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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
f61d411c 57=item '!' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
60See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
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74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or by declaring the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
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88(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
6df41af2 92=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 93
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94(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 97
6df41af2 98=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 99
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100(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 105
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106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
107 while (<STDIN>) {
108 print;
109 print OUT;
110 }
111 close OUT;
c9f97d15 112
6df41af2 113=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 114
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115(W misc) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
116transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
117one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
121alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 122
6df41af2 123=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 124
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125(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 129
6df41af2 130=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 131
6df41af2 132(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 133
8ea97a1e 134=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
a0d0e21e 135
8ea97a1e 136(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
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137
138 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 139 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
a0d0e21e 140
8ea97a1e 141=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 142
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143(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
144such as:
5f05dabc 145
146 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 147 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 148
8ea97a1e 149or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 150
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151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 153
6df41af2 154=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 155
6df41af2 156(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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157name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
158error.
a0d0e21e 159
f86702cc 160=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 161
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162(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
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165
166=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
167
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168(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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170
171=item assertion botched: %s
172
173(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
174
175=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
176
177(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
178
179=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
180
181(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183know which context to supply to the right side.
184
5243b939 185=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
fe58ced6 186
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187(F) When vec is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
188greater than or equal to zero.
fe58ced6 189
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190=item Attempt to bless into a reference
191
192(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
193the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
194supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
195
196 bless $self, $proto;
197
198when you intended
199
200 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
201
202If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
203of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
204example by:
205
206 bless $self, "$proto";
207
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208=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
209
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210(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
211that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
212outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 213
54310121 214=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 215
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216(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
217strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
218strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
219of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 220
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221=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
222
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223(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
224free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
225SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
226free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
227try to free it.
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228
229=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
230
e476b1b5 231(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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232
233=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
234
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235(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
236see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
237earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
238This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
239that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
240mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
241corrupted.
a0d0e21e 242
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243=item Attempt to join self
244
245(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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246impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
247to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 248
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249=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
250
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251(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
252function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
253means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
254invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
255literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
256avoid this warning.
84902520 257
b7a902f4 258=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
259
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260(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
261used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
262dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 263
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264=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
265
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266(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
267or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 268S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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269S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
270
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271=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
272
273(F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
274substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
275most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
276
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277=item Bad filehandle: %s
278
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279(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
280symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
281open(), or did it in another package.
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282
283=item Bad free() ignored
284
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285(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
286been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 287setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 288
9ea8bc6d 289This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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290dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
291which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 292
aa689395 293=item Bad hash
294
295(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
296
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297=item Bad index while coercing array into hash
298
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299(F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
300pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
301See L<perlref>.
57079c46 302
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303=item Badly placed ()'s
304
305(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
306of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
307Perl yourself.
308
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309=item Bad name after %s::
310
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311(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
312didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
313of quotes, so
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314
315 $var = 'myvar';
316 $sym = mypack::$var;
317
318is not the same as
319
320 $var = 'myvar';
321 $sym = "mypack::$var";
322
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323=item Bad realloc() ignored
324
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325(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
326never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
327by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 328
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329=item Bad symbol for array
330
331(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
332wasn't a symbol table entry.
333
334=item Bad symbol for filehandle
335
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336(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
337that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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338
339=item Bad symbol for hash
340
341(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
342wasn't a symbol table entry.
343
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344=item Bareword found in conditional
345
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346(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
347conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
348of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
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349
350 open FOO || die;
351
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352It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
353a bareword:
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354
355 use constant TYPO => 1;
356 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
357
358The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
359
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360=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
361
362(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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363subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
364symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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365
366=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
367
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368(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
369compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
370you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 371
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372=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
373
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374(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
375subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
376exited.
a0d0e21e 377
68dc0745 378=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
379
380(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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381implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
382occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
383be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
384depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 385
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386=item \1 better written as $1
387
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388(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
389The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
390substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
391because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
392there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 393
252aa082
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394=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
395
e476b1b5 396(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
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397(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
398L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 399
69282e91 400=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 401
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402(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
403check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 404
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405=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
406
407(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
408Check you control flow and number of arguments.
409
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410=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
411
e476b1b5 412(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 413
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414=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
415
be771a83 416(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 417copyable.
4633a7c4 418
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419=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
420
421(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
422which provides a race condition that breaks security.
423
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424=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
425
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426(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
427iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
428which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 429
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430=item Callback called exit
431
4929bf7b 432(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
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433exited by calling exit.
434
6df41af2 435=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 436
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437(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
438parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
439that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
440early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
441subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
442checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
443function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
444the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 445
6df41af2 446=item / cannot take a count
a0d0e21e 447
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448(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
449you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
450L<perlfunc/pack>.
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451
452=item Can't bless non-reference value
453
454(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
455encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
456
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457=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
458
459(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
460functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
461in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
462
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463=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
464
465(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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466object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
467like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
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468
469 $BADREF = undef;
470 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
471 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
472
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473=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
474
54310121 475(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
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476ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
477didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
478object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
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479
480=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
481
482(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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483object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
484defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
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485Something like this will reproduce the error:
486
487 $BADREF = 42;
488 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
489 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
490
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491=item Can't chdir to %s
492
493(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
494that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
495
0545a864 496=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 497
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498(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
499nosuid.
