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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
e476b1b5 12 (S) A severe warning (default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
30Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
6df41af2 53=item Allocation too large: %lx
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
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88(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
6df41af2 92=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 93
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94(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 97
6df41af2 98=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 99
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100(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 105
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106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
107 while (<STDIN>) {
108 print;
109 print OUT;
110 }
111 close OUT;
c9f97d15 112
6df41af2 113=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 114
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115(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
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117one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
121alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 122
6df41af2 123=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 124
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125(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 129
6df41af2 130=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 131
6df41af2 132(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 133
8ea97a1e 134=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
a0d0e21e 135
8ea97a1e 136(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
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137
138 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 139 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
a0d0e21e 140
8ea97a1e 141=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 142
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143(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
144such as:
5f05dabc 145
146 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 147 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 148
8ea97a1e 149or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 150
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151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 153
6df41af2 154=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 155
6df41af2 156(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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157name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
158error.
a0d0e21e 159
f86702cc 160=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 161
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162(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 165
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166=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
167
168(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
169forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
170data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
171the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
172If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
173the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
174
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175=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
176
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177(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
178spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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179
180=item assertion botched: %s
181
182(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
183
184=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
185
186(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
187
188=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
189
190(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
191must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
192know which context to supply to the right side.
193
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194=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
195
4447dfc1 196(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
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197thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
198Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
199created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
200thread. See L<threads>.
201
2393f1b9 202=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 203
49293501 204(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 205the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 206
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207=item Attempt to bless into a reference
208
209(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
210the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
211supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
212
213 bless $self, $proto;
214
215when you intended
216
217 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
218
219If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
220of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
221example by:
222
223 bless $self, "$proto";
224
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225=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
226
227(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
228which is not in its key set.
229
230=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
231
232(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
233declared readonly from a restricted hash.
234
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235=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
236
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237(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
238that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
239outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 240
54310121 241=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 242
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243(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
244strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
245strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
246of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 247
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248=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
249
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250(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
251free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
252SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
253free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
254try to free it.
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255
256=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
257
e476b1b5 258(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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259
260=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
261
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262(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
263see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
264earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
265This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
266that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
267mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
268corrupted.
a0d0e21e 269
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270=item Attempt to join self
271
272(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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273impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
274to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 275
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276=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
277
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278(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
279function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
280means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
281invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
282literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
283avoid this warning.
84902520 284
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285=item Attempt to set length of freed array
286
287(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
288can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
289of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
290
291 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
292 $$r = 503
293
b7a902f4 294=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
295
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296(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
297used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
298dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 299
dc26df50 300=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
a0d0e21e 301
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302(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
303or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 304S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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305S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
306
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307=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
308
496a33f5 309(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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310substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
311most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
312
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313=item Bad filehandle: %s
314
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315(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
316symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
317open(), or did it in another package.
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318
319=item Bad free() ignored
320
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321(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
322been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 323setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 324
9ea8bc6d 325This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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326dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
327which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 328
aa689395 329=item Bad hash
330
331(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
332
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333=item Badly placed ()'s
334
335(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
336of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
337Perl yourself.
338
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339=item Bad name after %s::
340
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341(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
342didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
343of quotes, so
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344
345 $var = 'myvar';
346 $sym = mypack::$var;
347
348is not the same as
349
350 $var = 'myvar';
351 $sym = "mypack::$var";
352
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353=item Bad realloc() ignored
354
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355(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
356never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
357by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 358
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359=item Bad symbol for array
360
361(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
362wasn't a symbol table entry.
363
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364=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
365
366(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
367that wasn't a symbol table entry.
368
369
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370=item Bad symbol for filehandle
371
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372(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
373that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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374
375=item Bad symbol for hash
376
377(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
378wasn't a symbol table entry.
379
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380=item Bareword found in conditional
381
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382(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
383conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
384of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
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385
386 open FOO || die;
387
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388It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
389a bareword:
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390
391 use constant TYPO => 1;
392 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
393
394The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
395
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396=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
397
398(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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399subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
400symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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401
402=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
403
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404(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
405compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
406you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 407
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408=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
409
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410(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
411subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
412exited.
a0d0e21e 413
68dc0745 414=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
415
416(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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417implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
418occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
419be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
420depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 421
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422=item \1 better written as $1
423
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424(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
425The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
426substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
427because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
428there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 429
252aa082
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430=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
431
e476b1b5 432(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
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433(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
434L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 435
69282e91 436=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 437
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438(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
439check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 440
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441=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
442
443(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
444Check you control flow and number of arguments.
445
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446=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
447
e476b1b5 448(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 449
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450=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
451
be771a83 452(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 453copyable.
4633a7c4 454
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455=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
456
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457(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
458iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
459which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 460
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461=item Callback called exit
462
4929bf7b 463(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
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464exited by calling exit.
465
6df41af2 466=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 467
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468(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
469parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
470that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
471early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
472subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
473checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
474function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
475the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 476
49704364 477=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
478
479(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
480compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
481attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
482See L<perlfunc/pack>.
483
49704364 484=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
485
486(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
487format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
488
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489=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
490
491(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
492then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
493triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
494from that type of reference to a typeglob.
495
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496=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
497
498(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
499integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
500to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
501
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502=item Can't bless non-reference value
503
504(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
505encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
506
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507=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
508
0d863452
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509(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
510a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
511
512=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 513
0d863452
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514(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
515
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516=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
517
518(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
519functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
520in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
521
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522=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
523
524(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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525object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
526like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
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527
528 $BADREF = undef;
529 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
530 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
531
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532=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
533
54310121 534(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
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535ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
536didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
537object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
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538
539=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
540
541(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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542object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
543defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
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544Something like this will reproduce the error:
545
546 $BADREF = 42;
547 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
548 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
549
a0d0e21e
LW
550=item Can't chdir to %s
551
552(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
553that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
554
0545a864 555=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 556
be771a83
GS
557(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
558nosuid.
104d25b7 559
6df41af2
GS
560=item Can't coerce array into hash
561
562(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
563information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
564only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
565
a0d0e21e
LW
566=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
567
568(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 569(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
570say things like:
571
572 *foo += 1;
573
574You CAN say
575
576 $foo = *foo;
577 $foo += 1;
578
579but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
580
581=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
582
583(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 584(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
585
586=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
587
588(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 589(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 590
0d863452 591=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 592
0d863452
RH
593(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
594or C<default> block.
595
a0d0e21e
LW
596=item Can't create pipe mailbox
597
be771a83
GS
598(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
599quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 600
eb64745e 601=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 602
2f7e735d
AMS
603(F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
604class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be
605extended for other types of variables in future.
eb64745e
GS
606
607=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
608
609(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
610"our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 611
6df41af2
GS
612=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
613
be771a83
GS
614(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
615a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 616
a0d0e21e
LW
617=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
618
be771a83
GS
619(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
620reason.
a0d0e21e 621
54310121 622=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 623
be771a83
GS
624(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
625reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
626C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 627
10f9c03d 628=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 629
e476b1b5 630(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
631characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
632inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 633
7253e4e3 634=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 635
b45f050a 636(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 637regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 638regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e
LW
639
640=item Can't do setegid!
641
be771a83
GS
642(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
643suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
644
645=item Can't do seteuid!
646
647(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
648
649=item Can't do setuid
650
be771a83
GS
651(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
652setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
653sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
654the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
655file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
656sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
a0d0e21e
LW
657
658=item Can't do waitpid with flags
659
be771a83
GS
660(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
661waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 662
a0d0e21e
LW
663=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
664
be771a83
GS
665(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
666point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
667line.
a0d0e21e 668
1109a392
MHM
669=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
670
671(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
672or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
673little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
674See L<perlfunc/pack>.
675
a0d0e21e
LW
676=item Can't exec "%s": %s
677
d1be9408 678(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
679named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
680permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
681C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
682architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
683can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
684#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
685
686=item Can't exec %s
687
be771a83
GS
688(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
689that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
690need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
691
692=item Can't execute %s
693
be771a83
GS
694(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
695found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 696
6df41af2 697=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 698
be771a83
GS
699(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
700is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 701
56ca2fc0
JH
702=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
703
704(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
89d60977 705could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
56ca2fc0
JH
706(remember that the names of character properties consist only of
707alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
708
6df41af2
GS
709=item Can't find label %s
710
be771a83
GS
711(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
712possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
713
714=item Can't find %s on PATH
715
be771a83
GS
716(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
717found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 718
6df41af2 719=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 720
be771a83
GS
721(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
722found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
723script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
724
725=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
726
be771a83
GS
727(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
728that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
729nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 730
fb73857a 731 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
732
be771a83
GS
733If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
734unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
735editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 736
660a4616
TS
737=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
738
739(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
740example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
741Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
742If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
743by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
744possible C<\E>).
745
a0d0e21e
LW
746=item Can't fork
747
be771a83
GS
748(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
749pipeline.
a0d0e21e 750
748a9306
LW
751=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
752
be771a83
GS
753(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
754between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
755Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
756the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
757account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
758the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
759the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
760the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
761if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
762because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
763appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
764and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
765routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
766shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
767only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 768
a0d0e21e
LW
769=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
770
be771a83
GS
771(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
772pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
773
774=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
775
748a9306
LW
776(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
777mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 778
6df41af2 779=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 780
be771a83
GS
781(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
782loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
783
784=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
785
be771a83
GS
786(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
787a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
788you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
789See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 790
9850bf21 791=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 792
9850bf21
RH
793(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
794comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
795as the reduce() function in List::Util).
796
c74ace89 797=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 798
be771a83 799(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 800"string" or block.
b150fb22 801
6df41af2
GS
802=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
803
be771a83
GS
804(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
805subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
806cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
807routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 808
0b5b802d
GS
809=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
810
be771a83
GS
811(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
812signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
813signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
814processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
815situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
816may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 817
6df41af2 818=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 819
6df41af2 820(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
821except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
822block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
823block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
824usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
825inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
826L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 827
b8170e59
JB
828=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
829
830(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
831may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
832incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
833between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
16d98ec5 834extension was built against an older version of the library that is
b8170e59
JB
835installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
836extensions.
