=item Illegal modulus zero
2304
be771a83
GS
2305(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2306numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2307
6df41af2 2308=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2309
6df41af2
GS
2310(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2311two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2312
2313=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2314
d1be9408 2315(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2316
399388f4 2317=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2318
d1be9408 2319(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2320Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2321
e0e4a6e3 2322=item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2323
675fa9ff 2324(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2325
2326 (?+foo)
2327
2328The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2329capturing group. See
2330L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2331
375ed12a
JH
2332=item Illegal suidscript
2333
2334(F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2335
fe13d51d 2336=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2337
6df41af2 2338(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2339following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2340
6df41af2 2341=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2342
75b44862 2343(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2344internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2345delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2346
6df41af2 2347=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2348
be771a83
GS
2349(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2350name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2351didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2352ignored.
54310121 2353
6df41af2 2354=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2355
be771a83
GS
2356(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2357the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2358system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2359times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2360would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2361
be771a83
GS
2362Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2363also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2364
e0e4a6e3
FC
2365=item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2366in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 2367
675fa9ff 2368(F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
0d0b4b3b
KW
2369expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2370too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2371enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2372
6fbc9859
MH
2373=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2374parent '%s'
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2375
2376(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2377C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2378documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2379
979699d9
JH
2380=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2381
2382(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2383Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2384encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2385
6a2ed79a 2386=item Infinite recursion in regex
1a147d38
YO
2387
2388(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2389text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2390either consume text or fail.
2391
6dbe9451
NC
2392=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2393
6903afa2
FC
2394(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2395initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2396C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2397context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2398supported in a future perl release.
6dbe9451 2399
2186f873
FC
2400=item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2401
2402(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2403(indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2404it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2405is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2406returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2407a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2408expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2409returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2410
2411=item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2412
2413(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2414(indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2415better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2416is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2417it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2418provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2419if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2420it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2421
a0d0e21e
LW
2422=item Insecure dependency in %s
2423
8b1a09fc 2424(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2425The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2426setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2427tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2428from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2429such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2430L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2431
2432=item Insecure directory in %s
2433
be771a83
GS
2434(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2435setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2436the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2437See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2438
62f468fc 2439=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2440
2441(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2442setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2443C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2444supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2445the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2446
0e9be77f
DM
2447=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2448
2449(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2450expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2451function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2452See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2453
b9ef414d
FC
2454=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2455
2456(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2457or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2458integers for your architecture.
2459
a7ae9550
GS
2460=item Integer overflow in %s number
2461
35928bc5 2462(S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2463either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2464your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2465On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2466representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
24670b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2468transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2469internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2470operations.
bbce6d69 2471
fc89ca81
FC
2472=item Integer overflow in srand
2473
2474(S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2475in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2476replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2477architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2478you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2479return the same sequence of random numbers.
2480
46314c13
JP
2481=item Integer overflow in version
2482
18da5252
FC
2483=item Integer overflow in version %d
2484
784d71ed
FC
2485(W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2486the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
f084e84f 2487because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
784d71ed
FC
2488element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2489to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
46314c13 2490
e0e4a6e3 2491=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2492
2493(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
e0e4a6e3 2494The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2495discovered.
2496
748a9306
LW
2497=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2498
be771a83
GS
2499(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2500you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2501to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2502L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2503Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2504terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2505
870978ae
FC
2506=item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2507
2508(S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2509formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2510C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2511by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2512message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2513reserved format.
2514
e0e4a6e3 2515=item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 2516
fa816bf3 2517(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
e0e4a6e3 2518S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
7253e4e3 2519discovered.
a0d0e21e 2520
6df41af2
GS
2521=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2522
75b44862 2523(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2524followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2525operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2526L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2527
f51551f7
FC
2528=item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2529marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2530
2531(F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2532expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2533intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2534with whitespace.
2535
09bef843
SB
2536=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2537
a4a4c9e2 2538(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
2539by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2540
2541=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2542
a4a4c9e2 2543(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 2544recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2545
e0e4a6e3
FC
2546=item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
2547S<<-- HERE> in '%s
225fb84f
KW
2548
2549(F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
2550the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
2551the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2552
c8028aa6
TC
2553=item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
2554
fa3234e3
FC
2555(W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
2556arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
2557formerly ignored by system calls.
c8028aa6 2558
e0e4a6e3 2559=item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
a690c7c4
FC
2560
2561(F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
2562indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2563
c635e13b 2564=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2565
be771a83
GS
2566(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2567L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2568
e0e4a6e3
FC
2569=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
2570S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9e08bc66 2571
98d31c73 2572(W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
9e08bc66
TS
2573didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2574from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
98d31c73
FC
2575The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
2576instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
e0e4a6e3 2577The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
9e08bc66
TS
2578escape was discovered.
2579
8149aa9f
FC
2580=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2581
e0e4a6e3
FC
2582=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
2583S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 2584
8149aa9f 2585(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
2586number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
25870 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 2588
6651ba0b
FC
2589=item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2590
2591(F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2592cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2593arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2594B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2595
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2596=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2597
162a3e34
FC
2598(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2599where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2600the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2601a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 2602
40e4140b
FC
2603=item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
2604
2605(W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
abc0aa9d 2606not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
40e4140b
FC
2607character (U+FFFD).
2608
1cd88304
JH
2609=item Invalid number (%f) in chr
2610
2611(W utf8) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or
2612not-a-number) to C<chr>. Those are not valid character numbers,
2613so it return the Unicode replacement character (U+FFFD).
2614
6651ba0b
FC
2615=item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2616
8ff21bfe
FC
2617(S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
2618with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
982c4ecb 2619See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
6651ba0b 2620
e0e4a6e3 2621=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2622
2623(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2624greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2625C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
e0e4a6e3 2626up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 2627problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2628
d1573ac7 2629=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2630
2631(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2632character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2633
09bef843
SB
2634=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2635
0120eecf 2636(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2637elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2638parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2639See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2640
b4581f09
JH
2641=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2642
2bfc5f71
FC
2643(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2644than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
2645If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2646list was terminated too soon.
2647
2c86d456
DG
2648=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2649
fa816bf3 2650(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
2651A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2652decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2653v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2654The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2655See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2656
49704364 2657=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2658
49704364
WL
2659(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2660See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 2661
49704364 2662(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2663silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2664
2c86d456
DG
2665=item Invalid version format (%s)
2666
fa816bf3 2667(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
2668A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2669decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
fa816bf3
FC
2670v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2671must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2672optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2673trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2674after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2675text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2676for more details on allowed version formats.
46314c13 2677
798ae1b7
DG
2678=item Invalid version object
2679
fa816bf3
FC
2680(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2681Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2682an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
798ae1b7 2683
cd209d9d 2684=item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
e0e4a6e3 2685marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff 2686
cd209d9d 2687(F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in
675fa9ff
FC
2688this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
2689indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
cd209d9d 2690and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
675fa9ff 2691
a0d0e21e
LW
2692=item ioctl is not implemented
2693
2694(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2695strange for a machine that supports C.
2696
c289d2f7
JH
2697=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2698
2699(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 2700Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 2701
fe13d51d 2702=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2703
2704(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 2705you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
2706with 'useperlio'.
2707
80cbd5ad
JH
2708=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2709
2710(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 2711neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 2712
4f650b80 2713=item $* is no longer supported
b4581f09 2714
4f650b80 2715(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
ea9d9ebc 2716perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. In
4f650b80
NC
2717previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2718matching within a string.
4fd19576
B
2719
2720Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
6903afa2
FC
2721modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2722with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
570dedd4 2723then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2724
8ae1fe26
RGS
2725=item $# is no longer supported
2726
a58ac25e 2727(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
ea9d9ebc 2728perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. You
a58ac25e 2729should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
8ae1fe26 2730
ccf3535a 2731=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 2732
6903afa2
FC
2733(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2734overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2735an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 2736
ccf3535a 2737=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 2738
04a80ee0
RGS
2739(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2740unaware of.
6ad11d81 2741
5a25739d
FC
2742=item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
2743
2744(S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
2745that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
2746given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
2747make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
2748it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
2749should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
2750line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
2751
aec0ef10 2752=item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
2753
2754(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2755
0953b66b
FC
2756=item keys on reference is experimental
2757
0773cb3e
FC
2758(S experimental::autoderef) C<keys> with a scalar argument is experimental
2759and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
2760take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
0953b66b 2761
d401967c 2762 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
0953b66b 2763
a0d0e21e
LW
2764=item Label not found for "last %s"
2765
be771a83
GS
2766(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2767of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2768L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2769
2770=item Label not found for "next %s"
2771
2772(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2773that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2774L<perlfunc/last>.
2775
2776=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2777
2778(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2779that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2780L<perlfunc/last>.
2781
85ab1d1d 2782=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2783
85ab1d1d 2784(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2785effective uids or gids failed.
2786
49704364
WL
2787=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2788
d7f8936a 2789(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
2790length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2791an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 2792
25e26107 2793=item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
e508c8a4 2794
0d46a4e7
FC
2795(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2796probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
2797
2798Array size can be obtained by doing:
2799
2800 scalar(@array);
2801
2802The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2803
2804 scalar(keys %hash);
2805
f0e67a1d
Z
2806=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2807
d4fe7078
RS
2808(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2809(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2810couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2811of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
6903afa2 2812it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
2813
2814=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2815
2816(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2817detectable way.
2818
69282e91 2819=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2820
be771a83
GS
2821(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2822to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2823L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2824
6651ba0b
FC
2825=item List form of piped open not implemented
2826
2827(F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
2828form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
2829Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
2830
b35b96b6
JH
2831=item localtime(%f) failed
2832
2833(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2834too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2835
bcd05b94 2836=item localtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2837
e9200be3 2838(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
fc003d4b 2839than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
6903afa2 2840wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2841not-a-number value).
2842
bcd05b94 2843=item localtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2844
e9200be3 2845(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
fc003d4b 2846than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
e7a1a147 2847wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2848
58e23c8d 2849=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2850
2851(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 2852handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2853
b88df990
NC
2854=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2855
e63e8a91
FC
2856(W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
2857is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
2858accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
2859warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
2860when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
2861insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
b88df990 2862
93fad930 2863=item lstat() on filehandle%s
2f7da168
RK
2864
2865(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2866by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2867instead on the filehandle.)
2868
345d70e3 2869=item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
bb3abb05 2870
345d70e3
FC
2871(W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
2872attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
2873does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
2874want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
2875details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
2876if you really know what you are doing.
bb3abb05 2877
885ef6f5
GG
2878=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2879
345d70e3
FC
2880(W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
2881subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
2882not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
2883add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
2884foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
2885
2886See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
885ef6f5 2887
6f1b3ab0
FC
2888=item Magical list constants are not supported
2889
2890(F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
2891to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
2892something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
2893
2db62bbc 2894=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 2895
2db62bbc 2896(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2897are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2898
2899=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2900
2db62bbc 2901(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2902are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2903
6df41af2
GS
2904=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2905
2906(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2907
2908 prefix1;prefix2
2909
2910or
6df41af2
GS
2911 prefix1 prefix2
2912
be771a83
GS
2913with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2914a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2915appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2916"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2917
2f758a16
ST
2918=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2919
d37a9538
ST
2920(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2921syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2922obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2923when the function is called.
30d9c59b
Z
2924Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
2925but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
2926so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2f758a16 2927
ba210ebe
JH
2928=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2929
4d6f11e5 2930(S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2575c402 2931encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2932
2575c402
JW
2933One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2934you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
6903afa2 29358-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2575c402
JW
2936
2937If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2938sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2939set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2940message.
2941
2942See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2943
107160e2
KW
2944=item Malformed UTF-8 character immediately after '%s'
2945
2946(F) You said C<use utf8>, but the program file doesn't comply with UTF-8
2947encoding rules. The message prints out the properly encoded characters
2948just before the first bad one. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a
2949warning is generated that gives more details about the type of
2950malformation.