104d25b7 500
6df41af2
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501=item Can't coerce array into hash
502
503(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
504information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
505only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
506
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507=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
508
509(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 510(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
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511say things like:
512
513 *foo += 1;
514
515You CAN say
516
517 $foo = *foo;
518 $foo += 1;
519
520but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
521
522=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
523
524(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 525(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
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526
527=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
528
529(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 530(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
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531
532=item Can't create pipe mailbox
533
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534(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
535quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 536
eb64745e 537=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 538
eb64745e
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539(S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
540qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
541for other types of variables in future.
542
543=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
544
545(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
546"our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 547
6df41af2
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548=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
549
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GS
550(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
551a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 552
a0d0e21e
LW
553=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
554
be771a83
GS
555(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
556reason.
a0d0e21e 557
54310121 558=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 559
be771a83
GS
560(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
561reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
562C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 563
10f9c03d 564=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 565
e476b1b5 566(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
567characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
568inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 569
79eeca27 570=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m before << HERE in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 571
b45f050a 572(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
79eeca27 573regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The << HERE shows in the
b45f050a 574regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e
LW
575
576=item Can't do setegid!
577
be771a83
GS
578(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
579suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
580
581=item Can't do seteuid!
582
583(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
584
585=item Can't do setuid
586
be771a83
GS
587(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
588setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
589sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
590the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
591file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
592sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
a0d0e21e
LW
593
594=item Can't do waitpid with flags
595
be771a83
GS
596(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
597waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 598
a0d0e21e
LW
599=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
600
be771a83
GS
601(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
602point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
603line.
a0d0e21e
LW
604
605=item Can't exec "%s": %s
606
be771a83
GS
607(W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
608named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
609permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
610C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
611architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
612can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
613#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
614
615=item Can't exec %s
616
be771a83
GS
617(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
618that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
619need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
620
621=item Can't execute %s
622
be771a83
GS
623(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
624found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 625
6df41af2 626=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 627
be771a83
GS
628(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
629is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2
GS
630
631=item Can't find label %s
632
be771a83
GS
633(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
634possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
635
636=item Can't find %s on PATH
637
be771a83
GS
638(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
639found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 640
6df41af2 641=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 642
be771a83
GS
643(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
644found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
645script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
646
647=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
648
be771a83
GS
649(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
650that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
651nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 652
fb73857a 653 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
654
be771a83
GS
655If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
656unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
657editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 658
64977eb6 659=item Can't find %s property definition %s
0103b764 660
f91328b7
JH
661(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
662example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
663C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
664possible C<\E>).
0103b764 665
a0d0e21e
LW
666=item Can't fork
667
be771a83
GS
668(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
669pipeline.
a0d0e21e 670
748a9306
LW
671=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
672
be771a83
GS
673(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
674between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
675Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
676the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
677account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
678the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
679the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
680the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
681if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
682because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
683appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
684and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
685routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
686shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
687only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 688
a0d0e21e
LW
689=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
690
be771a83
GS
691(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
692pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
693
694=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
695
748a9306
LW
696(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
697mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 698
6df41af2 699=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 700
be771a83
GS
701(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
702loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
703
704=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
705
be771a83
GS
706(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
707a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
708you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
709See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 710
b150fb22
RH
711=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
712
be771a83
GS
713(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
714"string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
715probably don't want to.)
b150fb22 716
6df41af2
GS
717=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
718
be771a83
GS
719(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
720subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
721cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
722routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 723
0b5b802d
GS
724=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
725
be771a83
GS
726(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
727signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
728signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
729processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
730situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
731may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 732
6df41af2 733=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 734
6df41af2 735(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
736except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
737block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
738block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
739usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
740inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
741L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 742
748a9306
LW
743=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
744
2ba9eb46 745(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306
LW
746lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
747localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
748package name.
749
0ebe0038
SM
750=item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
751
be771a83
GS
752(F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
753reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
754can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
755directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
0ebe0038 756
6df41af2 757=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 758
6df41af2
GS
759(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
760handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 761pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 762that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 763
ec889f3a
GS
764=item Can't locate %s
765
766(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
767found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
768unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
769need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
770the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
771to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
772L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 773
6df41af2
GS
774=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
775
be771a83
GS
776(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
777autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
778are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
779the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 780
a0d0e21e
LW
781=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
782
783(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
784functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 785method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 786
c1899e02
GS
787=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
788
789(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
790"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
791that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
792
a0d0e21e
LW
793=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
794
be771a83
GS
795(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
796doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 797
3e3baf6d
TB
798=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
799
be771a83
GS
800(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
801VMS.
3e3baf6d 802
a0d0e21e
LW
803=item Can't modify %s in %s
804
be771a83
GS
805(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
806to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 807
54310121 808=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
809
810(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
811a NULL.
812
6df41af2
GS
813=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
814
815(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
816such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
817
5f05dabc 818=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 819
5f05dabc 820(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
821buffer.
822
6df41af2
GS
823=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
824
825(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
826there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
827count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
828grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
829though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
830once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 831
a0d0e21e
LW
832=item Can't open %s: %s
833
c47ff5f1 834(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
835filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
836switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
837is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
838the command line.
a0d0e21e
LW
839
840=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
841
be771a83
GS
842(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
843You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
844as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
845">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 846
748a9306
LW
847=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
848
be771a83
GS
849(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
850redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
851the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
852
853=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
854
be771a83
GS
855(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
856redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
857command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
858
859=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
860
be771a83
GS
861(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
862redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
863the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
864
865=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
866
be771a83
GS
867(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
868redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
869for stdout.