837
748a9306
LW
838=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
839
2ba9eb46 840(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306
LW
841lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
842localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
843package name.
844
6df41af2 845=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 846
6df41af2
GS
847(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
848handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 849pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 850that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 851
ea071790 852=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
853
854(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
855found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
856unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
857need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
858the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
859to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
860L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 861
6df41af2
GS
862=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
863
be771a83
GS
864(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
865autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
866are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
867the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 868
b8170e59
JB
869=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
870
871(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
872for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
873unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
874
a0d0e21e
LW
875=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
876
877(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
878functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 879method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
880
881=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
882
be771a83
GS
883(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
884doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 885
2f7da168
RK
886=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
887
888(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
889e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
890
3e3baf6d
TB
891=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
892
be771a83
GS
893(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
894VMS.
3e3baf6d 895
a0d0e21e
LW
896=item Can't modify %s in %s
897
be771a83
GS
898(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
899to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 900
54310121 901=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
902
903(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
904a NULL.
905
6df41af2
GS
906=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
907
908(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
909such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
910
5f05dabc 911=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 912
5f05dabc 913(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
914buffer.
915
6df41af2
GS
916=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
917
918(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
919there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
920count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
921grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
922though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
923once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 924
a0d0e21e
LW
925=item Can't open %s: %s
926
c47ff5f1 927(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
928filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
929switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
930is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
931the command line.
a0d0e21e 932
9a869a14
RGS
933=item Can't open a reference
934
935(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
936using the 3-arg open() syntax :
937
938 open FH, '>', $ref;
939
940but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
941open is not supported.
942
a0d0e21e
LW
943=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
944
be771a83
GS
945(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
946You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
947as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
948">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 949
748a9306
LW
950=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
951
be771a83
GS
952(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
953redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
954the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
955
956=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
957
be771a83
GS
958(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
959redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
960command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
961
962=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
963
be771a83
GS
964(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
965redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
966the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
967
968=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
969
be771a83
GS
970(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
971redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
972for stdout.
748a9306 973
2b8ca739 974=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
975
976(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
977
fa3aa65a
JC
978If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
979shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
980you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
981
6df41af2
GS
982=item Can't read CRTL environ
983
984(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
985from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
986missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
987or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
988searched.
6df41af2 989
6df41af2
GS
990=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
991
992(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
993there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
994count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
995or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
996though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
997loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
998
64977eb6 999=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1000
be771a83
GS
1001(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1002file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1003the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1004
a0d0e21e
LW
1005=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1006
e476b1b5 1007(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1008probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1009
748a9306
LW
1010=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1011
be771a83
GS
1012(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1013to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1014
6df41af2
GS
1015=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1016
be771a83
GS
1017(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1018to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1019method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1020
a0d0e21e
LW
1021=item Can't reswap uid and euid
1022
be771a83
GS
1023(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1024suidperl.
a0d0e21e 1025
cd06dffe
GS
1026=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1027
be771a83
GS
1028(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1029temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1030is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1031
96ebfdd7
RK
1032=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1033
1034(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1035there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1036
78f9721b
SM
1037=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1038
1039(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1040but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1041to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1042the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1043list context.
1044
a0d0e21e
LW
1045=item Can't stat script "%s"
1046
be771a83
GS
1047(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1048open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
1049
1050=item Can't swap uid and euid
1051
be771a83
GS
1052(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1053suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
1054
1055=item Can't take log of %g
1056
fb73857a 1057(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1058negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1059standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1060negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1061
1062=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1063
1064(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1065negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1066with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1067
1068=item Can't undef active subroutine
1069
1070(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1071however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1072redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1073
1074=item Can't unshift
1075
1076(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1077as the main Perl stack.
1078
c81225bc 1079=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1080
be771a83
GS
1081(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1082into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1083specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1084indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1085
1db89ea5
BS
1086=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1087
e27ad1f2 1088(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1089table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1090for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1091
96ebfdd7
RK
1092=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1093
1094(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1095be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1096
6df41af2
GS
1097=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1098
be771a83
GS
1099(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1100references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1101
90b75b61 1102=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1103
1104(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1105Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1106provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1107
1109a392
MHM
1108=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1109
1110(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1111byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1112allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1113
6df41af2
GS
1114=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1115
be771a83
GS
1116(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1117foreach.
6df41af2
GS
1118
1119=item Can't use global %s in "my"
1120
be771a83
GS
1121(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1122is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1123(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1124have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1125weren't.
1126
6d3b25aa
RGS
1127=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1128
1129(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1130that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1131For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1132is inside a big-endian group.
1133
c07a80fd 1134=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1135
1136(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1137You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1138and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1139Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1140lexical variable.
1141
a0d0e21e
LW
1142=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1143
1144(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1145reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1146test the type of the reference, if need be.
1147
748a9306 1148=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1149
be771a83
GS
1150(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1151references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1152
748a9306
LW
1153=item Can't use subscript on %s
1154
1155(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1156subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1157didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1158
6df41af2
GS
1159=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1160
75b44862
GS
1161(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1162creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1163backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1164expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1165value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1166instead.
6df41af2 1167
0d863452 1168=item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
dc57907a 1169
0d863452
RH
1170(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1171loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1172from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1173or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1174
810b8aa5
GS
1175=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1176
1177(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1178references can be weakened.
1179
5f05dabc 1180=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1181
be771a83
GS
1182(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1183with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1184Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1185
f337b084 1186=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1187
1188(W pack) You said
1189
1190 pack("C", $x)
1191
1192where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1193only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1194and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1195
1196 pack("C", $x & 255)
1197
1198If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1199instead.
1200
f337b084
TH
1201=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1202
1203(W pack) You said
1204
1205 pack("U0W", $x)
1206
1207where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1208all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1209meant:
1210
1211 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1212
1213=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1214
1215(W pack) You said
1216
1217 pack("c", $x)
1218
1219where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1220is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1221and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1222
1223 pack("c", $x & 255);
1224
1225If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1226instead.
1227
f337b084
TH
1228=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1229
1230(W unpack) You tried something like
1231
1232 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1233
1a147d38 1234where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
f337b084
TH
1235below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1236modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1237
1238 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1239
1240=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1241
1242(W pack) You tried something like
1243
1244 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1245
1a147d38
YO
1246where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1247value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1248uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1249
1250 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1251
1252=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1253
1254(W unpack) You tried something like
1255
1256 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1257
1a147d38
YO
1258where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1259value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1260uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1261
1262 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1263
96ebfdd7
RK
1264=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1265
1266(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1267
abc7ecad
SP
1268=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1269
1270(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1271a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1272
49704364
WL
1273=item Code missing after '/'
1274
1275(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1276template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1277
6df41af2
GS
1278=item %s: Command not found
1279
be771a83
GS
1280(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1281Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1282
7a2e2cd6 1283=item Compilation failed in require
1284
1285(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1286Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1287encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1288
c3464db5
DD
1289=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1290
be771a83
GS
1291(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1292situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1293to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1294arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1295recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1296under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1297in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1298that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1299on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1300
38875929
DM
1301=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1302
1303(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1304cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1305function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1306cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1307has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1308first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1309after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1310lock.
1311
38875929
DM
1312=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1313
1314(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1315cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1316function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1317cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1318has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1319first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1320after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1321lock.
1322
69282e91 1323=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1324
be771a83
GS
1325(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1326to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1327L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1328
41ab332f 1329=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1330
be771a83
GS
1331(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1332an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1333specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1334corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1335L<overload>.
6df41af2 1336
fc8cd66c
YO
1337=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1338
1a147d38
YO
1339(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1340the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1341forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1342See L<charnames>.
1343
1344
779c5bc9
GS
1345=item Constant is not %s reference
1346
1347(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1348is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1349The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1350usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1351See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1352
4cee8e80
CS
1353=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1354
bb028877 1355(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
be771a83
GS
1356eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1357commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1358
9607fc9c 1359=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1360
be771a83
GS
1361(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1362for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1363workarounds.
9607fc9c 1364
e7ea3e70
IZ
1365=item Copy method did not return a reference
1366
64977eb6 1367(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1368L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1369
6798c92b
GS
1370=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1371
1372(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1373
a0d0e21e
LW
1374=item corrupted regexp pointers
1375
1376(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1377expression compiler gave it.
1378
1379=item corrupted regexp program
1380
be771a83
GS
1381(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1382valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1383
6df41af2
GS
1384=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1385
1386(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1387
49704364
WL
1388=item Count after length/code in unpack
1389
1390(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1391you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1392L<perlfunc/pack>.
1393
a0d0e21e
LW
1394=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1395
be771a83
GS
1396(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1397100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1398infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1399which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1400
f10b0346 1401=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1402
be771a83
GS
1403(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1404checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1405array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1406
f10b0346 1407=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1408
be771a83
GS
1409(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1410checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1411is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1412
62658f4d
PM
1413=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1414
1415(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1416there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1417
fc36a67e 1418=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1419
be771a83
GS
1420(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1421long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1422that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1423
6d3b25aa
RGS
1424=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1425
1426(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1427There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1428not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1429conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1430static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1431relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1432declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1433
6d3b25aa
RGS
1434 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1435
1436becomes
1437
1438 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1439
36fb85f3
RGS
1440Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1441have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1442
1443 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1444
500ab966
RGS
1445=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1446
1447(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1448just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1449to create a dangling reference.
1450
3cdd684c
TP
1451=item Did not produce a valid header
1452
1453See Server error.
1454
6df41af2
GS
1455=item %s did not return a true value
1456
1457(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1458it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1459traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1460do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1461
cc507455 1462=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1463
be771a83
GS
1464(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1465such.