2951
bde9e88d 2952=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
ff3f963a
KW
2953
2954(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2955
4a5d3a93
FC
2956=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2957
2958(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2959rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2960
f337b084
TH
2961=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2962
2963(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2964rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2965
2966=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2967
2968(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2969rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2970
4a5d3a93 2971=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 2972
4a5d3a93
FC
2973(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2974doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2975
30d9c59b
Z
2976=item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
2977
2978(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
2979$b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
2980Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
2981caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
2982as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
2983optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
2984
2d88a86a
KW
2985=item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
2986not be portable
2987
2988(S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
2989Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
2990in an unsigned integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
2991other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
2992containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
2993the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
2994C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
2995so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
2996in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
2997unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
2998given property matches these code points or not is specified in
2999L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3000
3001This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3002immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3003not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3004the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3005Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3006every code point except these 22.)
3007
3008Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3009should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3010that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3011category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3012off this category.
3013
3014See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3015
e0e4a6e3
FC
3016=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3017m/%s/
4a5d3a93
FC
3018
3019(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
e0e4a6e3 3020regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 3021shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4a5d3a93 3022See L<perlre>.
f337b084 3023
de42a5a9 3024=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 3025
6903afa2 3026(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
3027usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3028too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3029resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 3030safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 3031
25f58aea
PN
3032=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3033
3034(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3035interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3036"use" or "my".
3037
0d2487cd 3038=item '%' may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
3039
3040(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
3041checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3042See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 3043
a0d0e21e
LW
3044=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3045
3046(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 3047doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3048
3cdd684c
TP
3049=item Method %s not permitted
3050
3051See Server error.
3052
a0d0e21e
LW
3053=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3054
3055(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3056by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3057ended earlier on the current line.
3058
3059=item Misplaced _ in number
3060
d4ced10d
JH
3061(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3062separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 3063
7baa4690
HS
3064=item Missing argument in %s
3065
3664866e
AB
3066(W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3067arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3068
3069Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3070arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3071other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3072functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
7baa4690 3073
9e81e6a1
RGS
3074=item Missing argument to -%c
3075
3076(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3077immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3078
ff3f963a 3079=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 3080
e0e4a6e3 3081=item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3082
4a2d328f 3083(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
3084double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3085(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3086This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3087follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 3088
f0a2b745
KW
3089=item Missing braces on \o{}
3090
3091(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3092
a0d0e21e
LW
3093=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3094
3095(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3096"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3097
06eaf0bc
GS
3098=item Missing command in piped open
3099
be771a83
GS
3100(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3101C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3102blank.
06eaf0bc 3103
961ce445
RGS
3104=item Missing control char name in \c
3105
3106(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3107character name.
3108
591f5ca2
FC
3109=item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3110
bfe11873 3111(W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
591f5ca2 3112
8767b1ab 3113=item Missing name in "%s sub"
6df41af2 3114
87444db5 3115(F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
be771a83 3116they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
3117
3118=item Missing $ on loop variable
3119
be771a83
GS
3120(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3121are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3122can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 3123
cc507455 3124=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 3125
56da5a46
RGS
3126(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3127"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 3128
f51551f7
FC
3129=item Missing or undefined argument to require
3130
3131(F) You tried to call require with no argument or with an undefined
3132value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
3133file-specification as an argument. See L<perlfunc/require>.
3134
e0e4a6e3 3135=item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 3136
ff3f963a
KW
3137(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3138
4a68bf9d 3139=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 3140
d32207c9
FC
3141(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3142
3143The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3144meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
fa816bf3 3145name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
d32207c9
FC
3146double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3147it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3148
3149Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3150in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3151for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3152
3153This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3154by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3155form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3156means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
31573; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3158C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3159
3160However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3161mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3162If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3163escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 3164
d98d5fff 3165=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 3166
be771a83
GS
3167(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3168ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3169were last editing.
a0d0e21e 3170
6df41af2
GS
3171=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3172
56da5a46
RGS
3173(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3174"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
3175the previous line just because you saw this message.
3176
a0d0e21e
LW
3177=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3178
3179(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 3180constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
3181catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3182
3183 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3184 mod(2);
3185
3186Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3187
c5674021
PDF
3188Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3189is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3190
b7e4ecc1
FC
3191 $x = 1;
3192 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3193 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3194 } # modify the 2
c5674021 3195
7a4340ed 3196=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3197
3198(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3199subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3200backwards.
3201
7a4340ed 3202=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 3203
be771a83
GS
3204(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3205couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
3206
3207=item Module name must be constant
3208
3209(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3210
be98fb35 3211=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 3212
be98fb35
GS
3213(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3214you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3215about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 3216
fe13d51d 3217=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 3218
6903afa2 3219(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
3220can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3221list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3222See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3223
85396b18
FC
3224=item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3225
3226(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3227L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3228could not be made read-only.
3229
92951bce
FC
3230=item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3231
85396b18
FC
3232(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3233but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3234
3235=item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3236
3237(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3238L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3239buffer could not be made mutable.
3240
92951bce
FC
3241=item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3242
3243(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
85396b18
FC
3244L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3245mutable before freeing the ops.
92951bce 3246
a0d0e21e
LW
3247=item msg%s not implemented
3248
3249(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3250
3251=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3252
75b44862
GS
3253(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3254They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 3255
49704364 3256=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 3257
49704364
WL
3258(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3259follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3260See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
3261
3262=item "my sub" not yet implemented
3263
be771a83
GS
3264(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3265that yet.
6df41af2 3266
5a25739d
FC
3267=item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3268
3269(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3270You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3271sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3272lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3273name, or rename the lexical variable.
3274
fd1b7234 3275=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 3276
be771a83
GS
3277(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3278sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3279local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 3280
8149aa9f
FC
3281=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3282
c59aba6c
FC
3283(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3284names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3285just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
08a33b6b 3286declaration is also provided for this purpose.
c59aba6c 3287
66a1f5ec
FC
3288NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3289only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3290warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3291%c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
c59aba6c
FC
3292format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3293but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3294Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3295identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
8149aa9f 3296
e0e4a6e3 3297=item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b
KW
3298
3299(F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3300exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3301constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3302
3303 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3304 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3305 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3306
3307The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
675fa9ff
FC
3308need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3309two separate things, you need to separate them:
0d0b4b3b
KW
3310
3311 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3312 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3313 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3314 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3315
49704364
WL
3316=item Negative '/' count in unpack
3317
3318(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3319negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3320
a0d0e21e
LW
3321=item Negative length
3322
be771a83
GS
3323(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3324length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 3325
ed9aa3b7
SG
3326=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3327
3328(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3329greater than or equal to zero.
3330
b3211734
KW
3331=item Negative repeat count does nothing
3332
3333(W numeric) You tried to execute the
3334L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3335times, which doesn't make sense.
3336
e0e4a6e3 3337=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3338
6903afa2 3339(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
e0e4a6e3 3340So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 3341whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 3342
7253e4e3 3343Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 3344C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3345
6df41af2 3346=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 3347
be771a83
GS
3348(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3349scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 3350
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3351=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3352
3353(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3354real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3355See L<mro>.
3356
5a25739d 3357=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
e0e4a6e3 3358marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5a25739d 3359
32a77fbe
FC
3360(F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
3361bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
3362class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
3363probably not what you want.
5a25739d 3364
8f0cd35a 3365=item \N{} in inverted character class or as a range end-point is restricted to one character in regex; marked
e0e4a6e3 3366by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0b4ce96d
FC
3367
3368(F) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a
8f0cd35a
KW
3369multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is supposed to
3370match just one character of input, perl will match the whole thing
3371correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>, or the escape
3372is the beginning or final end point of a range. The mathematically
3373logical behavior for what matches when inverting is very different than
3374what people expect, so we have decided to forbid it.
3375Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the C<\N{...}> is
3376used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
3377
3378 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
3379
3380What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence of
3381code points, so this is made an error.
0b4ce96d 3382
e0e4a6e3
FC
3383=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by
3384S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5a25739d
FC
3385
3386(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
3387sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
3388bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
3389backslash in double-quotish:
3390
3391 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
3392 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
3393 /$re/;
3394
3395Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
3396
3397 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
3398 /$re/;
3399
3400The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
3401components:
3402
3403 $re = '\N';
3404 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
3405
3406It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and
3407it doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
3408
3409Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
3410C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
3411
3412 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
3413 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
3414
a0d0e21e
LW
3415=item No %s allowed while running setuid
3416
be771a83
GS
3417(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3418setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3419will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3420securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 3421
df758df2
KW
3422=item NO-BREAK SPACE in a charnames alias definition is deprecated
3423
3424(D deprecated) You defined a character name which contained a no-break
3425space character. Change it to a regular space. Usually these names are
3426defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
3427could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
3428L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3429
6651ba0b
FC
3430=item No code specified for -%c
3431
3432(F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3433you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3434argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3435
3436 perl -e ""
3437 perl -e0
3438 perl -e1
3439
a0d0e21e
LW
3440=item No comma allowed after %s
3441
6903afa2
FC
3442(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3443not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
3444Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3445
6903afa2
FC
3446One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3447a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3448importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3449system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3450use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3451please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3452explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3453it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3454still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3455the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3456constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 3457
748a9306
LW
3458=item No command into which to pipe on command line
3459
be771a83
GS
3460(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3461redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3462doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 3463
a0d0e21e
LW
3464=item No DB::DB routine defined
3465
be771a83 3466(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 3467for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
3468module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3469statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
3470
3471=item No dbm on this machine
3472
3473(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 3474supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 3475
ccafdc96 3476=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 3477
ccafdc96
RGS
3478(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3479for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3480module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3481of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 3482
6651ba0b
FC
3483=item No directory specified for -I
3484
3485(F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3486I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3487
c47ff5f1 3488=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 3489
be771a83
GS
3490(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3491redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3492find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 3493
49704364
WL
3494=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3495
3496(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 3497matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 3498
c47ff5f1 3499=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 3500
be771a83
GS
3501(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3502redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3503name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 3504
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3505=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3506
3507(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3508in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3509it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
fa816bf3 3510or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2c7d6b9c 3511
e0e4a6e3 3512=item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
3513
3514(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
3515a hex one was expected, like
3516
3517 (?[ [ \xDG ] ])
3518 (?[ [ \x{DEKA} ] ])
3519
e0e4a6e3 3520=item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
3521
3522(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
3523an octal one was expected, like
3524
3525 (?[ [ \o{1278} ] ])
3526
3527=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3528
3529(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3530unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3531is as indicated.
3532
6df41af2
GS
3533=item "no" not allowed in expression
3534
be771a83
GS
3535(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3536returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 3537
675fa9ff
FC
3538=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3539
3540(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3541Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3542select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
3543
c47ff5f1 3544=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 3545
be771a83
GS
3546(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3547redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3548doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 3549
c47ff5f1 3550=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 3551
be771a83
GS
3552(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3553redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3554find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 3555
1ec3e8de
GS
3556=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3557
be771a83
GS
3558(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3559declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3560semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 3561
a0d0e21e
LW
3562=item No Perl script found in input
3563
3564(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3565with #! and containing the word "perl".
3566
3567=item No setregid available
3568
3569(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3570your system.
3571
3572=item No setreuid available
3573
3574(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3575your system.
3576
5a25739d
FC
3577=item No such class %s
3578
3579(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3580declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
3581
e75d1f10
RD
3582=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3583
b7e4ecc1
FC
3584(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3585variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3586The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3587L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 3588
3c20a832
SP
3589=item No such hook: %s
3590
dc7e5945
FC
3591(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3592Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 3593
6df41af2
GS
3594=item No such pipe open
3595
3596(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
3597close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3598earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 3599
a0d0e21e
LW
3600=item No such signal: SIG%s
3601
be771a83
GS
3602(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3603not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3604names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
3605
3606=item Not a CODE reference
3607
3608(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3609subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3610use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3611also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3612
a0d0e21e
LW
3613=item Not a GLOB reference
3614
be771a83
GS
3615(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3616symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3617something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3618kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3619
3620=item Not a HASH reference
3621
be771a83
GS
3622(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3623reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3624find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3625
6df41af2
GS
3626=item Not an ARRAY reference
3627
be771a83
GS
3628(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3629a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3630to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 3631
d4fc4415
FC
3632=item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3633
3634(F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3635another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3636or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3637
a0d0e21e
LW
3638=item Not a SCALAR reference
3639
be771a83
GS
3640(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3641a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3642to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3643
3644=item Not a subroutine reference
3645
3646(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3647subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3648use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3649also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3650
e7ea3e70 3651=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3652
3653(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3654doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3655
a0d0e21e
LW
3656=item Not enough arguments for %s
3657
3658(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3659
6df41af2
GS
3660=item Not enough format arguments
3661
be771a83
GS
3662(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3663supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3664
3665=item %s: not found
3666
be771a83
GS
3667(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3668of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3669yourself.