748a9306 870
584d69ec 871=item Can't open perl script%s: %s
a0d0e21e
LW
872
873(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
874
6df41af2
GS
875=item Can't read CRTL environ
876
877(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
878from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
879missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
880or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
881searched.
6df41af2 882
7bac28a0 883=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
884
885(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
be771a83
GS
886pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
887it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
7bac28a0 888this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
889
6df41af2
GS
890=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
891
892(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
893there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
894count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
895or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
896though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
897loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
898
64977eb6 899=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 900
be771a83
GS
901(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
902file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
903the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 904
a0d0e21e
LW
905=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
906
e476b1b5 907(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 908probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 909
748a9306
LW
910=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
911
be771a83
GS
912(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
913to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 914
6df41af2
GS
915=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
916
be771a83
GS
917(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
918to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
919method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 920
a0d0e21e
LW
921=item Can't reswap uid and euid
922
be771a83
GS
923(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
924suidperl.
a0d0e21e 925
cd06dffe
GS
926=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
927
be771a83
GS
928(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
929temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
930is not allowed.
cd06dffe 931
78f9721b
SM
932=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
933
934(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
935but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
936to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
937the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
938list context.
939
6df41af2
GS
940=item Can't return outside a subroutine
941
942(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
943there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
944
a0d0e21e
LW
945=item Can't stat script "%s"
946
be771a83
GS
947(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
948open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
949
950=item Can't swap uid and euid
951
be771a83
GS
952(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
953suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
954
955=item Can't take log of %g
956
fb73857a 957(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
958negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
959standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
960negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
961
962=item Can't take sqrt of %g
963
964(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 965negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
966with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
967
968=item Can't undef active subroutine
969
970(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
971however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
972redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
973
974=item Can't unshift
975
976(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
977as the main Perl stack.
978
979=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
980
be771a83
GS
981(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
982into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
983specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
984indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e
LW
985
986=item Can't upgrade to undef
987
be771a83
GS
988(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
989upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
990calling sv_upgrade.
a0d0e21e 991
6df41af2
GS
992=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
993
994(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
995be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
996
997=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
998
be771a83
GS
999(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1000references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1001
90b75b61 1002=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1003
1004(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1005Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1006provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1007
6df41af2
GS
1008=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1009
be771a83
GS
1010(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1011foreach.
6df41af2
GS
1012
1013=item Can't use global %s in "my"
1014
be771a83
GS
1015(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1016is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1017(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1018have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1019weren't.
1020
c07a80fd 1021=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1022
1023(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1024You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1025and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1026Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1027lexical variable.
1028
a0d0e21e
LW
1029=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1030
1031(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1032reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1033test the type of the reference, if need be.
1034
748a9306 1035=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1036
be771a83
GS
1037(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1038references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1039
748a9306
LW
1040=item Can't use subscript on %s
1041
1042(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1043subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1044didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1045
6df41af2
GS
1046=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1047
75b44862
GS
1048(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1049creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1050backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1051expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1052value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1053instead.
6df41af2 1054
810b8aa5
GS
1055=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1056
1057(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1058references can be weakened.
1059
5f05dabc 1060=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1061
be771a83
GS
1062(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1063with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1064Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1065
5a211162 1066=item chmod() mode argument is missing initial 0
a0d0e21e 1067
e476b1b5 1068(W chmod) A novice will sometimes say
a0d0e21e
LW
1069
1070 chmod 777, $filename
1071
be771a83
GS
1072not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number,
1073equivalent to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in
1074Perl, as in C.
a0d0e21e 1075
9ddeeac9 1076=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 1077
e476b1b5 1078(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
a0d0e21e 1079
6df41af2
GS
1080=item %s: Command not found
1081
be771a83
GS
1082(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1083Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1084
7a2e2cd6 1085=item Compilation failed in require
1086
1087(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1088Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1089encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1090
c3464db5
DD
1091=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1092
be771a83
GS
1093(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1094situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1095to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1096arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1097recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1098under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1099in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1100that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1101on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1102
69282e91 1103=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1104
be771a83
GS
1105(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1106to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1107L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1108
41ab332f 1109=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1110
be771a83
GS
1111(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1112an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1113specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1114corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1115L<overload>.
6df41af2 1116
779c5bc9
GS
1117=item Constant is not %s reference
1118
1119(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1120is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1121The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1122usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1123See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1124
4cee8e80
CS
1125=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1126
be771a83
GS
1127(S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1128eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1129commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1130
9607fc9c 1131=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1132
be771a83
GS
1133(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1134for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1135workarounds.
9607fc9c 1136
e7ea3e70
IZ
1137=item Copy method did not return a reference
1138
64977eb6 1139(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1140L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1141
6798c92b
GS
1142=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1143
1144(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1145
a0d0e21e
LW
1146=item corrupted regexp pointers
1147
1148(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1149expression compiler gave it.
1150
1151=item corrupted regexp program
1152
be771a83
GS
1153(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1154valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1155
6df41af2
GS
1156=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1157
1158(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1159
1160=item C<-p> destination: %s
1161
1162(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1163command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1164redirected it with select().)
1165
1166=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1167
1168(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1169know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1170
a0d0e21e
LW
1171=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1172
be771a83
GS
1173(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1174100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1175infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1176which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1177
f10b0346 1178=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1179
be771a83
GS
1180(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1181checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1182array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1183
f10b0346 1184=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1185
be771a83
GS
1186(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1187checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1188is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1189
fc36a67e 1190=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1191
be771a83
GS
1192(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1193long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1194that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1195
3cdd684c
TP
1196=item Did not produce a valid header
1197
1198See Server error.