4633a7c4 1466
cc507455 1467=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1468
be771a83
GS
1469(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1470variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1471seems superfluous.
33633739 1472
cc507455 1473=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1474
be771a83
GS
1475(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1476@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1477carried away.
748a9306 1478
7e1af8bc 1479=item Died
5f05dabc 1480
1481(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1482you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1483
3cdd684c
TP
1484=item Document contains no data
1485
1486See Server error.
1487
62658f4d
PM
1488=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1489
1490(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1491define a C<$VERSION.>
1492
49704364
WL
1493=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1494
1495(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1496See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1497
a0d0e21e
LW
1498=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1499
1500(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1501
1502=item do_study: out of memory
1503
1504(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1505
6df41af2
GS
1506=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1507
56da5a46
RGS
1508(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1509"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1510name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1511because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1512"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1513something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1514subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1515"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1516
ac206dc8
RGS
1517=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1518
1519(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1520qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1521
84d78eb7
YO
1522=item dump is not supported
1523
1524(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1525
a0d0e21e
LW
1526=item Duplicate free() ignored
1527
be771a83
GS
1528(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1529already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1530
1109a392
MHM
1531=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1532
1533(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1534in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1535
4633a7c4
LW
1536=item elseif should be elsif
1537
56da5a46
RGS
1538(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1539ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1540"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1541unlikely to be what you want.
1542
ab13f0c7
JH
1543=item Empty %s
1544
af6f566e
HS
1545(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1546described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1547a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1548
85ab1d1d 1549=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1550
85ab1d1d 1551(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1552effective uids or gids failed.
1553
c038024b
RGS
1554=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1555
1556(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1557aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1558program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1559
748a9306
LW
1560=item Error converting file specification %s
1561
5f05dabc 1562(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1563specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1564single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1565an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1566conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1567
e4d48cc9
GS
1568=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1569
be771a83
GS
1570(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1571expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1572is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1573
e4d48cc9
GS
1574=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1575
be771a83
GS
1576(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1577C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1578pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1579is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1580building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1581that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1582
6df41af2
GS
1583=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1584
be771a83
GS
1585(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1586assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1587pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1588
1a147d38
YO
1589=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1590
1591(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1592any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1593
1594The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1595discovered.
1596
fc36a67e 1597=item Excessively long <> operator
1598
1599(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1600Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1601filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1602variable and glob that.
1603
ed9aa3b7
SG
1604=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1605
1606(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1607
f86702cc 1608=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1609
1610(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1611
1612=item Exiting eval via %s
1613
be771a83
GS
1614(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1615goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1616
1617=item Exiting format via %s
1618
9a2ff54b 1619(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1620goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1621
0a753a76 1622=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1623
be771a83
GS
1624(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1625sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1626loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1627
a0d0e21e
LW
1628=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1629
be771a83
GS
1630(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1631as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1632
1633=item Exiting substitution via %s
1634
be771a83
GS
1635(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1636as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1637
7b8d334a
GS
1638=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1639
be771a83
GS
1640(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1641the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1642usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1643e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1644
6df41af2
GS
1645=item %s: Expression syntax
1646
be771a83
GS
1647(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1648Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1649
1650=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1651
3c10abe3
AG
1652(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1653CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1654queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1655
7253e4e3 1656=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1657
be771a83 1658(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1659character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1660in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1661"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1662problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1663
748a9306 1664=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1665
be771a83
GS
1666(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1667system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1668details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1669you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1670
1671=item fcntl is not implemented
1672
1673(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1674PDP-11 or something?
1675
f337b084
TH
1676=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1677
1678(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1679which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1680a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1681C<u63> as format.
1682
af8c498a 1683=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1684
6c8d78fb
HS
1685(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1686it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1687"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1688write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1689
af8c498a 1690=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1691
6c8d78fb
HS
1692(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1693you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
be771a83
GS
1694with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1695intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
6c8d78fb
HS
1696Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1697(also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1698
1699=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1700
1701(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1702as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1703previously.
1704
1705=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1706
1707(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1708as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1709
1710=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1711
1712(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1713a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1714happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1715name.
a0d0e21e 1716
56e90b21
GS
1717=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1718
be771a83 1719(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1720some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1721filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1722same name?
56e90b21 1723
6df41af2
GS
1724=item Format not terminated
1725
1726(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1727to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1728
a0d0e21e
LW
1729=item Format %s redefined
1730
e476b1b5 1731(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1732
1733 {
271595cc 1734 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1735 eval "format NAME =...";
1736 }
1737
a0d0e21e
LW
1738=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1739
e476b1b5 1740(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1741
1742 if ($foo = 123)
1743
1744when you meant
1745
1746 if ($foo == 123)
1747
1748(or something like that).
1749
6df41af2
GS
1750=item %s found where operator expected
1751
56da5a46
RGS
1752(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1753If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1754operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1755operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1756
a0d0e21e
LW
1757=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1758
1759(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1760
1761=item gethostent not implemented
1762
1763(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1764because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1765on the Internet.
1766
69282e91 1767=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1768
be771a83
GS
1769(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1770socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1771
748a9306
LW
1772=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1773
1774(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1775C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1776
6df41af2
GS
1777=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1778
be771a83
GS
1779(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1780forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1781L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1782
1783=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1784
1785(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1786must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1787"our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1788is in (using "::").
1789
e476b1b5
GS
1790=item glob failed (%s)
1791
be771a83
GS
1792(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1793C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1794C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1795nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1796resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1797broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1798config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1799were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1800empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1801think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1802C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1803
a0d0e21e
LW
1804=item Glob not terminated
1805
1806(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1807a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1808not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1809earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1810
6df41af2 1811=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1812
6df41af2
GS
1813(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1814version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1815
1816=item goto must have label
1817
1818(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1819unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1820
49704364 1821=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 1822
49704364 1823(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
18529408 1824supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
49704364 1825 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 1826
6df41af2
GS
1827=item %s had compilation errors
1828
1829(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1830
a0d0e21e
LW
1831=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1832
be771a83
GS
1833(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1834to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1835created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1836
1837=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1838
be771a83
GS
1839(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1840spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1841
6df41af2
GS
1842=item %s has too many errors
1843
1844(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1845Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1846
252aa082
JH
1847=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1848
e476b1b5 1849(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1850(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1851L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1852
8903cb82 1853=item Identifier too long
1854
1855(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1856about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1857names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1858of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1859
fc8cd66c
YO
1860=item Ignoring %s in character class in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1861
1862(W) Named unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return multi-char
1863or zero length sequences. When such an escape is used in a character class
1a147d38 1864its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
1865been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1866
6df41af2 1867=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1868
6df41af2 1869(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1870
6df41af2 1871=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1872
be771a83
GS
1873(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1874binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1875offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1876
4fdae800 1877=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1878
d5898338 1879(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1880would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1881when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1882version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1883to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1884
d37a9538
ST
1885=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1886
420cdfc1 1887(W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
d37a9538
ST
1888characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1889
904d85c5
RGS
1890=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1891
1892(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1893you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1894
8e742a20
MHM
1895=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1896
1897(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1898
a0d0e21e
LW
1899=item Illegal division by zero
1900
be771a83
GS
1901(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1902your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1903meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1904
6df41af2
GS
1905=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1906
be771a83
GS
1907(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1908A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1909number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1910
a0d0e21e
LW
1911=item Illegal modulus zero
1912
be771a83
GS
1913(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1914numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1915
6df41af2 1916=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1917
6df41af2
GS
1918(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1919two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1920
1921=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 1922
d1be9408 1923(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 1924
399388f4 1925=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1926
d1be9408 1927(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 1928Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1929
6df41af2 1930=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1931
6df41af2 1932(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
e4af53b0 1933following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtwA]>.
6ff81951 1934
6df41af2 1935=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1936
75b44862 1937(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1938internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1939delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1940
6df41af2 1941=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1942
be771a83
GS
1943(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1944name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1945didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1946ignored.
54310121 1947
8fa7688f
SF
1948=item Impossible to activate assertion call
1949
1950(W assertions) You're calling an assertion function in a block that is
1951not under the control of the C<assertions> pragma.
1952
6df41af2 1953=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1954
be771a83
GS
1955(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1956the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1957system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1958times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1959would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1960
be771a83
GS
1961Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1962also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1963
979699d9
JH
1964=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1965
1966(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1967Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1968encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
1969
1a147d38
YO
1970=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1971
1972(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
1973text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1974either consume text or fail.
1975
1976The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1977discovered.
1978
a0d0e21e
LW
1979=item Insecure dependency in %s
1980
8b1a09fc 1981(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
1982The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1983setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1984tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1985from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1986such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1987L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
1988
1989=item Insecure directory in %s
1990
be771a83
GS
1991(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1992setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
1993the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
1994See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 1995
62f468fc 1996=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1997
1998(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 1999setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2000C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2001supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2002the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2003
a7ae9550
GS
2004=item Integer overflow in %s number
2005
75b44862 2006(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2007either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2008your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2009On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2010representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
20110b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2012transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2013internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2014operations.
bbce6d69 2015
2fba7546
GA
2016=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2017
0be96356
AL
2018(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2019or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2fba7546
GA
2020integers for your architecture.
2021
46314c13
JP
2022=item Integer overflow in version
2023
2024(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2025size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2026because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2027element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2028trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2029100/9.
2030
7253e4e3 2031=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2032
2033(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2034The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2035discovered.
2036
748a9306
LW
2037=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2038
be771a83
GS
2039(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2040you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2041to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2042L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2043Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2044terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2045
7253e4e3 2046=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2047
7253e4e3
RK
2048(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2049<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2050discovered.
a0d0e21e 2051
6df41af2
GS
2052=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2053
75b44862 2054(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2055followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2056operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2057L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2058
09bef843
SB
2059=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2060
2061The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2062by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2063
2064=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2065
be771a83
GS
2066The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2067recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2068
c635e13b 2069=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2070
be771a83
GS
2071(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2072L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2073
9e08bc66
TS
2074=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2075
2076(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2077didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2078from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2079The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2080The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2081escape was discovered.