6df41af2 3670
e0e4a6e3 3671=item (?[...]) not valid in locale in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
3672
3673(F) C<(?[...])> cannot be used within the scope of a C<S<use locale>> or with
3674an C</l> regular expression modifier, as that would require deferring
3675to run-time the calculation of what it should evaluate to, and it is
3676regex compile-time only.
3677
6df41af2 3678=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3679
6df41af2
GS
3680(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3681timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3682to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3683F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3684need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3685
6df41af2
GS
3686=item NULL OP IN RUN
3687
f84fe999 3688(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 3689pointer.
6df41af2 3690
55497cff 3691=item Null picture in formline
3692
3693(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3694specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3695supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3696
a0d0e21e
LW
3697=item Null realloc
3698
3699(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3700
3701=item NULL regexp argument
3702
5f05dabc 3703(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3704
3705=item NULL regexp parameter
3706
3707(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3708
fc36a67e 3709=item Number too long
3710
be771a83 3711(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3712about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3713versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3714the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3715"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3716
f0a2b745
KW
3717=item Number with no digits
3718
1043934d 3719(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 3720a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 3721the braces.
f0a2b745 3722
252aa082
JH
3723=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3724
75b44862 3725(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3726(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3727L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 3728
30d9c59b
Z
3729=item Odd name/value argument for subroutine
3730
3731(F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
3732received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
3733the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
3734The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault. Inconveniently,
3735this error will be reported at the location of the subroutine, not that
3736of the caller.
3737
6ad11d81
JH
3738=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3739
04a80ee0 3740(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 3741arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3742
b21befc1
MG
3743=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3744
3745(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3746which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3747
1930e939 3748=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3749
be771a83
GS
3750(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3751which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3752
bbce6d69 3753=item Offset outside string
3754
1fa582fa 3755(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 3756with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3757imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3758take place when going past the end of the string when either
3759C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3760for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3761with real files).
bbce6d69 3762
c289d2f7 3763=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3764
3765(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3766never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3767call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3768
96ebfdd7
RK
3769=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3770
3771(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3772that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3773
a0d0e21e
LW
3774=item oops: oopsAV
3775
e476b1b5 3776(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3777
3778=item oops: oopsHV
3779
e476b1b5 3780(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3781
abc718f2
RGS
3782=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3783
713e2616 3784(D io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3785a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3786Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3787and is deprecated.
3788
3789=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3790
28038637 3791(D io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3792a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3793Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3794and is deprecated.
3795
e0e4a6e3
FC
3796=item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3797m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 3798
675fa9ff 3799(F) You wrote something like
0d0b4b3b
KW
3800
3801 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
3802
3803There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
3804them.
3805
a0288114 3806=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3807
be771a83
GS
3808(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3809handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3810of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 3811the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3812
5ff1373f 3813=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 3814
b5af3ad2
FC
3815(S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode semantics
3816on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
3817defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3818
3819If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3820matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3821
3822If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3823C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 3824
5ff1373f 3825=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 3826
4c2e59a0 3827(S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
ad94bb39
FC
3828semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
3829of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
3830semantics are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
3831they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
3832surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3833
3834If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3835matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3836
3837If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3838C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 3839
748a9306
LW
3840=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3841
be771a83
GS
3842(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3843was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3844use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3845example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3846"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3847
30d9c59b
Z
3848=item Optional parameter lacks default expression
3849
3850(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
3851named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
3852parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
3853have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
3854
6df41af2
GS
3855=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3856
be771a83
GS
3857(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3858in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3859
a80b8354
GS
3860=item Out of memory!
3861
3862(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3863remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3864no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3865
19a52907
JH
3866At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3867process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3868C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3869the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3870and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3871
6d3b25aa
RGS
3872=item Out of memory during %s extend
3873
3874(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3875the largest possible memory allocation.
3876
6df41af2 3877=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 3878
6df41af2 3879(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
6903afa2 3880remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
3881the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3882possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 3883
1b979e0a 3884=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 3885
1fa582fa 3886(X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
be771a83
GS
3887insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3888request.
eff9c6e2
CS
3889
3890The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3891depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
3892However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3893emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
3894is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3895where the failed request happened.
55497cff 3896
1b979e0a
IZ
3897=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3898
3899(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
3900is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3901C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 3902
6df41af2
GS
3903=item Out of memory for yacc stack
3904
be771a83
GS
3905(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3906parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3907otherwise.
6df41af2 3908
28be1210
TH
3909=item '.' outside of string in pack
3910
3911(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3912position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3913
49704364 3914=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 3915
49704364 3916(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
3917the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3918
f337b084
TH
3919=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3920
3921(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6903afa2 3922the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
fa816bf3 3923UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
f337b084 3924
7778d804
FC
3925=item overload arg '%s' is invalid
3926
3927(W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
3928recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
3929
7cb0cfe6
BM
3930=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3931
3932(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
6903afa2 3933but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
7cb0cfe6
BM
3934L<overload>.
3935
3936=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3937
3938(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
6903afa2 3939overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
7cb0cfe6 3940
6df41af2
GS
3941=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3942
be771a83
GS
3943(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3944package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3945some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3946mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 3947
96ebfdd7
RK
3948=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3949
3950(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3951signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3952
a0d0e21e
LW
3953=item page overflow
3954
be771a83
GS
3955(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3956page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 3957
6df41af2
GS
3958=item panic: %s
3959
3960(P) An internal error.
3961
c99a1475
NC
3962=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3963
3964(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3965an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3966platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3967enter this branch on this platform.
3968
d5e473ac
SH
3969=item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
3970
3971(P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
3972was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
3973able to initialize properly.
3974
5637ef5b 3975=item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3976
3977(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3978
5637ef5b 3979=item panic: ck_split, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
3980
3981(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3982
5637ef5b 3983=item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
a0d0e21e 3984
be771a83
GS
3985(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3986there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 3987
810b8aa5
GS
3988=item panic: del_backref
3989
3990(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3991reference.
3992
a0d0e21e
LW
3993=item panic: die %s
3994
3995(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3996it wasn't an eval context.
3997
a0d0e21e
LW
3998=item panic: do_subst
3999
be771a83
GS
4000(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4001data.
a0d0e21e 4002
2269b42e 4003=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 4004
2269b42e 4005(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 4006data.
a0d0e21e 4007
b7f7fd0b
NC
4008=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4009
10203f38 4010(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
4011failure was caught.
4012
255abbe7 4013=item panic: frexp: %f
c635e13b 4014
4015(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4016
5637ef5b 4017=item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
a0d0e21e
LW
4018
4019(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4020and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4021
b0d55c99
FC
4022=item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4023
4024(P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
6903afa2
FC
4025repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4026Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4027the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
b0d55c99 4028
5637ef5b 4029=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4030
4031(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4032
5637ef5b 4033=item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4034
4035(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4036
e446cec8
IZ
4037=item panic: kid popen errno read
4038
1f91b9f5 4039(F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
e446cec8 4040
5637ef5b 4041=item panic: last, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4042
4043(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4044it wasn't a block context.
4045
4046=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4047
be771a83
GS
4048(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4049scope.
a0d0e21e 4050
5637ef5b 4051=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
a0d0e21e
LW
4052
4053(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4054invalid enum on the top of it.
4055
810b8aa5
GS
4056=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4057
4058(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4059references to an object.
4060
5637ef5b 4061=item panic: malloc, %s
6df41af2
GS
4062
4063(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4064
27d5b266
JH
4065=item panic: memory wrap
4066
46f9c2c2
FC
4067(P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4068negative amount.
27d5b266 4069
5637ef5b 4070=item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4071
4072(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4073and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4074
5637ef5b 4075=item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4076
4077(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4078and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4079
4080=item panic: pad_free po
4081
4082(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4083
5637ef5b 4084=item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4085
4086(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4087and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4088
4089=item panic: pad_sv po
4090
4091(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4092
5637ef5b 4093=item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4094
4095(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4096and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4097
4098=item panic: pad_swipe po
4099
4100(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4101
5637ef5b 4102=item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4103
4104(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4105
96ebfdd7
RK
4106=item panic: pp_match%s
4107
4108(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4109data.
4110
5637ef5b 4111=item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
2269b42e
JH
4112
4113(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
4114
5637ef5b 4115=item panic: realloc, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4116
4117(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4118
ccfb6d2e
FC
4119=item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4120
4121(P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4122reference count other than 1.
4123
5637ef5b 4124=item panic: restartop in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4125
4126(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4127didn't supply the destination.
4128
5637ef5b 4129=item panic: return, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4130
4131(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4132then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4133
5637ef5b 4134=item panic: scan_num, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4135
4136(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4137
4599db5f 4138=item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
d24ca0c5 4139
1f91b9f5 4140(P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
d24ca0c5
DM
4141blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4142seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4143
5a25739d
FC
4144=item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4145
4146(P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4147In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4148is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4149
6c65d5f9
NC
4150=item panic: sv_chop %s
4151
4152(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4153scalar's string buffer.
4154
5637ef5b 4155=item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4156
4157(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4158was string.
4159
4160=item panic: top_env
4161
6224f72b 4162(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 4163
65bca31a
NC
4164=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4165
a1efa96e
FC
4166(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4167permitted at run time.
65bca31a 4168
dea0fc0b
JH
4169=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4170
4171(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 4172to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 4173
e0ea5e2d
NC
4174=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4175
4176(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4177to even) byte length.
4178
5637ef5b 4179=item panic: yylex, %s
2f7da168
RK
4180
4181(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4182
78181aa9
KW
4183=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4184
4185(W parenthesis) You said something like
4186
4187 my $foo, $bar = @_;
4188
4189when you meant
4190
4191 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4192
4193Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4194
28ac2b49
Z
4195=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4196
4197(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4198a detectable way.
4199
9816f121
KW
4200=item Passing malformed UTF-8 to "%s" is deprecated
4201
4202(D deprecated, utf8) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl
4203core or in XS code. Such code was trying to find out if a character,
4204allegedly stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such
4205as being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded in
4206legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used by
4207knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked against
4208was. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a further message is raised,
4209giving details of the malformation.
4210
b9bd8d8c 4211=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
1a147d38
YO
4212
4213(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
6903afa2
FC
4214consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4215the nesting limit is exceeded.
1a147d38 4216
96ebfdd7
RK
4217=item C<-p> destination: %s
4218
4219(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4220command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4221redirected it with select().)
4222
4223=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
4224
4225(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
4226"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
4227that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
4228
8954b91a 4229=item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
e0e4a6e3 4230utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
d50a4f90 4231
6014bd26
JK
4232(S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4233and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4234folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
4235Please report this as a bug using the L<perlbug> utility.
d50a4f90 4236
f51551f7
FC
4237=item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4238
4239(S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4240experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4241simply disable this warning:
4242
4243 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4244
1109a392
MHM
4245=item Perl_my_%s() not available
4246
4247(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4248so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4249conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4250'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4251
6651ba0b
FC
4252=item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4253
4254(F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4255Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4256of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4257interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4258decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4259is equivalent to v5.100.
4260
6903f24f 4261=item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
6d3b25aa
RGS
4262
4263(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4264recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4265you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4266
6df41af2
GS
4267=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4268
fa816bf3 4269(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 4270C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 4271
96ebfdd7
RK
4272=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4273
806b6d07 4274(X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
96ebfdd7 4275
6651ba0b
FC
4276=item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4277
4278(F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4279on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4280Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4281wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4282
675fa9ff
FC
4283=item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4284
ff9c1ae8 4285(S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
675fa9ff
FC
4286contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4287hash seed you think you are.