1199
6df41af2
GS
1200=item %s did not return a true value
1201
1202(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1203it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1204traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1205do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1206
cc507455 1207=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1208
be771a83
GS
1209(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1210such.
4633a7c4 1211
cc507455 1212=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1213
be771a83
GS
1214(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1215variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1216seems superfluous.
33633739 1217
cc507455 1218=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1219
be771a83
GS
1220(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1221@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1222carried away.
748a9306 1223
7e1af8bc 1224=item Died
5f05dabc 1225
1226(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1227you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1228
3cdd684c
TP
1229=item Document contains no data
1230
1231See Server error.
1232
a0d0e21e
LW
1233=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1234
1235(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1236
1237=item do_study: out of memory
1238
1239(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1240
6df41af2
GS
1241=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1242
1243(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1244found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1245name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1246because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1247"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1248something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1249subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1250"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1251
a0d0e21e
LW
1252=item Duplicate free() ignored
1253
be771a83
GS
1254(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1255already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1256
4633a7c4
LW
1257=item elseif should be elsif
1258
be771a83
GS
1259(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1260Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1261"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1262unlikely to be what you want.
1263
85ab1d1d 1264=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1265
85ab1d1d 1266(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1267effective uids or gids failed.
1268
748a9306
LW
1269=item Error converting file specification %s
1270
5f05dabc 1271(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1272specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1273single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1274an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1275conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1276
e4d48cc9
GS
1277=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1278
be771a83
GS
1279(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1280expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1281is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1282
e4d48cc9
GS
1283=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1284
be771a83
GS
1285(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1286C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1287pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1288is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1289building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1290that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1291
6df41af2
GS
1292=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1293
be771a83
GS
1294(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1295assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1296pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1297
fc36a67e 1298=item Excessively long <> operator
1299
1300(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1301Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1302filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1303variable and glob that.
1304
f86702cc 1305=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1306
1307(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1308
1309=item Exiting eval via %s
1310
be771a83
GS
1311(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1312goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1313
1314=item Exiting format via %s
1315
be771a83
GS
1316(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1317goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1318
0a753a76 1319=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1320
be771a83
GS
1321(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1322sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1323loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1324
a0d0e21e
LW
1325=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1326
be771a83
GS
1327(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1328as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1329
1330=item Exiting substitution via %s
1331
be771a83
GS
1332(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1333as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1334
7b8d334a
GS
1335=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1336
be771a83
GS
1337(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1338the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1339usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1340e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1341
6df41af2
GS
1342=item %s: Expression syntax
1343
be771a83
GS
1344(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1345Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1346
1347=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1348
1349(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1350END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1351routines has been prematurely ended.
1352
73b437c8
JH
1353=item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1354
be771a83
GS
1355(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1356character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The
1357"-" in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider
1358quoting the "-", "\-". See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1359
748a9306 1360=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1361
be771a83
GS
1362(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1363system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1364details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1365you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1366
1367=item fcntl is not implemented
1368
1369(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1370PDP-11 or something?
1371
af8c498a 1372=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1373
be771a83
GS
1374(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1375to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1376or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1377the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1378
af8c498a 1379=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1380
be771a83
GS
1381(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1382you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1383with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1384intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1385
1386=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1387
1388(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1389a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1390happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1391name.
a0d0e21e
LW
1392
1393=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1394
1395(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1396a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1397happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1398name.
a0d0e21e 1399
56e90b21
GS
1400=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1401
be771a83 1402(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1403some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1404filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1405same name?
56e90b21 1406
79eeca27 1407=item Quantifier follows nothing before << HERE in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 1408
b45f050a 1409(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
79eeca27 1410meant it literally. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
b45f050a 1411problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1412
1413=item Format not terminated
1414
1415(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1416to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1417
a0d0e21e
LW
1418=item Format %s redefined
1419
e476b1b5 1420(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1421
1422 {
4438c4b7 1423 no warnings;
a0d0e21e
LW
1424 eval "format NAME =...";
1425 }
1426
a0d0e21e
LW
1427=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1428
e476b1b5 1429(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1430
1431 if ($foo = 123)
1432
1433when you meant
1434
1435 if ($foo == 123)
1436
1437(or something like that).
1438
6df41af2
GS
1439=item %s found where operator expected
1440
1441(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
be771a83
GS
1442sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1443operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1444operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1445
a0d0e21e
LW
1446=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1447
1448(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1449
1450=item gethostent not implemented
1451
1452(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1453because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1454on the Internet.
1455
69282e91 1456=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1457
be771a83
GS
1458(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1459socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1460
748a9306
LW
1461=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1462
1463(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1464C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1465
6df41af2
GS
1466=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1467
be771a83
GS
1468(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1469forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1470L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1471
1472=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1473
1474(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1475must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1476"our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1477is in (using "::").