2082
7253e4e3 2083=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2084
2085(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2086greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2087C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2088up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2089problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2090
d1573ac7 2091=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2092
2093(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2094character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2095
09bef843
SB
2096=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2097
0120eecf 2098(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2099elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2100parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2101See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2102
b4581f09
JH
2103=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2104
2105(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2106colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2107If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2108list was terminated too soon.
2109
49704364 2110=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2111
49704364
WL
2112(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2113See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2114(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2115silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2116
46314c13
JP
2117=item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2118
2119(F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2120that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2121version formats.
2122
2123=item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2124
2125(F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2126See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2127
a0d0e21e
LW
2128=item ioctl is not implemented
2129
2130(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2131strange for a machine that supports C.
2132
c289d2f7
JH
2133=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2134
2135(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2136Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2137
363c40c4
SB
2138=item IO layers (like "%s") unavailable
2139
2140(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2141you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2142with 'useperlio'.
2143
80cbd5ad
JH
2144=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2145
2146(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2147neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2148
b4581f09
JH
2149=item $* is no longer supported
2150
2151(D deprecated) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2152been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2153C<//m> and C<//s> regexp modifiers instead.
2154
8ae1fe26
RGS
2155=item $# is no longer supported
2156
2157(D deprecated) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2158been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2159printf/sprintf functions instead.
2160
6ad11d81
JH
2161=item `%s' is not a code reference
2162
04a80ee0
RGS
2163(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2164needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
2165to a subroutine.
2166
2167=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2168
04a80ee0
RGS
2169(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2170unaware of.
6ad11d81 2171
a0d0e21e
LW
2172=item junk on end of regexp
2173
2174(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2175
2176=item Label not found for "last %s"
2177
be771a83
GS
2178(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2179of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2180L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2181
2182=item Label not found for "next %s"
2183
2184(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2185that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2186L<perlfunc/last>.
2187
2188=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2189
2190(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2191that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2192L<perlfunc/last>.
2193
85ab1d1d 2194=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2195
85ab1d1d 2196(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2197effective uids or gids failed.
2198
49704364
WL
2199=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2200
d7f8936a 2201(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
49704364
WL
2202length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2203an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2204
69282e91 2205=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2206
be771a83
GS
2207(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2208to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2209L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2210
58e23c8d 2211=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2212
2213(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
58e23c8d 2214handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2215
2f7da168
RK
2216=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2217
2218(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2219by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2220instead on the filehandle.)
2221
96ebfdd7
RK
2222=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2223
2224(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2225values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2226L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2227
49704364
WL
2228=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2229
2230(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2231are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2232
2233=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2234
2235(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2236are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2237
6df41af2
GS
2238=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2239
2240(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2241
2242 prefix1;prefix2
2243
2244or
6df41af2
GS
2245 prefix1 prefix2
2246
be771a83
GS
2247with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2248a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2249appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2250"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2251
2f758a16
ST
2252=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2253
d37a9538
ST
2254(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2255syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2256obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2257when the function is called.
2f758a16 2258
ba210ebe
JH
2259=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2260
987b48f0
RGS
2261(S utf8) (F) Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8
2262encoding rules.
ba210ebe 2263
901b21bf
JH
2264One possible cause is that you read in data that you thought to be in
2265UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit data). Another
2266possibility is careless use of utf8::upgrade().
2267
dea0fc0b
JH
2268=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2269
2270Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2271doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2272
f337b084
TH
2273=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2274
2275(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2276rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2277
2278=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2279
2280(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2281rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2282
2283=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2284
2285(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2286rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2287
49704364 2288=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2289
2290(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
7253e4e3
RK
2291regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2292shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2293See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2294
25f58aea
PN
2295=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2296
2297(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2298interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2299"use" or "my".
2300
49704364 2301=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2302
2303(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2304checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2305See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2306
a0d0e21e
LW
2307=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2308
2309(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2310doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2311
3cdd684c
TP
2312=item Method %s not permitted
2313
2314See Server error.
2315
a0d0e21e
LW
2316=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2317
2318(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2319by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2320ended earlier on the current line.
2321
2322=item Misplaced _ in number
2323
d4ced10d
JH
2324(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2325separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2326
9e81e6a1
RGS
2327=item Missing argument to -%c
2328
2329(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2330immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2331
4a2d328f 2332=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 2333
4a2d328f 2334(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
2335double-quotish context.
2336
a0d0e21e
LW
2337=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2338
2339(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2340"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2341
06eaf0bc
GS
2342=item Missing command in piped open
2343
be771a83
GS
2344(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2345C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2346blank.
06eaf0bc 2347
961ce445
RGS
2348=item Missing control char name in \c
2349
2350(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2351character name.
2352
6df41af2
GS
2353=item Missing name in "my sub"
2354
be771a83
GS
2355(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2356they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2357
2358=item Missing $ on loop variable
2359
be771a83
GS
2360(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2361are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2362can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2363
cc507455 2364=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2365
56da5a46
RGS
2366(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2367"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2368
ab13f0c7
JH
2369=item Missing right brace on %s
2370
2371(F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2372
d98d5fff 2373=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2374
be771a83
GS
2375(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2376ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2377were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2378
6df41af2
GS
2379=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2380
56da5a46
RGS
2381(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2382"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2383the previous line just because you saw this message.
2384
a0d0e21e
LW
2385=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2386
2387(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2388constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2389catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2390
2391 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2392 mod(2);
2393
2394Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2395
c5674021
PDF
2396Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2397is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2398
2399 $x = 1;
2400 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2401 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2402 }
c5674021 2403
7a4340ed 2404=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2405
2406(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2407subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2408backwards.
2409
7a4340ed 2410=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2411
be771a83
GS
2412(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2413couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2414
2415=item Module name must be constant
2416
2417(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2418
be98fb35 2419=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2420
be98fb35
GS
2421(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2422you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2423about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2424
ed9aa3b7
SG
2425=item More than one argument to open
2426
2427(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2428can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2429list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2430See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2431
a0d0e21e
LW
2432=item msg%s not implemented
2433
2434(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2435
2436=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2437
75b44862
GS
2438(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2439They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2440
49704364 2441=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2442
49704364
WL
2443(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2444follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2445See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2446
2447=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2448
be771a83
GS
2449(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2450that yet.
6df41af2
GS
2451
2452=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2453
be771a83
GS
2454(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2455sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2456local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2457
8b1a09fc 2458=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2459
e476b1b5 2460(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
2461If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2462again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 2463provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e 2464
64b374f4
FD
2465NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2466%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2467the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2468will not trigger this warning.
2469
49704364
WL
2470=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2471
2472(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2473negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2474
a0d0e21e
LW
2475=item Negative length
2476
be771a83
GS
2477(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2478length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2479
ed9aa3b7
SG
2480=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2481
2482(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2483greater than or equal to zero.
2484
7253e4e3 2485=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2486
b45f050a 2487(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2488things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2489expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2490
7253e4e3 2491Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2492C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2493
6df41af2 2494=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2495
be771a83
GS
2496(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2497scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e
LW
2498
2499=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2500
be771a83
GS
2501(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2502setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2503will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2504securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2505
a0d0e21e
LW
2506=item No comma allowed after %s
2507
2508(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2509allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2510Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2511
0a753a76 2512One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2513constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2514importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2515does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2516explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2517L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2518would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2519remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2520constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2521list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2522this error was triggered?
2523
748a9306
LW
2524=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2525
be771a83
GS
2526(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2527redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2528doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2529
a0d0e21e
LW
2530=item No DB::DB routine defined
2531
be771a83 2532(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
ccafdc96
RGS
2533for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2534module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2535statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2536
2537=item No dbm on this machine
2538
2539(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2540supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2541
ccafdc96 2542=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2543
ccafdc96
RGS
2544(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2545for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2546module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2547of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2548
96ebfdd7
RK
2549=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2550
2551(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2552
c47ff5f1 2553=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2554
be771a83
GS
2555(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2556redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2557find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2558
49704364
WL
2559=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2560
2561(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2562matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2563
c47ff5f1 2564=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2565
be771a83
GS
2566(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2567redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2568name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2569
6df41af2
GS
2570=item No #! line
2571
2572(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2573even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2574
2575=item "no" not allowed in expression
2576
be771a83
GS
2577(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2578returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2579
c47ff5f1 2580=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2581
be771a83
GS
2582(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2583redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2584doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2585
c47ff5f1 2586=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2587
be771a83
GS
2588(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2589redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2590find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2591
1ec3e8de
GS
2592=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2593
be771a83
GS
2594(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2595declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2596semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2597
a0d0e21e
LW
2598=item No Perl script found in input
2599
2600(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2601with #! and containing the word "perl".
2602
2603=item No setregid available
2604
2605(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2606your system.
2607
2608=item No setreuid available
2609
2610(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2611your system.
2612
6df41af2
GS
2613=item No %s specified for -%c
2614
2615(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2616you haven't specified one.
2617
e75d1f10
RD
2618=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2619
2620(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2621but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2622package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2623
2c692339
RGS
2624=item No such class %s
2625
2626(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but
2627this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2628
6df41af2
GS
2629=item No such pipe open
2630
2631(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2632close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2633earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2634
a0d0e21e
LW
2635=item No such signal: SIG%s
2636
be771a83
GS
2637(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2638not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2639names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2640
2641=item Not a CODE reference
2642
2643(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2644subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2645use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2646also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2647
2648=item Not a format reference
2649
2650(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2651format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2652
2653=item Not a GLOB reference
2654
be771a83
GS
2655(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2656symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2657something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2658kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2659
2660=item Not a HASH reference
2661
be771a83
GS
2662(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2663reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2664find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2665
6df41af2
GS
2666=item Not an ARRAY reference
2667
be771a83
GS
2668(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2669a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2670to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2671
a0d0e21e
LW
2672=item Not a perl script
2673
2674(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2675even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2676mention perl.