6a5b4183 4288
6df41af2
GS
4289=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4290
4291(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4292
4293 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4294 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4295 LC_ALL = "En_US",
4296 LANG = (unset)
4297 are supported and installed on your system.
4298 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4299
4300Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4301settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
4302This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4303system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4304locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4305dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4b07a369
FC
4306Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4307fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4308time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
0ea6b70f 4309L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 4310
6a5b4183
YO
4311=item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4312
ff9c1ae8 4313(S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
675fa9ff 4314but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
6a5b4183
YO
4315are as follows.
4316
4317 Numeric | String | Result
4318 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4319 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4320 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
555bd962
BG
4321 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4322 | | randomization
6a5b4183
YO
4323
4324Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
675fa9ff 4325case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
aac486f1 4326
bd3fa61c 4327=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 4328
be771a83
GS
4329(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4330process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4331fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 4332
49704364 4333=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
4334
4335(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4336
0953b66b
FC
4337=item pop on reference is experimental
4338
0773cb3e
FC
4339(S experimental::autoderef) C<pop> with a scalar argument is experimental
4340and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
4341take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
0953b66b 4342
d401967c 4343 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
0953b66b
FC
4344
4345=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<< <-- HERE in m/%s/ >>
96ebfdd7 4346
e0e4a6e3 4347(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 4348shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
96ebfdd7
RK
4349Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4350the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4351not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4352
4353=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4354
4355(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4356the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4357
b33c0c71 4358=item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4359S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4360
9a0b3859 4361(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
4362I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
4363/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
9e3ec65c 4364implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
e0e4a6e3 4365will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 4366expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4367
6fbc9859 4368=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4369S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4370
a125938c
FC
4371(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4372with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4373need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4374character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
e0e4a6e3 4375and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
a125938c 4376problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4377
6fbc9859 4378=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4379S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4380
7253e4e3
RK
4381(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4382with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4383need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4384character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
e0e4a6e3 4385and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 4386problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4387
bbce6d69 4388=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
4389
e476b1b5 4390(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 4391strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
4392literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
4393parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 4394
774d564b 4395You probably wrote something like this:
4396
54310121 4397 @list = qw(
774d564b 4398 a # a comment
bbce6d69 4399 b # another comment
774d564b 4400 );
bbce6d69 4401
4402when you should have written this:
4403
774d564b 4404 @list = qw(
54310121 4405 a
4406 b
774d564b 4407 );
4408
4409If you really want comments, build your list the
4410old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
4411
4412 @list = (
4413 'a', # a comment
4414 'b', # another comment
4415 );
bbce6d69 4416
4417=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
4418
be771a83
GS
4419(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
4420commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
4421different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
4422frequently used.)
bbce6d69 4423
54310121 4424You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 4425
774d564b 4426 qw! a, b, c !;
4427
4428which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
4429commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 4430
774d564b 4431 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 4432
a0d0e21e
LW
4433=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
4434
4435(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
4436Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
4437end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
4438Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
4439
9da2d046
NT
4440=item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
4441
4442(W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
4443flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
4444C<or>. Consider:
4445
4446 sub { return $a or $b; }
4447
4448This is parsed as:
4449
4450 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
4451
4452Which is effectively just:
4453
4454 sub { return $a; }
4455
4456Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
4457
4458Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
4459
4460 sub { 1 if die; }
4461
a690c7c4
FC
4462=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
4463
4464(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
4465with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
4466
4467 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
4468
4469This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
4470higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
4471really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
4472parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
4473
77772344
B
4474=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
4475
4476(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
4477The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 4478record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
4479followed by the word 'bar'.
4480
4481If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
4482C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
4483
4484If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
4485followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
4486C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
4487
e5035638
FC
4488=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
4489
ccf3535a 4490(W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
6903afa2 4491but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
e5035638
FC
4492literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
4493to the array you apparently lost track of.
4494
1f25714a
FC
4495=item Postfix dereference is experimental
4496
4497(S experimental::postderef) This warning is emitted if you use
4498the experimental postfix dereference syntax. Simply suppress the
4499warning if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing
4500so you are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which
4501may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
4502
4503 no warnings "experimental::postderef";
4504 use feature "postderef", "postderef_qq";
4505 $ref->$*;
4506 $aref->@*;
4507 $aref->@[@indices];
4508 ... etc ...
4509
a0d0e21e
LW
4510=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
4511
e476b1b5 4512(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 4513
a0d0e21e
LW
4514 open FOO || die;
4515
4516is now misinterpreted as
4517
4518 open(FOO || die);
4519
be771a83
GS
4520because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
4521list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
4522parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
4523of "||".
a0d0e21e 4524
3cdd684c
TP
4525=item Premature end of script headers
4526
4527See Server error.
4528
6df41af2
GS
4529=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
4530
be771a83 4531(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4532before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 4533
9a7dcd9c 4534=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4535
be771a83 4536(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4537before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4538
6df41af2 4539=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 4540
6df41af2
GS
4541(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
4542applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
4543port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
4544L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 4545in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 4546
e0e4a6e3 4547=item Property '%s' is unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 4548
675fa9ff 4549(F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
0d0b4b3b
KW
4550known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
4551L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
675fa9ff
FC
4552for a complete list of available official
4553properties. If it is a L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
0d0b4b3b
KW
4554it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
4555compiled.
4556
327323c1
RGS
4557=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
4558
fa816bf3
FC
4559(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
4560useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
327323c1 4561
3fe9a6f1 4562=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 4563
9a0b3859 4564(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 4565declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 4566
ed9aa3b7
SG
4567=item Prototype not terminated
4568
2a6fd447 4569(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
4570definition.
4571
eedb00fa
PM
4572=item Prototype '%s' overridden by attribute 'prototype(%s)' in %s
4573
4574(W prototype) A prototype was declared in both the parentheses after
4575the sub name and via the prototype attribute. The prototype in
4576parentheses is useless, since it will be replaced by the prototype
4577from the attribute before it's ever used.
4578
f9eb106c
FC
4579=item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
4580
4581(W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
4582match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
4583use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
4584class, which should know about the locale's rules.
4585(See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
4586
4587Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
4588Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
4589subset.
4590
4591Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
4592locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
4593CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
4594"MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
4595meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
4596should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
4597positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
4598incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
4599is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
4600case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
4601change when upper cased.
4602
0953b66b
FC
4603=item push on reference is experimental
4604
0773cb3e
FC
4605(S experimental::autoderef) C<push> with a scalar argument is experimental
4606and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
4607take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
0953b66b 4608
d401967c 4609 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
0953b66b
FC
4610
4611=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by S<< <-- HERE in m/%s/ >>
96ebfdd7 4612
6903afa2 4613(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
e0e4a6e3 4614you meant it literally. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 4615expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 4616
e0e4a6e3
FC
4617=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4618m/%s/
9baa0206 4619
6903afa2 4620(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
e0e4a6e3 4621the {min,max} construct. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 4622expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 4623
675fa9ff
FC
4624=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex
4625
e0e4a6e3
FC
4626=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex; marked by
4627S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4628
4629(W regexp) Minima should be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
4630want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}.
4631
b33c0c71
MH
4632=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression in regex; marked by <--
4633HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 4634
b45f050a
JF
4635(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
4636it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
4637quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
4638"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
4639C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 4640
9e3ec65c 4641The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
7253e4e3
RK
4642discovered.
4643
89ea2908
GA
4644=item Range iterator outside integer range
4645
4646(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
4647are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
4648One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
4649by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 4650
3b7fbd4a
SP
4651=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4652
1a147d38 4653(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
4654a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4655
96ebfdd7
RK
4656=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
4657
4658(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
4659before now. Check your control flow.
4660
b5fe5ca2
SR
4661=item read() on closed filehandle %s
4662
4663(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4664
4665=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
4666
4667(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4668
de42a5a9 4669=item Reallocation too large: %x
6df41af2
GS
4670
4671(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
4672
4ad56ec9
IZ
4673=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
4674
be771a83
GS
4675(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
4676already been freed.
4ad56ec9 4677
a0d0e21e
LW
4678=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
4679
19b29141 4680(S debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
be771a83 4681the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
4682which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
4683
6651ba0b
FC
4684=item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
4685
4686(P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
4687a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
4688$fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
4689loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
4690
3e0ccd42 4691=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 4692
2c7d6b9c
RGS
4693(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
4694believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
4695crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 4696
f51551f7
FC
4697=item Redundant argument in %s
4698
4699(W redundant) You called a function with more arguments than other
4700arguments you supplied indicated would be needed. Currently only
4701emitted when a printf-type format required fewer arguments than were
4702supplied, but might be used in the future for e.g. L<perlfunc/pack>.
4703
12605ff9
FC
4704=item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
4705
2e0cfa16
FC
4706=item refcnt: fd %d%s
4707
12605ff9
FC
4708=item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
4709
fa816bf3 4710(P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
2e0cfa16
FC
4711you see this message, something is very wrong.
4712
1930e939
TP
4713=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
4714
be771a83 4715(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
6903afa2
FC
4716with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
4717usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
4718to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
4719
4720 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
4721 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
4722 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
4723 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
4724
810b8aa5
GS
4725=item Reference is already weak
4726
e476b1b5 4727(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
4728Doing so has no effect.
4729
e0e4a6e3 4730=item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b72d83b2 4731
6903afa2
FC
4732(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
4733to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
4734(normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4735backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
b72d83b2 4736
e0e4a6e3
FC
4737=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4738m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4739
4740(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
6903afa2 4741not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
bbaee129
FC
4742you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4743expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 4744
9e3ec65c 4745The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a 4746discovered.
9baa0206 4747
e0e4a6e3
FC
4748=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4749in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
4750
4751(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
9381611c 4752expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
6903afa2 4753such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
9381611c 4754spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
1a147d38 4755
9e3ec65c 4756The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
4757discovered.
4758
e0e4a6e3
FC
4759=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by
4760S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38 4761
bcb95744
FC
4762(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4763are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4764expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
1a147d38 4765
9e3ec65c 4766The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
4767discovered.
4768
a0d0e21e
LW
4769=item regexp memory corruption
4770
4771(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4772expression compiler gave it.
4773
ff3f26d2
KW
4774=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4775
4d910168 4776=item Regexp modifier "%c" may appear a maximum of twice in regex; marked
e0e4a6e3 4777by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 4778
ce170e67 4779(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
ff3f26d2 4780of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
3955e1a9 4781
6fbc9859
MH
4782=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <--
4783HERE in m/%s/
9442e3b8 4784
f8b5bc72
FC
4785(F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
4786another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
9442e3b8
KW
4787expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4788the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4789
591f5ca2
FC
4790=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4791
4d910168
FC
4792=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear twice in regex; marked by <--
4793HERE in m/%s/
4794
ce170e67 4795(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
591f5ca2
FC
4796of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
4797
3955e1a9
KW
4798=item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4799
4d910168 4800=item Regexp modifiers "%c" and "%c" are mutually exclusive in regex;
e0e4a6e3 4801marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 4802
ce170e67 4803(F) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
3955e1a9
KW
4804mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4805supposed to be there.
4806
aec0ef10 4807=item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4808
be771a83
GS
4809(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4810earlier.
a0d0e21e 4811
a7f533cb 4812=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @#)
a1b95068 4813
d7f8936a 4814(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068 4815numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
6903afa2 4816terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
a1b95068 4817
b08e453b
RB
4818=item Replacement list is longer than search list
4819
4820(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
fa816bf3 4821search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
b08e453b
RB
4822are meaningless.
4823
5e0a247b
KW
4824=item '%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'
4825
4826(W misc, regexp) You wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179> in a
4827double-quotish string. All but the last digit is treated as a single
4828character, specified in octal. The last digit is the next character in
4829the string. To tell Perl that this is indeed what you want, you can use
4830the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use exactly three digits to specify the octal
4831for the character.
4832
a0d0e21e
LW
4833=item Reversed %s= operator
4834
be771a83 4835(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
964742a1 4836always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 4837
abc7ecad
SP
4838=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4839
1b303a7d
FC
4840(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed
4841or not really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
abc7ecad 4842
96ebfdd7
RK
4843=item Scalars leaked: %d
4844
7bd1381d 4845(S internal) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping
4f5966a5
FC
4846of scalars: not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time
4847Perl exited. What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which
4848is of course bad, especially if the Perl program is intended to be
4849long-running.