1478
e476b1b5
GS
1479=item glob failed (%s)
1480
be771a83
GS
1481(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1482C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1483C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1484nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1485resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1486broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1487config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1488were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1489empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1490think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1491C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1492
a0d0e21e
LW
1493=item Glob not terminated
1494
1495(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1496a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1497not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1498earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1499
6df41af2 1500=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1501
6df41af2
GS
1502(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1503version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1504
1505=item goto must have label
1506
1507(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1508unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1509
6df41af2
GS
1510=item %s had compilation errors
1511
1512(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1513
a0d0e21e
LW
1514=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1515
be771a83
GS
1516(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1517to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1518created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1519
1520=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1521
be771a83
GS
1522(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1523spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1524
6df41af2
GS
1525=item %s has too many errors
1526
1527(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1528Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1529
252aa082
JH
1530=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1531
e476b1b5 1532(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1533(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1534L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1535
8903cb82 1536=item Identifier too long
1537
1538(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1539about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1540names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1541of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1542
6df41af2 1543=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1544
6df41af2 1545(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1546
6df41af2 1547=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1548
be771a83
GS
1549(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1550binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1551offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1552
4fdae800 1553=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1554
d5898338 1555(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1556would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1557when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1558version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1559to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1560
a0d0e21e
LW
1561=item Illegal division by zero
1562
be771a83
GS
1563(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1564your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1565meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1566
6df41af2
GS
1567=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1568
be771a83
GS
1569(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1570A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1571number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1572
a0d0e21e
LW
1573=item Illegal modulus zero
1574
be771a83
GS
1575(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1576numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1577
6df41af2 1578=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1579
6df41af2
GS
1580(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1581two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1582
1583=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1584
1585(F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1586
399388f4 1587=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1588
75b44862
GS
1589(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1590Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1591
6df41af2 1592=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1593
6df41af2
GS
1594(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1595following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
6ff81951 1596
6df41af2 1597=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1598
75b44862 1599(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1600internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1601delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1602
6df41af2 1603=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1604
be771a83
GS
1605(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1606name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1607didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1608ignored.
54310121 1609
6df41af2 1610=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1611
be771a83
GS
1612(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1613the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1614system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1615times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1616would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1617
be771a83
GS
1618Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1619also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1620
a0d0e21e
LW
1621=item Insecure dependency in %s
1622
8b1a09fc 1623(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
1624The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1625setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1626tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1627from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1628such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1629L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
1630
1631=item Insecure directory in %s
1632
be771a83
GS
1633(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1634setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1635the world. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 1636
62f468fc 1637=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1638
1639(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc
MG
1640setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1641C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
a0d0e21e
LW
1642potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1643known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1644
a7ae9550
GS
1645=item Integer overflow in %s number
1646
75b44862 1647(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
1648either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1649your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1650On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
1651representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
16520b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1653transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1654internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1655operations.
bbce6d69 1656
79eeca27 1657=item Internal disaster before << HERE in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
1658
1659(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
79eeca27 1660The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
1661discovered.
1662
6df41af2 1663
748a9306
LW
1664=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1665
be771a83
GS
1666(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1667you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1668to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1669L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1670Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1671terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 1672
79eeca27 1673=item Internal urp before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a 1674
79eeca27 1675(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The <<<HERE
b45f050a 1676shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 1677
a0d0e21e 1678
6df41af2
GS
1679=item %s (...) interpreted as function
1680
75b44862 1681(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 1682followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 1683operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 1684L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 1685
09bef843
SB
1686=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1687
1688The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1689by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1690
1691=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1692
be771a83
GS
1693The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1694recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1695
c635e13b 1696=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1697
be771a83
GS
1698(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1699L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 1700
6df41af2
GS
1701=item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1702
1703(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1704greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1705
c2e66d9e
GS
1706=item invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1707
1708(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1709character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1710
09bef843
SB
1711=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1712
0120eecf 1713(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
1714elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1715parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1716See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1717
96e4d5b1 1718=item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1719
8903cb82 1720(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
be771a83
GS
1721(W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1722silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1723
1724=item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1725
be771a83
GS
1726(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1727L<perlfunc/unpack>.
75b44862
GS
1728(W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1729silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1730
a0d0e21e
LW
1731=item ioctl is not implemented
1732
1733(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1734strange for a machine that supports C.
1735
c289d2f7
JH
1736=item ioctl() on unopened %s
1737
1738(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1739Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1740
80cbd5ad
JH
1741=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1742
1743(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1744neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1745
6ad11d81
JH
1746=item `%s' is not a code reference
1747
1748(W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1749to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1750to a subroutine.
1751
1752=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1753
1754(W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1755
a0d0e21e
LW
1756=item junk on end of regexp
1757
1758(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1759
1760=item Label not found for "last %s"
1761
be771a83
GS
1762(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1763of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1764L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1765
1766=item Label not found for "next %s"
1767
1768(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1769that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1770L<perlfunc/last>.
1771
1772=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1773
1774(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1775that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1776L<perlfunc/last>.
1777
85ab1d1d 1778=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1779
85ab1d1d 1780(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1781effective uids or gids failed.
1782
69282e91 1783=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1784
be771a83
GS
1785(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1786to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1787L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 1788
9d837945
TM
1789=item lstat() on filehandle %s
1790
1791(W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1792by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1793instead on the filehandle.)