2677
2678=item Not a SCALAR reference
2679
be771a83
GS
2680(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2681a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2682to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2683
2684=item Not a subroutine reference
2685
2686(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2687subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2688use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2689also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2690
e7ea3e70 2691=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2692
2693(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2694doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2695
a0d0e21e
LW
2696=item Not enough arguments for %s
2697
2698(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2699
6df41af2
GS
2700=item Not enough format arguments
2701
be771a83
GS
2702(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2703supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2704
2705=item %s: not found
2706
be771a83
GS
2707(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2708of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2709yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2710
2711=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2712
6df41af2
GS
2713(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2714timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2715to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2716F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2717need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 2718
4ef2275c
GA
2719=item Non-string passed as bitmask
2720
2721(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2722Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2723select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2724
a0d0e21e
LW
2725=item Null filename used
2726
be771a83
GS
2727(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2728machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2729
6df41af2
GS
2730=item NULL OP IN RUN
2731
be771a83
GS
2732(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2733pointer.
6df41af2 2734
55497cff 2735=item Null picture in formline
2736
2737(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2738specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2739supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2740
a0d0e21e
LW
2741=item Null realloc
2742
2743(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2744
2745=item NULL regexp argument
2746
5f05dabc 2747(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2748
2749=item NULL regexp parameter
2750
2751(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2752
fc36a67e 2753=item Number too long
2754
be771a83 2755(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 2756about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
2757versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2758the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2759"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2760
6df41af2
GS
2761=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2762
be771a83
GS
2763(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2764The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2765future version.
6df41af2 2766
252aa082
JH
2767=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2768
75b44862 2769(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2770(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2771L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2772
2773See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2774
6ad11d81
JH
2775=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2776
04a80ee0
RGS
2777(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2778arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 2779
b21befc1
MG
2780=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2781
2782(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2783which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2784
1930e939 2785=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2786
be771a83
GS
2787(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2788which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2789
bbce6d69 2790=item Offset outside string
2791
42bc49da
JH
2792(F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
2793with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
2794imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
2795take place when going past the end of the string when either
2796C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
2797for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
2798with real files).
bbce6d69 2799
c289d2f7 2800=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
2801
2802(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2803never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2804call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2805
96ebfdd7
RK
2806=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2807
2808(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2809that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2810
a0d0e21e
LW
2811=item oops: oopsAV
2812
e476b1b5 2813(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2814
2815=item oops: oopsHV
2816
e476b1b5 2817(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2818
a0288114 2819=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2820
be771a83
GS
2821(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2822handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2823of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2824C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2825
748a9306
LW
2826=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2827
be771a83
GS
2828(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2829was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2830use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2831example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2832"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2833
6df41af2
GS
2834=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2835
be771a83
GS
2836(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2837in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2838
a80b8354
GS
2839=item Out of memory!
2840
2841(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2842remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2843no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2844
19a52907
JH
2845At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2846process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2847C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2848the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2849and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2850
6d3b25aa
RGS
2851=item Out of memory during %s extend
2852
2853(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
2854the largest possible memory allocation.
2855
6df41af2 2856=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2857
6df41af2
GS
2858(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2859remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2860the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2861possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2862
1b979e0a 2863=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2864
be771a83
GS
2865(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2866insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2867request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2868
2869The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2870depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2871However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2872emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
2873is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2874where the failed request happened.
55497cff 2875
1b979e0a
IZ
2876=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2877
2878(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2879is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2880C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2881
6df41af2
GS
2882=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2883
be771a83
GS
2884(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2885parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2886otherwise.
6df41af2 2887
28be1210
TH
2888=item '.' outside of string in pack
2889
2890(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
2891position to before the start of the packed string being built.
2892
49704364 2893=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 2894
49704364 2895(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
2896the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2897
f337b084
TH
2898=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
2899
2900(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2901the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
2902UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2903
6df41af2
GS
2904=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2905
be771a83
GS
2906(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2907package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2908some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2909mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 2910
96ebfdd7
RK
2911=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
2912
2913(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2914signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2915
a0d0e21e
LW
2916=item page overflow
2917
be771a83
GS
2918(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2919page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 2920
6df41af2
GS
2921=item panic: %s
2922
2923(P) An internal error.
2924
c99a1475
NC
2925=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
2926
2927(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
2928an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
2929platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
2930enter this branch on this platform.
2931
a0d0e21e
LW
2932=item panic: ck_grep
2933
2934(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2935
2936=item panic: ck_split
2937
2938(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2939
2940=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2941
be771a83
GS
2942(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2943there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 2944
810b8aa5
GS
2945=item panic: del_backref
2946
2947(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2948reference.
2949
7619c85e
RG
2950=item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
2951
2952(P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
2953last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
2954an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
2955a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
2956
a0d0e21e
LW
2957=item panic: die %s
2958
2959(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2960it wasn't an eval context.
2961
a0d0e21e
LW
2962=item panic: do_subst
2963
be771a83
GS
2964(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2965data.
a0d0e21e 2966
2269b42e 2967=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 2968
2269b42e 2969(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 2970data.
a0d0e21e 2971
b7f7fd0b
NC
2972=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
2973
10203f38 2974(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
2975failure was caught.
2976
c635e13b 2977=item panic: frexp
2978
2979(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2980
a0d0e21e
LW
2981=item panic: goto
2982
2983(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2984and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2985
23976bdd
NC
2986=item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
2987
2988(P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
2989but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
2990contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
2991adds a new object to the hash.
2992
a0d0e21e
LW
2993=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2994
2995(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2996
2997=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2998
2999(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3000
e446cec8
IZ
3001=item panic: kid popen errno read
3002
3003(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3004
a0d0e21e
LW
3005=item panic: last
3006
3007(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3008it wasn't a block context.
3009
3010=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3011
be771a83
GS
3012(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3013scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
3014
3015=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3016
3017(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3018invalid enum on the top of it.
3019
810b8aa5
GS
3020=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3021
3022(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3023references to an object.
3024
6df41af2
GS
3025=item panic: malloc
3026
3027(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3028
27d5b266
JH
3029=item panic: memory wrap
3030
3031(P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3032
a0d0e21e
LW
3033=item panic: pad_alloc
3034
3035(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3036and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3037
3038=item panic: pad_free curpad
3039
3040(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3041and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3042
3043=item panic: pad_free po
3044
3045(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3046
3047=item panic: pad_reset curpad
3048
3049(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3050and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3051
3052=item panic: pad_sv po
3053
3054(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3055
3056=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3057
3058(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3059and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3060
3061=item panic: pad_swipe po
3062
3063(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3064
3065=item panic: pp_iter
3066
3067(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3068
96ebfdd7
RK
3069=item panic: pp_match%s
3070
3071(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3072data.
3073
2269b42e
JH
3074=item panic: pp_split
3075
3076(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3077
a0d0e21e
LW
3078=item panic: realloc
3079
3080(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3081
3082=item panic: restartop
3083
3084(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3085didn't supply the destination.
3086
3087=item panic: return
3088
3089(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3090then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3091
3092=item panic: scan_num
3093
3094(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3095
3096=item panic: sv_insert
3097
3098(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3099was string.
3100
3101=item panic: top_env
3102
6224f72b 3103(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 3104
65bca31a
NC
3105=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3106
3107(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3108at run time.
3109
dea0fc0b
JH
3110=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3111
3112(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 3113to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 3114
2f7da168
RK
3115=item panic: yylex
3116
3117(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3118
1a147d38
YO
3119=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3120
3121(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3122consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3123nesting limit is exceeded.
3124
3125The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3126discovered.
3127
7b8d334a 3128=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 3129
e476b1b5 3130(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
3131
3132 my $foo, $bar = @_;
3133
3134when you meant
3135
3136 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3137
54884818 3138Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 3139
96ebfdd7
RK
3140=item C<-p> destination: %s
3141
3142(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3143command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3144redirected it with select().)
3145
3146=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3147
3148(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3149"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3150that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3151
1109a392
MHM
3152=item Perl_my_%s() not available
3153
3154(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3155so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3156conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3157'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3158
6d3b25aa
RGS
3159=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3160
3161(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3162recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3163you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3164
6df41af2
GS
3165=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3166
3167(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 3168C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3169
96ebfdd7
RK
3170=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3171
3172See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3173
6df41af2
GS
3174=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3175
3176(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3177
3178 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3179 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3180 LC_ALL = "En_US",
3181 LANG = (unset)
3182 are supported and installed on your system.
3183 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3184
3185Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3186settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
3187This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3188system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3189locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3190dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3191Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3192the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3193you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3194L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 3195
a0d0e21e
LW
3196=item Permission denied
3197
3198(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
3199
bd3fa61c 3200=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 3201
be771a83
GS
3202(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3203process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3204fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 3205
49704364 3206=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
3207
3208(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3209
96ebfdd7
RK
3210=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
3211
3212(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
3213which provides a race condition that breaks security.