96ebfdd7 4850
a0d0e21e
LW
4851=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4852
be771a83
GS
4853(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4854single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4855value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4856behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4857argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4858and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4859if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 4860
748a9306 4861On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 4862element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
4863Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4864L<perlref>.
4865
a6006777 4866=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4867
75b44862 4868(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
4869element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4870(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4871like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4872argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4873and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4874if you're expecting only one subscript.
4875
4876On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4877as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4878not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 4879L<perlref>.
4880
a0d0e21e
LW
4881=item Search pattern not terminated
4882
4883(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4884construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4885Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4886
ea9d9ebc 4887Note that since Perl 5.10.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd 4888construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
ea9d9ebc
FC
4889in Perl 5.10.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4890misparsed by pre-5.10.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
5d9c98cd 4891
abc7ecad
SP
4892=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4893
4894(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4895really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4896
3257ea4f
FC
4897=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4898
4899(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4900filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4901
a0d0e21e
LW
4902=item select not implemented
4903
4904(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4905
ae21d580 4906=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 4907
ae21d580
JH
4908(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4909the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 4910
6df41af2 4911=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 4912
75b44862
GS
4913(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4914semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
4915
4916=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4917
be771a83
GS
4918(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4919scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 4920
6df41af2 4921=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 4922
6df41af2 4923(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 4924
69282e91 4925=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4926
be771a83 4927(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4928before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4929
e0e4a6e3 4930=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7b8d334a 4931
6903afa2 4932(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
e0e4a6e3 4933S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6903afa2 4934discovered. See L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 4935
e0e4a6e3
FC
4936=item Sequence (?%c...) not implemented in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4937m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4938
6903afa2 4939(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
e0e4a6e3 4940but has not yet been written. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 4941regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4942
e0e4a6e3
FC
4943=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4944m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4945
d921c7bf 4946(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
e0e4a6e3 4947The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
d921c7bf 4948discovered. This may happen when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
fb85c044 4949Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9442e3b8 4950redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
9de15fec 4951causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4952
aec0ef10 4953=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
4954
4955(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
aec0ef10 4956parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See
7253e4e3 4957L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4958
07ea66ee
FC
4959=item Sequence (?&... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4960m/%s/
4961
4962(F) A named reference of the form C<(?&...)> was missing the final
4963closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
4964in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4965
e0e4a6e3 4966=item Sequence (?%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
4967in m/%s/
4968
4969(F) A named group of the form C<(?'...')> or C<< (?<...>) >> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 4970closing quote or angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
4599db5f
FC
4971regular expression the problem was discovered.
4972
e0e4a6e3 4973=item Sequence (?(%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
4974in m/%s/
4975
4976(F) A named reference of the form C<(?('...')...)> or C<< (?(<...>)...) >> was
4977missing the final closing quote or angle bracket after the name. The
e0e4a6e3 4978S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4599db5f
FC
4979discovered.
4980
e0e4a6e3
FC
4981=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4982m/%s/
5a25739d
FC
4983
4984(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4985sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4986
9da1dd8f
DM
4987=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
4988
be149b43
DM
4989(F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
4990followed immediately by a ')'.
9da1dd8f 4991
e0e4a6e3
FC
4992=item Sequence ?P=... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4993m/%s/
4599db5f
FC
4994
4995(F) A named reference of the form C<(?P=...)> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 4996closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
4599db5f
FC
4997in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4998
4999=item Sequence (?R) not terminated in regex m/%s/
5000
5001(F) An C<(?R)> or C<(?0)> sequence in a regular expression was missing the
5002final parenthesis.
5003
3d6c5fec 5004=item Server error (a.k.a. "500 Server error")
a5f75d66 5005
6903afa2
FC
5006(A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
5007when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
5008actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
5009frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
5010not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
5011headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 5012
5013B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
5014
6903afa2
FC
5015You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
5016the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
5017user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
5018variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
5019in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
5020less. Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 5021
06a5f41f
JH
5022 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
5023 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
5024 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 5025
be94a901
GS
5026You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
5027
a0d0e21e
LW
5028=item setegid() not implemented
5029
be771a83
GS
5030(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
5031support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5032didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5033
5034=item seteuid() not implemented
5035
be771a83
GS
5036(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
5037support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5038didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5039
81777298
GS
5040=item setpgrp can't take arguments
5041
be771a83
GS
5042(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
5043arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
5044group ID.
81777298 5045
a0d0e21e
LW
5046=item setrgid() not implemented
5047
be771a83
GS
5048(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
5049support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5050didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5051
5052=item setruid() not implemented
5053
be771a83
GS
5054(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
5055support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5056didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5057
6df41af2
GS
5058=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
5059
be771a83
GS
5060(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
5061forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
5062L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
5063
6da34ecb
FC
5064=item Setting $/ to a reference to %s as a form of slurp is deprecated, treating as undef
5065
5066(W deprecated) You assigned a reference to a scalar to C<$/> where the
eedc0d19 5067referenced item is not a positive integer. In older perls this B<appeared>
6da34ecb
FC
5068to work the same as setting it to C<undef> but was in fact internally
5069different, less efficient and with very bad luck could have resulted in
5070your file being split by a stringified form of the reference.
5071
ea9d9ebc 5072In Perl 5.20.0 this was changed so that it would be B<exactly> the same as
6da34ecb
FC
5073setting C<$/> to undef, with the exception that this warning would be
5074thrown.
5075
eedc0d19
FC
5076You are recommended to change your code to set C<$/> to C<undef> explicitly
5077if you wish to slurp the file. In future versions of Perl assigning
5078a reference to will throw a fatal error.
6da34ecb 5079
ee0ba734 5080=item Setting $/ to %s reference is forbidden
a48e4205
FC
5081
5082(F) You tried to assign a reference to a non integer to C<$/>. In older
5083Perls this would have behaved similarly to setting it to a reference to
5084a positive integer, where the integer was the address of the reference.
5085As of Perl 5.20.0 this is a fatal error, to allow future versions of Perl
5086to use non-integer refs for more interesting purposes.
5087
0953b66b
FC
5088=item shift on reference is experimental
5089
d401967c 5090(S experimental::autoderef) C<shift> with a scalar argument is experimental
0953b66b
FC
5091and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
5092take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
5093
d401967c 5094 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
0953b66b 5095
a0d0e21e
LW
5096=item shm%s not implemented
5097
5098(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
5099
984200d0
YST
5100=item !=~ should be !~
5101
5102(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
5103interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
5104operators: probably not what you intended.
5105
6df41af2
GS
5106=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
5107
5108(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
5109as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
5110result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
5111probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 5112
69282e91 5113=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5114
75b44862
GS
5115(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
5116superfluous.
a0d0e21e 5117
f86702cc 5118=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 5119
be771a83
GS
5120(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
5121Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 5122
efc859fb
FC
5123=item Slab leaked from cv %p
5124
5125(S) If you see this message, then something is seriously wrong with the
5126internal bookkeeping of op trees. An op tree needed to be freed after
5127a compilation error, but could not be found, so it was leaked instead.
5128
3b9aea04
SH
5129=item sleep(%u) too large
5130
5131(W overflow) You called C<sleep> with a number that was larger than
5132it can reliably handle and C<sleep> probably slept for less time than
5133requested.
5134
30d9c59b
Z
5135=item Slurpy parameter not last
5136
5137(F) In a subroutine signature, you put something after a slurpy (array or
5138hash) parameter. The slurpy parameter takes all the available arguments,
5139so there can't be any left to fill later parameters.
5140
675fa9ff
FC
5141=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
5142
5143(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
5144overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure
5145for the smart match.
5146
0f539b13
BF
5147=item Smartmatch is experimental
5148
5149(S experimental::smartmatch) This warning is emitted if you
5150use the smartmatch (C<~~>) operator. This is currently an experimental
5151feature, and its details are subject to change in future releases of
5152Perl. Particularly, its current behavior is noticed for being
5153unnecessarily complex and unintuitive, and is very likely to be
5154overhauled.
5155
a0d0e21e
LW
5156=item sort is now a reserved word
5157
5158(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
5159But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
5160
a0d0e21e
LW
5161=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
5162
d747172a
FC
5163(F) A sort comparison subroutine written in XS must return exactly one
5164item. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 5165
f1c31c52
FC
5166=item Source filters apply only to byte streams
5167
5168(F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
5169source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
5170not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
5171C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
5172
8cbc2e3b
JH
5173=item splice() offset past end of array
5174
5175(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
fa816bf3
FC
5176the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
5177end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
5178try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
5179See L<perlfunc/splice>.
8cbc2e3b 5180
0953b66b
FC
5181=item splice on reference is experimental
5182
0773cb3e
FC
5183(S experimental::autoderef) C<splice> with a scalar argument
5184is experimental and may change or be removed in a future
5185Perl version. If you want to take the risk of using this
5186feature, simply disable this warning:
0953b66b 5187
d401967c 5188 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
0953b66b 5189
a0d0e21e
LW
5190=item Split loop
5191
be771a83
GS
5192(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
5193iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
6903afa2 5194happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 5195
a0d0e21e
LW
5196=item Statement unlikely to be reached
5197
be771a83
GS
5198(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
5199die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
5200unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
5201instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
5202a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 5203
a2e39214
FC
5204=item "state %s" used in sort comparison
5205
5206(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
5207You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
5208sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
5209lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
5210name, or rename the lexical variable.
5211
5a25739d
FC
5212=item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
5213
5214(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5215sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
5216local() if you want to localize a package variable.
5217
9ddeeac9 5218=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 5219
355b1299
JH
5220(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
5221was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 5222
5a25739d
FC
5223=item Strings with code points over 0xFF may not be mapped into in-memory file handles
5224
5225(W utf8) You tried to open a reference to a scalar for read or append
5226where the scalar contained code points over 0xFF. In-memory files
5227model on-disk files and can only contain bytes.
5228
fe13d51d 5229=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 5230
be771a83
GS
5231(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
5232stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
5233C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 5234
4e85e1b4
FC
5235=item Subroutine "&%s" is not available
5236
5237(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5238attempting to capture an outer lexical subroutine that is not currently
5239available. This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the lexical
c387a7d0
FC
5240subroutine may be declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has
5241not yet been created. (Remember that named subs are created at compile
5242time, while anonymous subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5243
5244 sub { my sub a {...} sub f { \&a } }
5245
c387a7d0 5246At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current "a" sub,
4e85e1b4
FC
5247since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely, the
5248following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by now
5249been created and is live:
5250
5251 sub { my sub a {...} eval 'sub f { \&a }' }->();
5252
c387a7d0
FC
5253The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a lexical subroutine
5254that has gone out of scope, for example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5255
5256 sub f {
5257 my sub a {...}
5258 sub { eval '\&a' }
5259 }
5260 f()->();
5261
5262Here, when the '\&a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
5263being executed, so its &a is not available for capture.
5264
4eb94d7c
FC
5265=item "%s" subroutine &%s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5266
5267(W misc) A "my" or "state" subroutine has been redeclared in the
5268current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to
5269the previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error.
5270Note that the earlier subroutine will still exist until the end of
20d33786 5271the scope or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
4eb94d7c 5272
a0d0e21e
LW
5273=item Subroutine %s redefined
5274
e476b1b5 5275(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
5276
5277 {
271595cc 5278 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
5279 eval "sub name { ... }";
5280 }
5281
5282=item Substitution loop
5283
be771a83
GS
5284(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
5285shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
5286is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 5287L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
5288
5289=item Substitution pattern not terminated
5290
d1be9408 5291(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5292construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5293Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5294
5295=item Substitution replacement not terminated
5296
d1be9408 5297(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5298construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5299Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5300
5301=item substr outside of string
5302
8a9eb13d 5303(W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
be771a83
GS
5304a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
5305length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
5306substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
5307assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 5308
bf1320bf
RGS
5309=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
5310
9d277376 5311(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
bf1320bf
RGS
5312inferior to its current type.