1794
cd06dffe
GS
1795=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1796
1797(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
be771a83
GS
1798values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1799L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
cd06dffe 1800
551e1d92 1801=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented before << HERE %s
b45f050a
JF
1802
1803(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
79eeca27 1804handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The << HERE shows in
b45f050a 1805the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2e50fd82 1806
6df41af2
GS
1807=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1808
1809(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1810
1811 prefix1;prefix2
1812
1813or
1814
1815 prefix1 prefix2
1816
be771a83
GS
1817with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1818a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1819appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 1820"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 1821
ba210ebe
JH
1822=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1823
1824Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1825
dea0fc0b
JH
1826=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1827
1828Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1829doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1830
6df41af2
GS
1831=item %s matches null string many times
1832
1833(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
be771a83
GS
1834regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See
1835L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1836
1837=item % may only be used in unpack
1838
1839(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
1840checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1841See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 1842
a0d0e21e
LW
1843=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1844
1845(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 1846doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 1847
3cdd684c
TP
1848=item Method %s not permitted
1849
1850See Server error.
1851
a0d0e21e
LW
1852=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1853
1854(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1855by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1856ended earlier on the current line.
1857
1858=item Misplaced _ in number
1859
e476b1b5 1860(W syntax) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
a0d0e21e 1861
4a2d328f 1862=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 1863
4a2d328f 1864(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
1865double-quotish context.
1866
a0d0e21e
LW
1867=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1868
1869(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1870"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1871
06eaf0bc
GS
1872=item Missing command in piped open
1873
be771a83
GS
1874(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1875C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1876blank.
06eaf0bc 1877
6df41af2
GS
1878=item Missing name in "my sub"
1879
be771a83
GS
1880(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1881they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
1882
1883=item Missing $ on loop variable
1884
be771a83
GS
1885(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1886are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1887can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 1888
cc507455 1889=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306
LW
1890
1891(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1892found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1893
d98d5fff 1894=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 1895
be771a83
GS
1896(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1897ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1898were last editing.
a0d0e21e 1899
6df41af2
GS
1900=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1901
1902(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1903found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1904the previous line just because you saw this message.
1905
a0d0e21e
LW
1906=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1907
1908(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 1909constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
1910catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1911
1912 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1913 mod(2);
1914
1915Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1916
c5674021
PDF
1917Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1918is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1919
1920 $x = 1;
1921 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1922 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 1923 }
c5674021 1924
7a4340ed 1925=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1926
1927(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1928subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1929backwards.
1930
7a4340ed 1931=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 1932
be771a83
GS
1933(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1934couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
1935
1936=item Module name must be constant
1937
1938(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1939
be98fb35 1940=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 1941
be98fb35
GS
1942(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1943you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1944about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 1945
a0d0e21e
LW
1946=item msg%s not implemented
1947
1948(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1949
1950=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1951
75b44862
GS
1952(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
1953They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 1954
6df41af2 1955=item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
09bef843 1956
6df41af2 1957(F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
be771a83
GS
1958Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
1959or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1960
1961=item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1962
be771a83
GS
1963(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
1964must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
1965of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1966
1967=item / must follow a numeric type
1968
be771a83
GS
1969(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
1970follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
1971
1972=item "my sub" not yet implemented
1973
be771a83
GS
1974(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
1975that yet.
6df41af2
GS
1976
1977=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
1978
be771a83
GS
1979(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
1980sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
1981local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 1982
8b1a09fc 1983=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1984
e476b1b5 1985(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
1986If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
1987again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 1988provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e
LW
1989
1990=item Negative length
1991
be771a83
GS
1992(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
1993length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 1994
79eeca27 1995=item Nested quantifiers before << HERE in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 1996
b45f050a 1997(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
79eeca27 1998things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The << HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 1999expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2000
be771a83
GS
2001Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2002C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2003
b45f050a 2004
6df41af2 2005=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2006
be771a83
GS
2007(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2008scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e
LW
2009
2010=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2011
be771a83
GS
2012(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2013setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2014will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2015securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2016
2017=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2018
2019(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2020
2021=item No comma allowed after %s
2022
2023(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2024allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2025Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2026
0a753a76 2027One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2028constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2029importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2030does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2031explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2032L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2033would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2034remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2035constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2036list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2037this error was triggered?
2038
748a9306
LW
2039=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2040
be771a83
GS
2041(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2042redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2043doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2044
a0d0e21e
LW
2045=item No DB::DB routine defined
2046
be771a83
GS
2047(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2048for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2049define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2050is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2051should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
a0d0e21e
LW
2052
2053=item No dbm on this machine
2054
2055(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2056supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2057
2058=item No DBsub routine
2059
2060(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2061but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2062didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2063ordinary subroutine call.
2064
c47ff5f1 2065=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2066
be771a83
GS
2067(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2068redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2069find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2070
c47ff5f1 2071=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2072
be771a83
GS
2073(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2074redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2075name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2076
6df41af2
GS
2077=item No #! line
2078
2079(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2080even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2081
2082=item "no" not allowed in expression
2083
be771a83
GS
2084(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2085returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2086
c47ff5f1 2087=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2088
be771a83
GS
2089(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2090redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2091doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2092
c47ff5f1 2093=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2094
be771a83
GS
2095(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2096redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2097find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2098
1ec3e8de
GS
2099=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2100
be771a83
GS
2101(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2102declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2103semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2104
a0d0e21e
LW
2105=item No Perl script found in input
2106
2107(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2108with #! and containing the word "perl".
2109
2110=item No setregid available
2111
2112(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2113your system.
2114
2115=item No setreuid available
2116
2117(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2118your system.
2119
a67e862a 2120=item No space allowed after -%c
a0d0e21e 2121
be771a83
GS
2122(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2123immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
a0d0e21e 2124
6df41af2
GS
2125=item No %s specified for -%c
2126
2127(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2128you haven't specified one.