3214
3215=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3216
3217(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3218shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3219Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3220the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3221not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3222
3223=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3224
3225(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3226the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3227
49704364 3228=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3229
9a0b3859 3230(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
3231I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3232/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3233implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3234cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3235where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3236
49704364 3237=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3238
3239(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
3240beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3241If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3242expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3243backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3244about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3245
49704364 3246=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3247
7253e4e3
RK
3248(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3249with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3250need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3251character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3252and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3253problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3254
bbce6d69 3255=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3256
e476b1b5 3257(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 3258strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
3259literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3260parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3261
774d564b 3262You probably wrote something like this:
3263
54310121 3264 @list = qw(
774d564b 3265 a # a comment
bbce6d69 3266 b # another comment
774d564b 3267 );
bbce6d69 3268
3269when you should have written this:
3270
774d564b 3271 @list = qw(
54310121 3272 a
3273 b
774d564b 3274 );
3275
3276If you really want comments, build your list the
3277old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3278
3279 @list = (
3280 'a', # a comment
3281 'b', # another comment
3282 );
bbce6d69 3283
3284=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3285
be771a83
GS
3286(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3287commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3288different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3289frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3290
54310121 3291You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 3292
774d564b 3293 qw! a, b, c !;
3294
3295which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3296commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 3297
774d564b 3298 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 3299
a0d0e21e
LW
3300=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3301
3302(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3303Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3304end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3305Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3306
276b2a0c
RGS
3307=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3308
3309(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3310with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3311
3312 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3313
3314This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3315higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
96a925ab
YST
3316really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3317parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
276b2a0c 3318
18623440
PS
3319=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3320
3321(W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
32b0a12e
AMS
3322but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3323literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3324to the array you apparently lost track of.
18623440 3325
8cd79558
GS
3326=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3327
a1063b2d 3328(D deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
3329
3330 sub doit
3331 {
3332 use attrs qw(locked);
3333 }
3334
3335You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3336
3337 sub doit : locked
3338 {
3339 ...
3340
3341The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3342backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3343
a0d0e21e
LW
3344=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3345
e476b1b5 3346(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 3347
a0d0e21e
LW
3348 open FOO || die;
3349
3350is now misinterpreted as
3351
3352 open(FOO || die);
3353
be771a83
GS
3354because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3355list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3356parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3357of "||".
a0d0e21e 3358
3cdd684c
TP
3359=item Premature end of script headers
3360
3361See Server error.
3362
6df41af2
GS
3363=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3364
be771a83 3365(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3366before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 3367
9a7dcd9c 3368=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3369
be771a83 3370(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3371before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3372
6df41af2 3373=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 3374
6df41af2
GS
3375(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3376applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3377port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3378L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 3379in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 3380
3fe9a6f1 3381=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 3382
9a0b3859 3383(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 3384declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 3385
ed9aa3b7
SG
3386=item Prototype not terminated
3387
2a6fd447 3388(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
3389definition.
3390
96ebfdd7
RK
3391=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3392
3393(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3394meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3395where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3396
49704364 3397=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3398
b45f050a 3399(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
7253e4e3 3400{min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 3401the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 3402
49704364 3403=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3404
b45f050a
JF
3405(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3406it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3407quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3408"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3409C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 3410
7253e4e3
RK
3411The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3412discovered.
3413
89ea2908
GA
3414=item Range iterator outside integer range
3415
3416(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3417are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
3418One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3419by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 3420
3b7fbd4a
SP
3421=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3422
1a147d38 3423(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
3424a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3425
96ebfdd7
RK
3426=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3427
3428(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3429before now. Check your control flow.
3430
b5fe5ca2
SR
3431=item read() on closed filehandle %s
3432
3433(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3434
3435=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3436
3437(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3438
6df41af2
GS
3439=item Reallocation too large: %lx
3440
3441(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3442
4ad56ec9
IZ
3443=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3444
be771a83
GS
3445(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3446already been freed.
4ad56ec9 3447
a0d0e21e
LW
3448=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3449
be771a83
GS
3450(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3451the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
3452which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3453
3e0ccd42 3454=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e
LW
3455
3456(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
3457an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
3458
7a4340ed 3459=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 3460
be771a83
GS
3461(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3462a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3463hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 3464
1930e939
TP
3465=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3466
be771a83
GS
3467(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3468with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3469means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3470parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
3471
3472 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3473 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3474 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3475 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3476
810b8aa5
GS
3477=item Reference is already weak
3478
e476b1b5 3479(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
3480Doing so has no effect.
3481
a0d0e21e
LW
3482=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3483
be771a83
GS
3484(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3485a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 3486
49704364 3487=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3488
3489(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3490not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3491wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3492prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
9baa0206 3493
7253e4e3 3494The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 3495discovered.
9baa0206 3496
c74340f9
YO
3497=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3498
2bf803e2 3499(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
c74340f9 3500not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
2bf803e2 3501where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
c74340f9
YO
3502
3503The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3504discovered.
3505
1a147d38
YO
3506=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3507
3508(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3509expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3510as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3511correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3512
3513The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3514discovered.
3515
3516=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3517
3518(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3519most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3520of the C<....> part.
3521
3522The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3523discovered.
3524
a0d0e21e
LW
3525=item regexp memory corruption
3526
3527(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3528expression compiler gave it.
3529
b45f050a 3530=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 3531
be771a83
GS
3532(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3533earlier.
a0d0e21e 3534
a1b95068
WL
3535=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3536
d7f8936a 3537(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068
WL
3538numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3539terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3540
a0d0e21e
LW
3541=item Reversed %s= operator
3542
be771a83
GS
3543(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3544always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 3545
abc7ecad
SP
3546=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3547
3548(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3549really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3550
a0d0e21e
LW
3551=item Runaway format
3552
3553(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3554produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3555199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3556themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3557shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3558
96ebfdd7
RK
3559=item Scalars leaked: %d
3560
3561(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3562not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3563What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3564especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3565
a0d0e21e
LW
3566=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3567
be771a83
GS
3568(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3569single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3570value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3571behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3572argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3573and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3574if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 3575
748a9306 3576On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 3577element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
3578Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3579L<perlref>.
3580
a6006777 3581=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3582
75b44862 3583(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
3584element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3585(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3586like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3587argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3588and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3589if you're expecting only one subscript.
3590
3591On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3592as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3593not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 3594L<perlref>.
3595
a0d0e21e
LW
3596=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3597
54310121 3598(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3599or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e
LW
3600
3601=item Search pattern not terminated
3602
3603(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3604construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3605Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3606
0cb1bcd7 3607Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd
JH
3608construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3609in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3610misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3611
25c09cbf
SF
3612=item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3613
3614(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3615construct.
3616
3617The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3618C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3619parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3620the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3621
9ddeeac9 3622=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3623
be771a83
GS
3624(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3625filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3626
abc7ecad
SP
3627=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3628
3629(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
3630really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3631
a0d0e21e
LW
3632=item select not implemented
3633
3634(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3635
ae21d580 3636=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 3637
ae21d580
JH
3638(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3639the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 3640
6df41af2 3641=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 3642
75b44862
GS
3643(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3644semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
3645
3646=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3647
be771a83
GS
3648(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3649scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 3650
6df41af2 3651=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 3652
6df41af2 3653(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 3654
69282e91 3655=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3656
be771a83 3657(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3658before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3659
7253e4e3 3660=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 3661
7253e4e3 3662(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
b45f050a 3663shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 3664L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 3665
49704364 3666=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3667
b45f050a 3668(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
7253e4e3 3669has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
3670where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3671
49704364 3672=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3673
7253e4e3
RK
3674(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3675<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3676discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3677
49704364 3678=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3679
3680(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
7253e4e3
RK
3681parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3682the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3683L<perlre>.
6df41af2 3684
96ebfdd7
RK
3685=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3686
3687(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3688for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3689the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3690L<perlre>.
3691
6df41af2
GS
3692=item 500 Server error
3693
3694See Server error.
3695
a5f75d66
AD
3696=item Server error
3697
3cdd684c 3698This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
3699to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3700varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3701are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3702contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3703produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 3704
3705B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3706
be771a83
GS
3707You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3708user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3709account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3710(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3711location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3712Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 3713
06a5f41f
JH
3714 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3715 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3716 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 3717
be94a901
GS
3718You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3719
a0d0e21e
LW
3720=item setegid() not implemented
3721
be771a83
GS
3722(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3723support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3724didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3725
3726=item seteuid() not implemented
3727
be771a83
GS
3728(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3729support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3730didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3731
81777298
GS
3732=item setpgrp can't take arguments
3733
be771a83
GS
3734(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3735arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3736group ID.
81777298 3737
a0d0e21e
LW
3738=item setrgid() not implemented
3739
be771a83
GS
3740(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3741support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3742didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3743
3744=item setruid() not implemented
3745
be771a83
GS
3746(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3747support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3748didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3749
6df41af2
GS
3750=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3751
be771a83
GS
3752(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3753forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
3754L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3755
a0d0e21e
LW
3756=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3757
be771a83
GS
3758(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3759world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e 3760
d504a7a1
RGS
3761=item Setuid script not plain file
3762
3763(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
3764but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
3765
a0d0e21e
LW
3766=item shm%s not implemented
3767
3768(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3769
984200d0
YST
3770=item !=~ should be !~
3771
3772(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
3773interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
3774operators: probably not what you intended.
3775
6df41af2
GS
3776=item <> should be quotes
3777
3778(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3779C<require 'file'>.
3780
3781=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3782
3783(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
3784as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3785result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3786probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 3787
69282e91 3788=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3789
75b44862
GS
3790(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3791superfluous.
a0d0e21e 3792
f86702cc 3793=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 3794
be771a83
GS
3795(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3796Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e
LW
3797
3798=item sort is now a reserved word
3799
3800(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3801But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3802
3803=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3804
3805(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
c47ff5f1 3806it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e
LW
3807See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3808
3809=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3810
3811(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3812or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3813
8cbc2e3b
JH
3814=item splice() offset past end of array
3815
3816(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
3817the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
3818of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
3819explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
3820L<perlfunc/splice>.