5313
05a40652
FC
5314=item SWASHNEW didn't return an HV ref
5315
5316(P) Something went wrong internally when Perl was trying to look up
5317Unicode characters.
5318
6fbc9859 5319=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5320S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5321
fa816bf3
FC
5322(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
5323two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
5324both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
5325it in clustering parentheses:
b45f050a
JF
5326
5327 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
5328
e0e4a6e3 5329The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem
fa816bf3 5330was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5331
e0e4a6e3
FC
5332=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5333m/%s/
b45f050a 5334
9f57786a
FC
5335(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
5336is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5337
5338 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
5339 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
5340 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
5341 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
5342 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
5343 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
5344 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
5345 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
5346 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
5347
5348The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
5349discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5350
85ab1d1d
JH
5351=item switching effective %s is not implemented
5352
be771a83
GS
5353(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
5354and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 5355
a0d0e21e
LW
5356=item syntax error
5357
5358(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
5359
5360 A keyword is misspelled.
5361 A semicolon is missing.
5362 A comma is missing.
5363 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
5364 An opening or closing brace is missing.
5365 A closing quote is missing.
5366
5367Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
5368error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
5369The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
5370it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 5371before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
5372Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
5373the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
5374C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
524e9188 5375if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
a0d0e21e 5376
ccf3535a 5377=item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
cb1a09d0 5378
be771a83
GS
5379(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
5380of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
5381yourself.
cb1a09d0 5382
25f58aea
PN
5383=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
5384
5385(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
5386a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
5387or "my $var" or "our $var".
5388
675fa9ff
FC
5389=item Syntax error in (?[...]) in regex m/%s/
5390
5391(F) Perl could not figure out what you meant inside this construct; this
5392notifies you that it is giving up trying.
5393
591f5ca2
FC
5394=item %s syntax OK
5395
5396(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
5397
b5fe5ca2
SR
5398=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
5399
5400(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
5401
5402=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
5403
5404(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
5405
6087ac44 5406=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 5407
6087ac44
JH
5408(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
5409"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
5410machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
5411unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 5412
69282e91 5413=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5414
be771a83 5415(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5416before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5417
96ebfdd7
RK
5418=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
5419
5420(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
5421know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
5422
fc36a67e 5423=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
5424
be771a83
GS
5425(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
5426for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 5427
abc7ecad
SP
5428=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5429
5430(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
5431a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5432
c2771421
FC
5433=item tell() on unopened filehandle
5434
5435(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
5436was either never opened or has since been closed.
5437
b82b06b8
FC
5438=item That use of $[ is unsupported
5439
5440(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
5441as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
5442
5443 $[ = 0;
5444 $[ = 1;
5445 ...
5446 local $[ = 0;
5447 local $[ = 1;
5448 ...
5449
5450This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
5451from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[> and L<arybase>.
5452
67b16946 5453=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
a0d0e21e
LW
5454
5455(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
5456probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 5457think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
5458will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
5459will deny it.
5460
675fa9ff
FC
5461=item The %s function is unimplemented
5462
5463(F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture,
5464according to the probings of Configure.
5465
64fbf0dd 5466=item The lexical_subs feature is experimental
ebd25686 5467
64fbf0dd
FC
5468(S experimental::lexical_subs) This warning is emitted if you
5469declare a sub with C<my> or C<state>. Simply suppress the warning
5470if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you
5471are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which may
5472change or be removed in a future Perl version:
ebd25686 5473
f1d34ca8 5474 no warnings "experimental::lexical_subs";
ebd25686 5475 use feature "lexical_subs";
64fbf0dd 5476 my sub foo { ... }
ebd25686 5477
0d0b4b3b
KW
5478=item The regex_sets feature is experimental
5479
5480(S experimental::regex_sets) This warning is emitted if you
5481use the syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression.
5482The details of this feature are subject to change.
5483if you want to use it, but know that in doing so you
5484are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which may
5485change in a future Perl version, you can do this to silence the
5486warning:
5487
5488 no warnings "experimental::regex_sets";
5489
30d9c59b
Z
5490=item The signatures feature is experimental
5491
5492(S experimental::signatures) This warning is emitted if you unwrap a
5493subroutine's arguments using a signature. Simply suppress the warning
5494if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
5495the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be removed
5496in a future Perl version:
5497
5498 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
5499 use feature "signatures";
5500 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
5501
5e1c7ca2 5502=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 5503
be771a83
GS
5504(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
5505linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
5506past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
5507instead.
a0d0e21e 5508
371fce9b
DM
5509=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
5510
1108974d 5511(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 5512
437784d6 5513=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
5514
5515=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
5516
75b44862 5517(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
5518element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
5519wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
5520need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
5521F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
5522target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
5523%ENV which produced the warning.
5524
6a5b4183
YO
5525=item This Perl has not been built with support for randomized hash key traversal but something called Perl_hv_rand_set().
5526
5527(F) Something has attempted to use an internal API call which
5528depends on Perl being compiled with the default support for randomized hash
f26c79ba 5529key traversal, but this Perl has been compiled without it. You should
6a5b4183
YO
5530report this warning to the relevant upstream party, or recompile perl
5531with default options.
5532
a0d0e21e
LW
5533=item times not implemented
5534
be771a83
GS
5535(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
5536suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 5537
6d3b25aa
RGS
5538=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
5539
b7e4ecc1
FC
5540(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
5541the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
5542B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
5543Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
5544everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
6d3b25aa
RGS
5545
5546If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
b7e4ecc1
FC
5547mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
5548fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
5549Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
5550
5551If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 5552B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 5553
3a2263fe
RGS
5554=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
5555
5556(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
5557uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
5558specified an illegal mapping.
5559See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
5560
49704364
WL
5561=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
5562
1a147d38 5563(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 5564
a0d0e21e
LW
5565=item Too few args to syscall
5566
5567(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
5568system call to call, silly dilly.
5569
30d9c59b
Z
5570=item Too few arguments for subroutine
5571
5572(F) A subroutine using a signature received fewer arguments than required
5573by the signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
5574Inconveniently, this error will be reported at the location of the
5575subroutine, not that of the caller.
5576
96ebfdd7
RK
5577=item Too late for "-%s" option
5578
5579(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
5580B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
5581
6903afa2
FC
5582In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
5583are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4ba71d51 5584
6903afa2
FC
5585The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
5586well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
5587specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
5588it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
5589it to perl.
96ebfdd7 5590
ddda08b7
GS
5591=item Too late to run %s block
5592
5593(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
5594when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
5595loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
5596instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
5597BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 5598
a0d0e21e
LW
5599=item Too many args to syscall
5600
5f05dabc 5601(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
5602
5603=item Too many arguments for %s
5604
5605(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
5606
30d9c59b
Z
5607=item Too many arguments for subroutine
5608
5609(F) A subroutine using a signature received more arguments than required
5610by the signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
5611Inconveniently, this error will be reported at the location of the
5612subroutine, not that of the caller.
5613
6df41af2
GS
5614=item Too many )'s
5615
49704364
WL
5616(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
5617Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
5618
8c40cb74
NC
5619=item Too many ('s
5620
be771a83
GS
5621(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
5622Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 5623
7253e4e3 5624=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5625
be771a83
GS
5626(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
5627Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 5628
2c268ad5 5629=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
5630
5631(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 5632or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
5633C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 5634
2c268ad5 5635=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 5636
6a36df5d
YST
5637(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
5638y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 5639
96ebfdd7
RK
5640=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
5641
5642(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
6903afa2 5643disallowed. See L<Safe>.
96ebfdd7 5644
a0d0e21e
LW
5645=item truncate not implemented
5646
5647(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
5648Configure knows about.
5649
19c481f4
FC
5650=item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
5651
5652(F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
5653to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
5654ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
5655nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
5656
a0d0e21e
LW
5657=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
5658
5659(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 5660certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
5661%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
5662{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
5663
7ac5715b 5664=item Type of argument to %s must be unblessed hashref or arrayref
cba5a3b0 5665
7ac5715b
FC
5666(F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with a scalar argument that
5667was not a reference to an unblessed hash or array.
cba5a3b0 5668
eec2d3df
GS
5669=item umask not implemented
5670
be771a83
GS
5671(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
5672use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e
LW
5673
5674=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
5675
c632e777 5676(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 5677many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
5678
5679=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
5680
4a983e45 5681(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 5682many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
5683
5684=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
5685
090cebb2 5686(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 5687many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e 5688
6651ba0b
FC
5689=item Unbalanced string table refcount: (%d) for "%s"
5690
31ff3bd2 5691(S internal) On exit, Perl found some strings remaining in the shared
6651ba0b
FC
5692string table used for copy on write and for hash keys. The entries
5693should have been freed, so this indicates a bug somewhere.
5694
a0d0e21e
LW
5695=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
5696
2092d7c1 5697(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 5698many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
5699
5700=item Undefined format "%s" called
5701
5702(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
5703another package? See L<perlform>.
5704
5705=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
5706
be771a83
GS
5707(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
5708Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
5709
5710=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
5711
be771a83
GS
5712(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
5713since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
5714
5715=item Undefined subroutine called
5716
5717(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
5718or if it was, it has since been undefined.
5719
5720=item Undefined subroutine in sort
5721
be771a83
GS
5722(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
5723to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 5724
4633a7c4
LW
5725=item Undefined top format "%s" called
5726
5727(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
5728another package? See L<perlform>.
5729
20408e3c
GS
5730=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
5731
be771a83
GS
5732(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
5733C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
5734C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 5735
6df41af2
GS
5736=item %s: Undefined variable
5737
be771a83
GS
5738(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
5739Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 5740
412f55bb
KW
5741=item Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated, passed through in regex;
5742marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5743
5744(D deprecated, regexp) You used a literal C<"{"> character in a regular
66a1f5ec
FC
5745expression pattern. You should change to use C<"\{"> instead, because a
5746future version of Perl (tentatively v5.26) will consider this to be a
5747syntax error. If the pattern delimiters are also braces, any matching
5748right brace (C<"}">) should also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser,
5749for example,
412f55bb
KW
5750
5751 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
5752
a0d0e21e
LW
5753=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
5754
5755(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
5756representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
5757
e0e4a6e3
FC
5758=item Unexpected binary operator '%c' with no preceding operand in regex;
5759marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 5760
675fa9ff 5761(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
5762
5763 (?[ | \p{Digit} ])
5764
5765where the C<"|"> is a binary operator with an operand on the right, but
5766no operand on the left.
5767
e0e4a6e3 5768=item Unexpected character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 5769
675fa9ff 5770(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
5771
5772 (?[ z ])
5773
5774Within C<(?[ ])>, no literal characters are allowed unless they are
5775within an inner pair of square brackets, like
5776
5777 (?[ [ z ] ])
5778
5779Another possibility is that you forgot a backslash. Perl isn't smart
5780enough to figure out what you really meant.
5781
6651ba0b
FC
5782=item Unexpected constant lvalue entersub entry via type/targ %d:%d
5783
5784(P) When compiling a subroutine call in lvalue context, Perl failed an
5785internal consistency check. It encountered a malformed op tree.
5786
6c341f67
TC
5787=item Unexpected exit %u
5788
5789(S) exit() was called or the script otherwise finished gracefully when
5790C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in C<PL_exit_flags>.
5791
878ce265 5792=item Unexpected exit failure %d
6c341f67
TC
5793
5794(S) An uncaught die() was called when C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in
5795C<PL_exit_flags>.
5796
e0e4a6e3 5797=item Unexpected ')' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
5798
5799(F) You had something like this:
5800
5801 (?[ ( \p{Digit} + ) ])
5802
5803The C<")"> is out-of-place. Something apparently was supposed to
5804be combined with the digits, or the C<"+"> shouldn't be there, or
5805something like that. Perl can't figure out what was intended.
5806
e0e4a6e3
FC
5807=item Unexpected '(' with no preceding operator in regex; marked by
5808S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
5809
5810(F) You had something like this:
5811
5812 (?[ \p{Digit} ( \p{Lao} + \p{Thai} ) ])
5813
5814There should be an operator before the C<"(">, as there's
5815no indication as to how the digits are to be combined
5816with the characters in the Lao and Thai scripts.