2129
2130=item No such pipe open
2131
2132(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2133close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2134earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2135
88e9b055 2136=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
57079c46 2137
88e9b055 2138(F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
57079c46
GA
2139not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2140array indices for that to work.
2141
88e9b055 2142=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
f1192cee 2143
be771a83
GS
2144(F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2145not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2146%FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2147%usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
f1192cee 2148
a0d0e21e
LW
2149=item No such signal: SIG%s
2150
be771a83
GS
2151(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2152not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2153names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2154
2155=item Not a CODE reference
2156
2157(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2158subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2159use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2160also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2161
2162=item Not a format reference
2163
2164(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2165format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2166
2167=item Not a GLOB reference
2168
be771a83
GS
2169(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2170symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2171something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2172kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2173
2174=item Not a HASH reference
2175
be771a83
GS
2176(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2177reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2178find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2179
6df41af2
GS
2180=item Not an ARRAY reference
2181
be771a83
GS
2182(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2183a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2184to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2185
a0d0e21e
LW
2186=item Not a perl script
2187
2188(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2189even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2190mention perl.
2191
2192=item Not a SCALAR reference
2193
be771a83
GS
2194(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2195a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2196to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2197
2198=item Not a subroutine reference
2199
2200(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2201subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2202use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2203also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2204
e7ea3e70 2205=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2206
2207(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2208doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2209
a0d0e21e
LW
2210=item Not enough arguments for %s
2211
2212(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2213
6df41af2
GS
2214=item Not enough format arguments
2215
be771a83
GS
2216(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2217supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2218
2219=item %s: not found
2220
be771a83
GS
2221(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2222of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2223yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2224
2225=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2226
6df41af2
GS
2227(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2228timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2229to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2230F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2231need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2232
2233=item Null filename used
2234
be771a83
GS
2235(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2236machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2237
6df41af2
GS
2238=item NULL OP IN RUN
2239
be771a83
GS
2240(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2241pointer.
6df41af2 2242
55497cff 2243=item Null picture in formline
2244
2245(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2246specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2247supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2248
a0d0e21e
LW
2249=item Null realloc
2250
2251(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2252
2253=item NULL regexp argument
2254
5f05dabc 2255(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2256
2257=item NULL regexp parameter
2258
2259(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2260
fc36a67e 2261=item Number too long
2262
be771a83
GS
2263(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2264about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2265versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2266the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2267"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2268
6df41af2
GS
2269=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2270
be771a83
GS
2271(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2272The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2273future version.
6df41af2 2274
252aa082
JH
2275=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2276
75b44862 2277(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2278(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2279L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2280
2281See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2282
6ad11d81
JH
2283=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2284
2285(W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2286The arguments should come in pairs.
2287
1930e939 2288=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2289
be771a83
GS
2290(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2291which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2292
bbce6d69 2293=item Offset outside string
2294
2295(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
be771a83
GS
2296pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2297exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2298the buffer and zero pad the new area.
bbce6d69 2299
9ddeeac9
JH
2300=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2301
2302(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
c289d2f7 2303that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
9ddeeac9 2304
c289d2f7 2305=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
2306
2307(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2308never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2309call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2310
a0d0e21e
LW
2311=item oops: oopsAV
2312
e476b1b5 2313(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2314
2315=item oops: oopsHV
2316
e476b1b5 2317(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2318
56f7f34b 2319=item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2320
be771a83
GS
2321(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2322handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2323of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2324C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2325
748a9306
LW
2326=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2327
be771a83
GS
2328(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2329was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2330use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2331example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2332"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2333
6df41af2
GS
2334=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2335
be771a83
GS
2336(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2337in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2338
a80b8354
GS
2339=item Out of memory!
2340
2341(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2342remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2343no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2344
6df41af2 2345=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2346
6df41af2
GS
2347(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2348remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2349the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2350possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2351
1b979e0a 2352=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2353
be771a83
GS
2354(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2355insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2356request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2357
2358The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2359depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2360However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2361emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
2362is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2363where the failed request happened.
55497cff 2364
1b979e0a
IZ
2365=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2366
2367(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2368is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2369C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2370
6df41af2
GS
2371=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2372
be771a83
GS
2373(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2374parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2375otherwise.
6df41af2
GS
2376
2377=item @ outside of string
2378
2379(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2380the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2381
2382=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2383
be771a83
GS
2384(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2385package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2386some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2387mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 2388
a0d0e21e
LW
2389=item page overflow
2390
be771a83
GS
2391(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2392page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 2393
6df41af2
GS
2394=item panic: %s
2395
2396(P) An internal error.
2397
a0d0e21e
LW
2398=item panic: ck_grep
2399
2400(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2401
2402=item panic: ck_split
2403
2404(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2405
2406=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2407
be771a83
GS
2408(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2409there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 2410
810b8aa5
GS
2411=item panic: del_backref
2412
2413(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2414reference.
2415
a0d0e21e
LW
2416=item panic: die %s
2417
2418(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2419it wasn't an eval context.
2420
2269b42e 2421=item panic: pp_match
a0d0e21e 2422
be771a83
GS
2423(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2424data.
a0d0e21e 2425
a0d0e21e
LW
2426=item panic: do_subst
2427
be771a83
GS
2428(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2429data.
a0d0e21e 2430
2269b42e 2431=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 2432
2269b42e 2433(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 2434data.
a0d0e21e 2435
c635e13b 2436=item panic: frexp
2437
2438(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2439
a0d0e21e
LW
2440=item panic: goto
2441
2442(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2443and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2444
2445=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2446
2447(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2448
2449=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2450
2451(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2452
e446cec8
IZ
2453=item panic: kid popen errno read
2454
2455(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2456
a0d0e21e
LW
2457=item panic: last
2458
2459(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2460it wasn't a block context.