3821
a0d0e21e
LW
3822=item Split loop
3823
be771a83
GS
3824(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3825iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3826happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 3827
53fdf963
RGS
3828=item State variable %s will be reinitialized
3829
3830(W misc) You're declaring a C<state> variable inside a list. The list
3831assignment will be treated by perl as a regular assignment, which means
3832that the C<state> variable will be reinitialized each time the statement
058cbdf2 3833is run. The solution to have it initialized only once is to write the
53fdf963
RGS
3834assignment on its own line, as in:
3835
3836 state $var = 42;
3837
a0d0e21e
LW
3838=item Statement unlikely to be reached
3839
be771a83
GS
3840(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3841die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3842unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3843instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3844a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 3845
9ddeeac9 3846=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 3847
355b1299
JH
3848(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3849was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 3850
f46d83d8 3851=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s"
e7ea3e70 3852
be771a83
GS
3853(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3854stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3855C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 3856
a0d0e21e
LW
3857=item Subroutine %s redefined
3858
e476b1b5 3859(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
3860
3861 {
271595cc 3862 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
3863 eval "sub name { ... }";
3864 }
3865
3866=item Substitution loop
3867
be771a83
GS
3868(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3869shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3870is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 3871L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
3872
3873=item Substitution pattern not terminated
3874
d1be9408 3875(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 3876construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3877Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3878
3879=item Substitution replacement not terminated
3880
d1be9408 3881(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 3882construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3883Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3884
3885=item substr outside of string
3886
be771a83
GS
3887(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3888a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3889length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3890substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3891assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 3892
f86702cc 3893=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
a0d0e21e 3894
be771a83
GS
3895(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3896a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
a0d0e21e 3897
bf1320bf
RGS
3898=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
3899
3900(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
3901inferior to its current type.
3902
49704364 3903=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3904
3905(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3906branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3907contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3908clustering parentheses:
3909
3910 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3911
7253e4e3 3912The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
3913discovered. See L<perlre>.
3914
49704364 3915=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3916
3917(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
7253e4e3 3918number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
b45f050a
JF
3919about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3920
85ab1d1d
JH
3921=item switching effective %s is not implemented
3922
be771a83
GS
3923(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3924and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 3925
2f7da168
RK
3926=item %s syntax
3927
3928(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3929
a0d0e21e
LW
3930=item syntax error
3931
3932(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3933
3934 A keyword is misspelled.
3935 A semicolon is missing.
3936 A comma is missing.
3937 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3938 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3939 A closing quote is missing.
3940
3941Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3942error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3943The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3944it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 3945before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
3946Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3947the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3948C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
be771a83
GS
3949if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3950questions>.
a0d0e21e 3951
cb1a09d0
AD
3952=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3953
be771a83
GS
3954(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3955of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3956yourself.
cb1a09d0 3957
25f58aea
PN
3958=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
3959
3960(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
3961a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
3962or "my $var" or "our $var".
3963
b5fe5ca2
SR
3964=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
3965
3966(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3967
3968=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
3969
3970(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3971
6087ac44 3972=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 3973
6087ac44
JH
3974(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3975"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3976machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3977unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 3978
69282e91 3979=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3980
be771a83 3981(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3982before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3983
96ebfdd7
RK
3984=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
3985
3986(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
3987know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
3988
fc36a67e 3989=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3990
be771a83
GS
3991(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3992for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 3993
9ddeeac9 3994=item tell() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3995
be771a83
GS
3996(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3997was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3998
abc7ecad
SP
3999=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4000
4001(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4002a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4003
a0d0e21e
LW
4004=item That use of $[ is unsupported
4005
be771a83
GS
4006(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4007as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e
LW
4008
4009 $[ = 0;
4010 $[ = 1;
4011 ...
4012 local $[ = 0;
4013 local $[ = 1;
4014 ...
4015
be771a83
GS
4016This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4017from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
a0d0e21e 4018
f86702cc 4019=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
4020
4021(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4022probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 4023think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
4024will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4025will deny it.
4026
6df41af2
GS
4027=item The %s function is unimplemented
4028
4029The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4030to the probings of Configure.
4031
5e1c7ca2 4032=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 4033
be771a83
GS
4034(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4035linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4036past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4037instead.
a0d0e21e 4038
371fce9b
DM
4039=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4040
1108974d 4041(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 4042
437784d6 4043=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
4044
4045=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4046
75b44862 4047(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
4048element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4049wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4050need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4051F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4052target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
4053%ENV which produced the warning.
4054
6b3c7930
JH
4055=item thread failed to start: %s
4056
4447dfc1 4057(W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
6b3c7930 4058
a0d0e21e
LW
4059=item times not implemented
4060
be771a83
GS
4061(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4062suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 4063
6d3b25aa
RGS
4064=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4065
4066(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4067B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4068This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4069script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4070So Perl gives up.
4071
4072If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4073mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4074editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
4075argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
4076
4077If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4078B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
4079
3a2263fe
RGS
4080=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4081
4082(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4083uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4084specified an illegal mapping.
4085See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4086
49704364
WL
4087=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4088
1a147d38 4089(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 4090
a0d0e21e
LW
4091=item Too few args to syscall
4092
4093(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4094system call to call, silly dilly.
4095
96ebfdd7
RK
4096=item Too late for "-%s" option
4097
4098(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3ffe3ee4 4099B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option. This is an error because those options
96ebfdd7
RK
4100are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4101
ddda08b7
GS
4102=item Too late to run %s block
4103
4104(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4105when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
4106loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4107instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4108BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 4109
a0d0e21e
LW
4110=item Too many args to syscall
4111
5f05dabc 4112(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
4113
4114=item Too many arguments for %s
4115
4116(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4117
6df41af2
GS
4118=item Too many )'s
4119
49704364
WL
4120(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4121Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4122
8c40cb74
NC
4123=item Too many ('s
4124
be771a83
GS
4125(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4126Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4127
7253e4e3 4128=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4129
be771a83
GS
4130(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4131Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4132
2c268ad5 4133=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
4134
4135(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 4136or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4137C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4138
2c268ad5 4139=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 4140
6a36df5d
YST
4141(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4142y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 4143
96ebfdd7
RK
4144=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4145
4146(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4147disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4148
a0d0e21e
LW
4149=item truncate not implemented
4150
4151(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4152Configure knows about.
4153
4154=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4155
4156(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 4157certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4158%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
4159{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4160
eec2d3df
GS
4161=item umask not implemented
4162
be771a83
GS
4163(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4164use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 4165
4633a7c4
LW
4166=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4167
4168(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4169
a0d0e21e
LW
4170=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4171
be771a83
GS
4172(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4173many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4174
4175=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4176
be771a83
GS
4177(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4178many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
4179
4180=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4181
be771a83
GS
4182(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4183many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4184
4185=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4186
be771a83
GS
4187(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4188many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
4189
4190=item Undefined format "%s" called
4191
4192(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4193another package? See L<perlform>.
4194
4195=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4196
be771a83
GS
4197(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4198Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4199
4200=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4201
be771a83
GS
4202(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4203since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
4204
4205=item Undefined subroutine called
4206
4207(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4208or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4209
4210=item Undefined subroutine in sort
4211
be771a83
GS
4212(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4213to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 4214
4633a7c4
LW
4215=item Undefined top format "%s" called
4216
4217(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4218another package? See L<perlform>.
4219
20408e3c
GS
4220=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4221
be771a83
GS
4222(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4223C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4224C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 4225
6df41af2
GS
4226=item %s: Undefined variable
4227
be771a83
GS
4228(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4229Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4230
a0d0e21e
LW
4231=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4232
4233(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4234representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4235
3d401ffb
JH
4236=item Unicode character %s is illegal
4237
507b9800
JH
4238(W utf8) Certain Unicode characters have been designated off-limits by
4239the Unicode standard and should not be generated. If you really know
4240what you are doing you can turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
b45f050a 4241
a0d0e21e
LW
4242=item Unknown BYTEORDER
4243
be771a83
GS
4244(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4245order.
a0d0e21e 4246
6170680b
IZ
4247=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4248
437784d6 4249(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 4250of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 4251C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 4252
b4581f09
JH
4253=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4254
4255(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4256system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4257internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4258are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4259explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4260value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4261
f675dbe5
CB
4262=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4263
4264(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4265iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4266data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4267subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 4268
2f7da168
RK
4269=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4270
4271You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4272
96ebfdd7
RK
4273=item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4274
4275(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4276is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4277is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4278condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4279condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4280matched).
4281
4282The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4283discovered. See L<perlre>.
4284
a05d7ebb
JH
4285=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4286
4287You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4288of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4289
4290=item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4291
4292You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4293of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 4294
3d1a39c8
RGS
4295=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4296
4297(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4298category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4299
4300Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4301(e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
e2e6a0f1
YO
4302
4303=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4304
4305(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4306after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4307L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4308
3d1a39c8
RGS
4309first.
4310
7253e4e3 4311=item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4312
380a0633 4313(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 4314include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
7253e4e3
RK
4315first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4316was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4317
7253e4e3 4318=item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
4319
4320(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
7253e4e3
RK
4321expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4322matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4323where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4324
d98d5fff 4325=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 4326
be771a83
GS
4327(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4328ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4329general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4330you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 4331
a0d0e21e
LW
4332=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4333
be771a83
GS
4334(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4335reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4336somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4337subroutine.
a0d0e21e 4338
54310121 4339=item Unrecognized character %s
a0d0e21e 4340
54310121 4341(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4342in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
4343script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 4344
2628b4e0 4345=item Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4346
be771a83
GS
4347(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4348recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4349understood literally.
2628b4e0
TS
4350The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4351escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4352
2f7da168
RK
4353=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
4354
2628b4e0
TS
4355(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4356recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
2f7da168 4357
49704364 4358=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4359
be771a83 4360(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
2628b4e0
TS
4361recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally.
4362The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
7253e4e3 4363escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4364
a0d0e21e
LW
4365=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4366
be771a83
GS
4367(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4368recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4369on your system.
a0d0e21e 4370
90248788 4371=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 4372
be771a83
GS
4373(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4374think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4375bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
4376
4377=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4378
be771a83
GS
4379(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4380operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 4381PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4382
4383=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4384
4385(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4386
6df41af2
GS
4387=item Unsupported function %s
4388
4389(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4390At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4391
54310121 4392=item Unsupported function fork
4393
4394(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4395
be771a83
GS
4396Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4397of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4398changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 4399
7aa207d6 4400=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
4401
4402(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 4403declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 4404
a0d0e21e
LW
4405=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4406
4407(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4408least that's what Configure thought.