5817
0876b9a0
KW
5818=item Unicode non-character U+%X is illegal for open interchange
5819
4c2e59a0 5820(S nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
66a1f5ec
FC
5821defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those
5822are legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so,
5823applications shouldn't attempt to exchange them. An application
5824may not be expecting any of these characters at all, and receiving
5825them may lead to bugs. If you know what you are doing you can
5826turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
5827
5828This is not really a "severe" error, but it is supposed to be
5829raised by default even if warnings are not enabled, and currently
5830the only way to do that in Perl is to mark it as serious.
6a807e21 5831
c794c51b
FC
5832=item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
5833
4c2e59a0 5834(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
c794c51b
FC
5835not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
5836U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
5837internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
5838available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
5839problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
5840came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 5841off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
c794c51b 5842
dcfe9e74
KW
5843=item Unknown charname '%s'
5844
5845(F) The name you used inside C<\N{}> is unknown to Perl. Check the
5846spelling. You can say C<use charnames ":loose"> to not have to be
5847so precise about spaces, hyphens, and capitalization on standard Unicode
5848names. (Any custom aliases that have been created must be specified
5849exactly, regardless of whether C<:loose> is used or not.) This error may
5850also happen if the C<\N{}> is not in the scope of the corresponding
5851C<S<use charnames>>.
5852
04177465
FC
5853=item Unknown error
5854
5855(P) Perl was about to print an error message in C<$@>, but the C<$@> variable
5856did not exist, even after an attempt to create it.
5857
6170680b
IZ
5858=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
5859
437784d6 5860(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 5861of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 5862C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 5863
b4581f09
JH
5864=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
5865
5866(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
5867system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
5868internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
5869are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
5870explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
5871value of the environment variable PERLIO.
5872
f675dbe5
CB
5873=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
5874
5875(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
5876iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
5877data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
5878subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 5879
0da72d5e
KW
5880=item Unknown regex modifier "%s"
5881
5882(F) Alphanumerics immediately following the closing delimiter
5883of a regular expression pattern are interpreted by Perl as modifier
5884flags for the regex. One of the ones you specified is invalid. One way
5885this can happen is if you didn't put in white space between the end of
5886the regex and a following alphanumeric operator:
5887
5888 if ($a =~ /foo/and $bar == 3) { ... }
5889
5890The C<"a"> is a valid modifier flag, but the C<"n"> is not, and raises
5891this error. Likely what was meant instead was:
5892
5893 if ($a =~ /foo/ and $bar == 3) { ... }
5894
5a25739d
FC
5895=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
5896
5897(W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
5898
e0e4a6e3
FC
5899=item Unknown switch condition (?(...)) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5900m/%s/
96ebfdd7
RK
5901
5902(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6903afa2 5903is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5fecf430 5904
674f6ed9
FC
5905 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
5906 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
5907 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
5908 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
5909 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
5910 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
5911 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
5912 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
5913 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
96ebfdd7 5914
9e3ec65c 5915The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
96ebfdd7
RK
5916discovered. See L<perlre>.
5917
a05d7ebb
JH
5918=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
5919
a4a4c9e2 5920(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb
JH
5921of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
5922
64187737 5923=item Unknown Unicode option value %d
a05d7ebb 5924
a4a4c9e2 5925(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb 5926of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 5927
e0e4a6e3 5928=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1
YO
5929
5930(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
5931after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
5932L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
5933
c2771421
FC
5934=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
5935
6903afa2 5936(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
c2771421
FC
5937category that is unknown to perl at this point.
5938
14ef4c80
FC
5939Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
5940module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
5941module first.
c2771421 5942
e0e4a6e3 5943=item Unmatched '[' in POSIX class in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
5944
5945(F) You had something like this:
5946
5947 (?[ [:digit: ])
5948
5949That should be written:
5950
5951 (?[ [:digit:] ])
5952
e0e4a6e3
FC
5953=item Unmatched '%c' in POSIX class in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5954m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 5955
675fa9ff 5956(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
5957
5958 (?[ [:alnum] ])
5959
5960There should be a second C<":">, like this:
5961
5962 (?[ [:alnum:] ])
5963
e0e4a6e3 5964=item Unmatched [ in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 5965
6903afa2 5966(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 5967include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
e0e4a6e3 5968first. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
6903afa2 5969problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 5970
e0e4a6e3 5971=item Unmatched ( in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 5972
e0e4a6e3 5973=item Unmatched ) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
5974
5975(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
6903afa2 5976expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
e0e4a6e3 5977the matching parenthesis. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 5978regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 5979
d98d5fff 5980=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 5981
be771a83
GS
5982(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
5983ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
5984general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
5985you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 5986
a0d0e21e
LW
5987=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
5988
be771a83
GS
5989(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
5990reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
5991somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
5992subroutine.
a0d0e21e 5993
e0e4a6e3
FC
5994=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by S<<-- HERE> after %s near column
5995%d
a0d0e21e 5996
54310121 5997(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
1b303a7d
FC
5998in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you
5999tried to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as
6000a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 6001
e0e4a6e3
FC
6002=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class in regex; marked by
6003S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6004
675fa9ff
FC
6005(F) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6006recognized by Perl inside character classes. This is a fatal
6007error when the character class is used within C<(?[ ])>.
0d0b4b3b 6008
6fbc9859 6009=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex;
e0e4a6e3 6010marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6011
be771a83
GS
6012(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6013recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 6014understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
e0e4a6e3 6015The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2628b4e0 6016escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6017
4a68bf9d 6018=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 6019
2628b4e0 6020(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
6021recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
6022change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 6023
e0e4a6e3
FC
6024=item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by
6025S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6026
be771a83 6027(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b7e4ecc1 6028recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
e0e4a6e3 6029this may change in a future version of Perl. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 6030whereabouts in the regular expression the escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6031
a0d0e21e
LW
6032=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
6033
be771a83
GS
6034(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
6035recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
6036on your system.
a0d0e21e 6037
90248788 6038=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 6039
be771a83
GS
6040(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
6041think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
6042bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e 6043
0953b66b
FC
6044=item unshift on reference is experimental
6045
0773cb3e
FC
6046(S experimental::autoderef) C<unshift> with a scalar argument
6047is experimental and may change or be removed in a future
6048Perl version. If you want to take the risk of using this
6049feature, simply disable this warning:
0953b66b 6050
d401967c 6051 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
0953b66b 6052
a0d0e21e
LW
6053=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
6054
be771a83
GS
6055(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
6056operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 6057PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6058
6059=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
6060
6061(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
6062
6df41af2
GS
6063=item Unsupported function %s
6064
6065(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
6066At least, Configure doesn't think so.
6067
54310121 6068=item Unsupported function fork
6069
6070(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
6071
be771a83 6072Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6903afa2 6073of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
be771a83 6074changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 6075
7aa207d6 6076=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
6077
6078(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 6079declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 6080
a0d0e21e
LW
6081=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
6082
6083(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
6084least that's what Configure thought.
6085
6df41af2 6086=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 6087
be771a83
GS
6088(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
6089start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
6090block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
6091attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 6092
09bef843
SB
6093=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
6094
be771a83
GS
6095(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
6096an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
6097character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
6098character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
6099
f1991046
GS
6100=item Unterminated compressed integer
6101
6102(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
6103compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
6104See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6105
6f2d7fc9
FC
6106=item Unterminated delimiter for here document
6107
6108(F) This message occurs when a here document label has an initial
6109quotation mark but the final quotation mark is missing. Perhaps
6110you wrote:
6111
6112 <<"foo
6113
6114instead of:
6115
6116 <<"foo"
6117
e0e4a6e3 6118=item Unterminated \g... pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
779fedd7 6119
e0e4a6e3 6120=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2bf803e2 6121
5364049c
KW
6122(F) In a regular expression, you had a C<\g> that wasn't followed by a
6123proper group reference. In the case of C<\g{>, the closing brace is
6124missing; otherwise the C<\g> must be followed by an integer. Fix the
6125pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 6126
6df41af2 6127=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 6128
6df41af2 6129(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
6130a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
6131not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
6132earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 6133
e0e4a6e3
FC
6134=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6135m/%s/
905fe053
FC
6136
6137(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 6138the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 6139
e0e4a6e3 6140=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
905fe053
FC
6141
6142(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 6143the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 6144
6df41af2 6145=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 6146
be771a83
GS
6147(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
6148still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 6149
8e11cd2b
JC
6150=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
6151
6152(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
6153See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
6154
6155=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
6156
6157(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
6158See L<Win32> for more information.
6159
89474f50
FC
6160=item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
6161
6162(W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
6163
6164 if ($[ > 5.006) {
6165 ...
6166 }
6167
6168You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
6169arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
6170
6da34ecb
FC
6171=item Use "%s" instead of "%s"
6172
6173(F) The second listed construct is no longer legal. Use the first one
6174instead.
6175
8fe85e3f
FC
6176=item Useless assignment to a temporary
6177
6178(W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
6179the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
6180be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
6181
e0e4a6e3
FC
6182=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by
6183S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 6184
96ebfdd7
RK
6185(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
6186meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 6187
96ebfdd7 6188 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
6189
6190must be written as
6191
96ebfdd7 6192 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5 6193
9e3ec65c
FC
6194The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6195discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 6196
b4581f09
JH
6197=item Useless localization of %s
6198
6903afa2
FC
6199(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
6200but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
b4581f09
JH
6201some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
6202
e0e4a6e3
FC
6203=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6204m/%s/
9d1d55b5 6205
96ebfdd7
RK
6206(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
6207meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 6208
96ebfdd7 6209 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
6210
6211must be written as
6212
96ebfdd7 6213 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5 6214
9e3ec65c
FC
6215The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6216discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 6217
b08e453b
RB
6218=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
6219
6220(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6903afa2 6221same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
b08e453b
RB
6222about the /d modifier.
6223
820438b1
FC
6224=item Useless use of \E
6225
6226(W misc) You have a \E in a double-quotish string without a C<\U>,
6227C<\L> or C<\Q> preceding it.
6228
4fa6dd16
KW
6229=item Useless use of greediness modifier '%c' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6230
6231(W regexp) You specified something like these:
6232
6233 qr/a{3}?/
6234 qr/b{1,1}+/
6235
6236The C<"?"> and C<"+"> don't have any effect, as they modify whether to
6237match more or fewer when there is a choice, and by specifying to match
6238exactly a given numer, there is no room left for a choice.
6239
6df41af2 6240=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 6241
75b44862 6242(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
6243nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
6244value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
6245often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
6246to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
6247get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
6248said
a0d0e21e 6249
6df41af2 6250 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 6251
6df41af2
GS
6252when you meant to say
6253
6254 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
6255
6256Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
6257reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
6258example, if you say
6259
6260 $array = (1,2);
6261
6262when you should have said
6263
6264 $array = [1,2];
6265
6266The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
6267while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
6268a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
6269throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
6270L<perlref> for more on this.
6271
65191a1e
BS
6272This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
6273since they are often used in statements like
6274
4358a253 6275 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
6276
6277String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
6278about.
6279
e0e4a6e3 6280=item Useless use of (?-p) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6281
6282(W regexp) The C<p> modifier cannot be turned off once set. Trying to do
6283so is futile.
6284
6df41af2
GS
6285=item Useless use of "re" pragma
6286
6903afa2 6287(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6df41af2 6288
a801c63c
RGS
6289=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
6290
6291(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
6292
6293 my $x = sort @y;
6294
6295This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
6296
de4864e4
JH
6297=item Useless use of %s with no values
6298
f87c3213 6299(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6903afa2
FC
6300apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
6301usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
de4864e4 6302possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6903afa2 6303if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
de4864e4
JH
6304you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
6305
6df41af2
GS
6306=item "use" not allowed in expression
6307
be771a83
GS
6308(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
6309returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 6310
36b2db7e
FC
6311=item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
6312
6313(D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
6903afa2 6314is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
36b2db7e 6315
c47ff5f1 6316=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 6317
8ab8f082 6318(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
1b303a7d
FC
6319form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the
6320here-document.
83ce3e12 6321
96ebfdd7
RK
6322=item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
6323
6324(D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
6325$ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
6326behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
6327will simply fail.
6328
6329Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
6330blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
6331
64e578a2
MJD
6332=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
6333
6334(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
6335modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
6336
4ac733c9
MJD
6337=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
6338
6339(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
6340use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
6341used. (This may change in the future.)
6342
591f5ca2
FC
6343=item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
6344
6345(D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
6346separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
6347
675fa9ff
FC
6348=item Use of each() on hash after insertion without resetting hash iterator results in undefined behavior
6349
f26c79ba
FC
6350(S internal) The behavior of C<each()> after insertion is undefined;
6351it may skip items, or visit items more than once. Consider using
6352C<keys()> instead of C<each()>.
675fa9ff 6353
2dc78664 6354=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
036e1e65 6355
2dc78664
NC
6356(F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
6357C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
6358This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
6359error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
6360
6361If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
6362a space before the C<=>.
036e1e65 6363
b6c83531 6364=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 6365
b6c83531
JH
6366(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
6367This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
6368
6369 @a = (3,4);
6370 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
6371
6372You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
6373For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
6374reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
6375middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
6376
39b99f21 6377=item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
6378
6379(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
6380to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
6381
96ebfdd7 6382=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 6383
96ebfdd7
RK
6384(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
6385operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
6386repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 6387
0b98bec9
RGS
6388=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
6389
6390(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
6391scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
6392
dc848c6f 6393=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
6394
1da25648
FC
6395(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD>
6396subroutines are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy)
6397even when the subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain
6398functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or
6399C<< $obj->bar() >>).
dc848c6f 6400
be771a83
GS
6401This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
6402methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
6403code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
6404currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
6405C<AUTOLOAD>s.
dc848c6f 6406
6407The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
be771a83
GS
6408non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
6409to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
6410named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
6411startup.
dc848c6f 6412
be771a83
GS
6413In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
6414you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 6415C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
a23209c7 6416
6df41af2
GS
6417=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
6418
6419(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
6420only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
6421
6df41af2
GS
6422=item Use of %s is deprecated
6423
75b44862 6424(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
be771a83
GS
6425generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
6426old way has bad side effects.
6df41af2 6427
591f5ca2
FC
6428=item Use of literal control characters in variable names is deprecated
6429
6430(D deprecated) Using literal control characters in the source to refer
6431to the ^FOO variables, like C<$^X> and C<${^GLOBAL_PHASE}> is now
6432deprecated. This only affects code like C<$\cT>, where \cT is a control in
6433the source code: C<${"\cT"}> and C<$^T> remain valid.
6434
5840701a 6435=item Use of -l on filehandle%s
5a7abfcc
FC
6436
6437(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
6438it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
6439The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
6440
4055dbce
RS
6441=item Use of my $_ is experimental
6442
6443(S experimental::lexical_topic) Lexical $_ is an experimental feature and
6444its behavior may change or even be removed in any future release of perl.
6445See the explanation under L<perlvar/$_>.
6446
7c7df812
FC
6447=item Use of %s on a handle without * is deprecated
6448
22d6fc57 6449(D deprecated) You used C<tie>, C<tied> or C<untie> on a scalar but that scalar
fa816bf3 6450happens to hold a typeglob, which means its filehandle will be tied. If
22d6fc57
FC
6451you mean to tie a handle, use an explicit * as in C<tie *$handle>.
6452
6453This was a long-standing bug that was removed in Perl 5.16, as there was
6454no way to tie the scalar itself when it held a typeglob, and no way to
6455untie a scalar that had had a typeglob assigned to it. If you see this
6456message, you must be using an older version.
7c7df812 6457
1f1cc344 6458=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 6459
77b96956 6460(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
6461isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
6462to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 6463
64977eb6 6464If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344 6465C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
54e0f05c 6466however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
c69ca1d4 6467operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 6468
4055dbce
RS
6469=item Use of state $_ is experimental
6470
6471(S experimental::lexical_topic) Lexical $_ is an experimental feature and
6472its behavior may change or even be removed in any future release of perl.
6473See the explanation under L<perlvar/$_>.
6474
bbd7eb8a
RD
6475=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
6476
159f47d9 6477(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
6478arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
6479but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
6480arguments. See L<perlsec>.
6481
cc95b072 6482=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 6483
be771a83
GS
6484(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
6485defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
6486To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 6487
6903afa2
FC
6488To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
6489the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
6490it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
6491undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
50a39ba4 6492and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
6903afa2
FC
6493literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
6494optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
6495C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
6496your program.
e5be4a53 6497
e0e4a6e3
FC
6498=item Use \x{...} for more than two hex characters in regex; marked by
6499S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6500
6501(F) In a regular expression, you said something like
6502
6503 (?[ [ \xBEEF ] ])
6504
6505Perl isn't sure if you meant this
6506
6507 (?[ [ \x{BEEF} ] ])
6508
6509or if you meant this
6510
6511 (?[ [ \x{BE} E F ] ])
6512
6513You need to add either braces or blanks to disambiguate.
6514
6fbc9859 6515=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class in
e0e4a6e3 6516regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ff3f963a 6517
8f0cd35a
KW
6518(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a
6519multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is supposed to
6520match just one character of input, perl will match the whole thing
6521correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>, or the escape
6522is the beginning or final end point of a range. For these, what should
6523happen isn't clear at all. In these circumstances, Perl discards all
6524but the first character of the returned sequence, which is not likely
6525what you want.
ff3f963a 6526
c794c51b
FC
6527=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
6528
6529(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
6530currently reserved for future use, as the exact behaviour has not
6903afa2 6531been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
c794c51b 6532modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
0876b9a0 6533
949cf498
KW
6534=item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
6535
4c2e59a0 6536(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
949cf498
KW
6537not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
6538U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
6539internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
6540available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
6541problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
6542came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 6543off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9466bab6 6544
68dc0745 6545=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 6546
75b44862 6547(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
6548C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
6549can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
6550false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
6551constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
6552C<defined> operator.
a6006777 6553
f675dbe5
CB
6554=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
6555
be771a83
GS
6556(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
6557%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
6558longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
65591024 characters.
f675dbe5 6560
0953b66b
FC
6561=item values on reference is experimental
6562
0773cb3e
FC
6563(S experimental::autoderef) C<values> with a scalar argument
6564is experimental and may change or be removed in a future
6565Perl version. If you want to take the risk of using this
6566feature, simply disable this warning:
0953b66b 6567
d401967c 6568 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
0953b66b 6569
b5c19bd7 6570=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 6571
b5c19bd7
DM
6572(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
6573attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6903afa2 6574This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
6575declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
6576(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6903afa2 6577subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 6578
b5c19bd7 6579 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 6580
b5c19bd7 6581At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6903afa2 6582since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
b5c19bd7
DM
6583the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
6584now been created and is live:
be771a83 6585
b5c19bd7
DM
6586 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
6587
6588The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
6589gone out of scope, for example,
6590
6591 sub f {
6592 my $a;
6593 sub { eval '$a' }
6594 }
6595 f()->();
6596
1b303a7d
FC
6597Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
6598being executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 6599
b4581f09
JH
6600=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
6601
120b0f81 6602(S misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
413ff9f6 6603that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
6604something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
6605that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
6606front of your variable.
6607
aec0ef10 6608=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
6609
6610(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
d0a29c36
KW
6611known at compile time. For positive lookbehind, you can use the C<\K>
6612regex construct as a way to get the equivalent functionality. See
6613L<perlre/(?<=pattern) \K>.
6614
6615There are non-obvious Unicode rules under C</i> that can match variably,
6616but which you might not think could. For example, the substring C<"ss">
6617can match the single character LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S. There are
6618other sequences of ASCII characters that can match single ligature
6619characters, such as LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFI matching C<qr/ffi/i>.
6620Starting in Perl v5.16, if you only care about ASCII matches, adding the
6621C</aa> modifier to the regex will exclude all these non-obvious matches,
6622thus getting rid of this message. You can also say C<S<use re qw(/aa)>>
6623to apply C</aa> to all regular expressions compiled within its scope.
6624See L<re>.
b4581f09
JH
6625
6626=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
6627
b9cc85ad
FC
6628(W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
6629current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
6630previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
6631that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
20d33786 6632or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
b4581f09 6633
6df41af2
GS
6634=item Variable syntax
6635
6636(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
6637of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
6638Perl yourself.
6639
44a8e56a 6640=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
6641
be771a83 6642(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 6643lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 6644
b5c19bd7 6645When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
6646the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
6647call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
6648outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
6649longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
6650variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 6651
44a8e56a 6652This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
6653anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 6654reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 6655are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 6656
6651ba0b
FC
6657=item vector argument not supported with alpha versions
6658
8b6051f1 6659(S printf) The %vd (s)printf format does not support version objects
6651ba0b
FC
6660with alpha parts.
6661
e0e4a6e3
FC
6662=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by
6663S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 6664
6903afa2
FC
6665(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
6666argument or check that you are using the right verb.
e2e6a0f1 6667
e0e4a6e3
FC
6668=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by
6669S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 6670
6903afa2 6671(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
e2e6a0f1
YO
6672argument or check that you are using the right verb.
6673
084610c0
GS
6674=item Version number must be a constant number
6675
6676(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
6677its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
6678the version number.
6679
808ee47e
SP
6680=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
6681
32e998fd
RGS
6682(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
6683are being ignored.
808ee47e 6684
7e1af8bc 6685=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 6686
6687(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 6688you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 6689
f86702cc 6690=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 6691
be771a83
GS
6692(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
6693the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
6694space.
a0d0e21e 6695
5f05dabc 6696=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 6697
be771a83
GS
6698(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
6699looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
6700term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
6701function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
6702
6703 rand + 5;
6704
6705you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
6706
6707 rand() + 5;
6708
6709but in actual fact, you got
6710
6711 rand(+5);
6712
5f05dabc 6713So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 6714
0f539b13
BF
6715=item when is experimental
6716
6717(S experimental::smartmatch) C<when> depends on smartmatch, which is
6718experimental. Additionally, it has several special cases that may
6719not be immediately obvious, and their behavior may change or
675fa9ff
FC
6720even be removed in any future release of perl. See the explanation
6721under L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 6722
4b3603a4
JH
6723=item Wide character in %s
6724
c8f79457 6725(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
6726one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
6727way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
6728output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
6729warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
6730cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
6731filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 6732
49704364
WL
6733=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
6734
fa816bf3
FC
6735(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]>
6736only if C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that
6737can be determined from the template alone. This is not possible if
6738it contains any of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign
6739the template.
49704364 6740
9a7dcd9c 6741=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 6742
be771a83 6743(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 6744before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 6745
9ae3ac1a 6746=item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
b4581f09 6747
27f95370
FC
6748(S utf8) When reading in different encodings, Perl tries to
6749map everything into Unicode characters. The bytes you read
6750in are not legal in this encoding. For example
b4581f09
JH
6751
6752 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
6753
6754if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
6755
49704364 6756=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 6757
49704364
WL
6758(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
6759the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 6760
49704364 6761=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
6762
6763(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
6764the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6765
a0d0e21e
LW
6766=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
6767
5f05dabc 6768(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 6769sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 6770about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 6771your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
6772
6773=item You need to quote "%s"
6774
be771a83
GS
6775(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
6776Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
6777which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
6778assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
6779what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 6780
6cfd5ea7
JH
6781=item Your random numbers are not that random
6782
50a39ba4 6783(F) When trying to initialize the random seed for hashes, Perl could
6cfd5ea7
JH
6784not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
6785Something Very Wrong.
6786
e0e4a6e3 6787=item Zero length \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
8a5a438d
FC
6788
6789(F) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a zero-length
6790sequence. Such an escape was used in an extended character class, i.e.
6791C<(?[...])>, which is not permitted. Check that the correct escape has
e0e4a6e3 6792been used, and the correct charnames handler is in scope. The S<<-- HERE>
8a5a438d
FC
6793shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
6794
a0d0e21e
LW
6795=back
6796
00eb3f2b
RGS
6797=head1 SEE ALSO
6798
44ecbbd8 6799L<warnings>, L<diagnostics>.
00eb3f2b 6800
56e90b21 6801=cut