4409
6df41af2 4410=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 4411
be771a83
GS
4412(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4413start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4414block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4415attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 4416
09bef843
SB
4417=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4418
be771a83
GS
4419(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4420an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
4421character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4422character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4423
f1991046
GS
4424=item Unterminated compressed integer
4425
4426(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4427compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4428See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4429
e2e6a0f1
YO
4430=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4431
4432(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4433the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4434
4435=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4436
4437(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4438the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4439
2bf803e2
YO
4440=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4441
4442(F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4443a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 4444
6df41af2 4445=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 4446
6df41af2 4447(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
4448a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4449not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4450earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 4451
6df41af2 4452=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 4453
be771a83
GS
4454(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4455still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 4456
8e11cd2b
JC
4457=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4458
4459(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4460See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4461
4462=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4463
4464(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4465See L<Win32> for more information.
4466
96ebfdd7 4467=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 4468
96ebfdd7
RK
4469(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4470meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 4471
96ebfdd7 4472 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4473
4474must be written as
4475
96ebfdd7 4476 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4477
4478The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4479where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4480
b4581f09
JH
4481=item Useless localization of %s
4482
4483(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4484legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4485some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4486
96ebfdd7 4487=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 4488
96ebfdd7
RK
4489(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4490meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 4491
96ebfdd7 4492 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4493
4494must be written as
4495
96ebfdd7 4496 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4497
4498The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4499where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4500
6df41af2 4501=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 4502
75b44862 4503(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
4504nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4505value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4506often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4507to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4508get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4509said
a0d0e21e 4510
6df41af2 4511 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 4512
6df41af2
GS
4513when you meant to say
4514
4515 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4516
4517Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4518reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4519example, if you say
4520
4521 $array = (1,2);
4522
4523when you should have said
4524
4525 $array = [1,2];
4526
4527The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4528while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4529a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4530throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4531L<perlref> for more on this.
4532
65191a1e
BS
4533This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4534since they are often used in statements like
4535
4358a253 4536 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
4537
4538String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4539about.
4540
6df41af2
GS
4541=item Useless use of "re" pragma
4542
4543(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4544
a801c63c
RGS
4545=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4546
4547(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4548
4549 my $x = sort @y;
4550
4551This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4552
de4864e4
JH
4553=item Useless use of %s with no values
4554
f87c3213 4555(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
de4864e4
JH
4556apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4557usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4558possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4559if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4560you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4561
6df41af2
GS
4562=item "use" not allowed in expression
4563
be771a83
GS
4564(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4565returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 4566
c47ff5f1 4567=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 4568
be771a83
GS
4569(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
4570if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4633a7c4 4571
96ebfdd7
RK
4572=item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4573
4574(D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4575$ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4576behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4577will simply fail.
4578
4579Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4580blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4581
64e578a2
MJD
4582=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4583
4584(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4585modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4586
4ac733c9
MJD
4587=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4588
4589(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4590use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4591used. (This may change in the future.)
4592
b6c83531 4593=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 4594
b6c83531
JH
4595(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
4596This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
4597
4598 @a = (3,4);
4599 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
4600
4601You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
4602For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
4603reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
4604middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
4605
39b99f21 4606=item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
4607
4608(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
4609to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
4610
96ebfdd7 4611=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 4612
96ebfdd7
RK
4613(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
4614operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
4615repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 4616
a0d0e21e
LW
4617=item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
4618
be771a83
GS
4619(D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
4620a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
4621of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
a0d0e21e 4622
dc848c6f 4623=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
4624
be771a83
GS
4625(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
4626are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
4627subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
4628C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
4629$obj->bar() >>).
dc848c6f 4630
be771a83
GS
4631This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
4632methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
4633code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
4634currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
4635C<AUTOLOAD>s.
dc848c6f 4636
4637The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
be771a83
GS
4638non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
4639to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
4640named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
4641startup.
dc848c6f 4642
be771a83
GS
4643In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
4644you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 4645C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
fb73857a 4646
6df41af2
GS
4647=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
4648
4649(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
4650only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
4651
6df41af2
GS
4652=item Use of %s is deprecated
4653
75b44862 4654(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
be771a83
GS
4655generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
4656old way has bad side effects.
6df41af2 4657
96ebfdd7
RK
4658=item Use of -l on filehandle %s
4659
4660(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4661it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4662The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
4663
4664=item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
4665
4666(D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
4667name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
4668otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
4669instead.
4670
1f1cc344 4671=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 4672
77b96956 4673(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
4674isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
4675to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 4676
64977eb6 4677If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344
JH
4678C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
4679either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
4680operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
d804643f 4681
85b81015
LW
4682=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
4683
be771a83
GS
4684(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
4685versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
4686explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
4687use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
4688suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
4689a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
85b81015 4690
bbd7eb8a
RD
4691=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
4692
159f47d9 4693(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
4694arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
4695but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
4696arguments. See L<perlsec>.
4697
cc95b072 4698=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 4699
be771a83
GS
4700(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
4701defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
4702To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 4703
29489e7c
DM
4704To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
4705name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
4706do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
4707in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
4708displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
4709program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
4710. $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
4711even though there is no C<.> in your program.
e5be4a53 4712
a1063b2d
RH
4713=item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
4714
496a33f5 4715(D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1b1f1335
NIS
4716C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
4717used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
496a33f5 4718be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d
RH
4719
4720=item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
4721
496a33f5 4722(D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1b1f1335
NIS
4723C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
4724allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
496a33f5 4725removed in a future version.
a1063b2d 4726
9466bab6
JH
4727=item UTF-16 surrogate %s
4728
507b9800
JH
4729(W utf8) You tried to generate half of an UTF-16 surrogate by
4730requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
47310xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
4732UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
4733encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
4734character. If you really know what you are doing you can turn off
4735this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
9466bab6 4736
68dc0745 4737=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 4738
75b44862 4739(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
4740C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
4741can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
4742false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
4743constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
4744C<defined> operator.
a6006777 4745
f675dbe5
CB
4746=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
4747
be771a83
GS
4748(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
4749%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
4750longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
47511024 characters.
f675dbe5 4752
b5c19bd7 4753=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 4754
b5c19bd7
DM
4755(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
4756attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
42c13b56 4757This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
4758declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
4759(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
42c13b56 4760subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 4761
b5c19bd7 4762 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 4763
b5c19bd7
DM
4764At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
4765since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
4766the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
4767now been created and is live:
be771a83 4768
b5c19bd7
DM
4769 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
4770
4771The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
4772gone out of scope, for example,
4773
4774 sub f {
4775 my $a;
4776 sub { eval '$a' }
4777 }
4778 f()->();
4779
4780Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
4781executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 4782
b4581f09
JH
4783=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
4784
4785(F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
4786you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
4787something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
4788that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
4789front of your variable.
4790
58e23c8d 4791=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
4792
4793(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
58e23c8d 4794known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
b4581f09
JH
4795
4796=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
4797
4798(W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
4799scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
4800instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
4801earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
4802all closure referents to it are destroyed.
4803
6df41af2
GS
4804=item Variable syntax
4805
4806(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4807of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4808Perl yourself.
4809
44a8e56a 4810=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4811
be771a83 4812(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 4813lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 4814
b5c19bd7 4815When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
4816the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4817call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4818outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4819longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4820variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 4821
44a8e56a 4822This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4823anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 4824reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 4825are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 4826
e2e6a0f1
YO
4827=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4828
4829(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
4830or check that you are using the right verb.
4831
4832=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4833
4834(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
4835argument or check that you are using the right verb.
4836
084610c0
GS
4837=item Version number must be a constant number
4838
4839(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4840its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4841the version number.
4842
808ee47e
SP
4843=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
4844
32e998fd
RGS
4845(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
4846are being ignored.
808ee47e 4847
68d932c8
JH
4848=item v-string in use/require is non-portable
4849
77b96956 4850(W portable) The use of v-strings is non-portable to older, pre-5.6, Perls.
68d932c8
JH
4851If you want your scripts to be backward portable, use the floating
4852point version number: for example, instead of C<use 5.6.1> say
4853C<use 5.006_001>. This of course won't help: the older Perls
4854won't suddenly start understanding newer features, but at least
4855they will show a sensible error message indicating the required
4856minimum version.
4857
7e1af8bc 4858=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 4859
4860(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4861you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4862
f86702cc 4863=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 4864
be771a83
GS
4865(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4866the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4867space.
a0d0e21e 4868
5f05dabc 4869=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 4870
be771a83
GS
4871(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4872looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4873term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4874function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
4875
4876 rand + 5;
4877
4878you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4879
4880 rand() + 5;
4881
4882but in actual fact, you got
4883
4884 rand(+5);
4885
5f05dabc 4886So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 4887
4b3603a4
JH
4888=item Wide character in %s
4889
62961d2e 4890(W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
4891one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
4892way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
4893output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
4894warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
4895cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
4896filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 4897
49704364
WL
4898=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
4899
4900(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
4901C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
4902determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
4903of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
4904
9a7dcd9c 4905=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4906
be771a83 4907(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4908before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4909
b4581f09
JH
4910=item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
4911
4912When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
4913into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
4914this encoding, for example
4915
4916 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
4917
4918if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
4919
49704364 4920=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 4921
49704364
WL
4922(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
4923the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 4924
49704364 4925=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
4926
4927(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4928the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4929
a0d0e21e
LW
4930=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4931
5f05dabc 4932(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 4933sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 4934about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 4935your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
4936
4937=item You need to quote "%s"
4938
be771a83
GS
4939(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4940Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4941which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4942assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4943what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 4944
6cfd5ea7
JH
4945=item Your random numbers are not that random
4946
4947(F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
4948not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
4949Something Very Wrong.
4950
a0d0e21e
LW
4951=back
4952
56e90b21 4953=cut