2461
2462=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2463
be771a83
GS
2464(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2465scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
2466
2467=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2468
2469(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2470invalid enum on the top of it.
2471
810b8aa5
GS
2472=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2473
2474(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2475references to an object.
2476
6df41af2
GS
2477=item panic: malloc
2478
2479(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2480
a0d0e21e
LW
2481=item panic: mapstart
2482
2483(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2484
2485=item panic: null array
2486
2487(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2488
2489=item panic: pad_alloc
2490
2491(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2492and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2493
2494=item panic: pad_free curpad
2495
2496(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2497and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2498
2499=item panic: pad_free po
2500
2501(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2502
2503=item panic: pad_reset curpad
2504
2505(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2506and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2507
2508=item panic: pad_sv po
2509
2510(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2511
2512=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2513
2514(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2515and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2516
2517=item panic: pad_swipe po
2518
2519(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2520
2521=item panic: pp_iter
2522
2523(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2524
2269b42e
JH
2525=item panic: pp_split
2526
2527(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2528
a0d0e21e
LW
2529=item panic: realloc
2530
2531(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2532
2533=item panic: restartop
2534
2535(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2536didn't supply the destination.
2537
2538=item panic: return
2539
2540(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2541then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2542
2543=item panic: scan_num
2544
2545(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2546
2547=item panic: sv_insert
2548
2549(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2550was string.
2551
2552=item panic: top_env
2553
6224f72b 2554(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e
LW
2555
2556=item panic: yylex
2557
2558(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2559
dea0fc0b
JH
2560=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2561
2562(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 2563to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 2564
7b8d334a 2565=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 2566
e476b1b5 2567(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
2568
2569 my $foo, $bar = @_;
2570
2571when you meant
2572
2573 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2574
54884818 2575Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 2576
75b44862 2577=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
a0d0e21e 2578
be771a83
GS
2579(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2580recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2581you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2582
6df41af2
GS
2583=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2584
2585(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 2586C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2
GS
2587
2588=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2589
2590(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2591
2592 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2593 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2594 LC_ALL = "En_US",
2595 LANG = (unset)
2596 are supported and installed on your system.
2597 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2598
2599Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2600settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
2601This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2602system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2603locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2604dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2605Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2606the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2607you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2608L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 2609
bccbfa77
NC
2610=item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2611
64977eb6 2612(S) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you forgot
bccbfa77 2613the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
64977eb6
NC
2614data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2615the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2616If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2617the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2618
2619=item perlio: invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2620
2621(S) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2622colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of an layer list.
2623If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2624list was terminated too soon.
bccbfa77 2625
ef0f9817
DD
2626=item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2627
2628(S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2629system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2630internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2631are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2632explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2633value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2634
a0d0e21e
LW
2635=item Permission denied
2636
2637(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2638
bd3fa61c 2639=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 2640
be771a83
GS
2641(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2642process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2643fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 2644
b45f050a
JF
2645=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
2646
2647(W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2648I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for
2649example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not
2650currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for future
2651extensions and will cause fatal errors.
2652
2653=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions
2654
2655(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2656beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future
2657extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2658a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2659with the backslash: "\[." and ".\]".
2660
2661=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions
2662
2663(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2664beginning with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future
2665extensions. If you need to represent those character sequences inside
2666a regular expression character class, just quote the square brackets
2667with the backslash: "\[=" and "=\]".
2668
2669=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown
2670
2671(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. See
2672L<perlre>.
2673
a0d0e21e
LW
2674=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2675
81777298 2676(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
a0d0e21e
LW
2677the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2678
bbce6d69 2679=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2680
e476b1b5 2681(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 2682strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
2683literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2684parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2685
774d564b 2686You probably wrote something like this:
2687
54310121 2688 @list = qw(
774d564b 2689 a # a comment
bbce6d69 2690 b # another comment
774d564b 2691 );
bbce6d69 2692
2693when you should have written this:
2694
774d564b 2695 @list = qw(
54310121 2696 a
2697 b
774d564b 2698 );
2699
2700If you really want comments, build your list the
2701old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2702
2703 @list = (
2704 'a', # a comment
2705 'b', # another comment
2706 );
bbce6d69 2707
2708=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2709
be771a83
GS
2710(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2711commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2712different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2713frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2714
54310121 2715You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 2716
774d564b 2717 qw! a, b, c !;
2718
2719which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2720commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 2721
774d564b 2722 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 2723
a0d0e21e
LW
2724=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2725
2726(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2727Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2728end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2729Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2730
6df41af2
GS
2731=item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2732
2733(W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2734could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2735
8cd79558
GS
2736=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2737
4375e838 2738(W deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
2739
2740 sub doit
2741 {
2742 use attrs qw(locked);
2743 }
2744
2745You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2746
2747 sub doit : locked
2748 {
2749 ...
2750
2751The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2752backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2753
a0d0e21e
LW
2754=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2755
e476b1b5 2756(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 2757
a0d0e21e
LW
2758 open FOO || die;
2759
2760is now misinterpreted as
2761
2762 open(FOO || die);
2763
be771a83
GS
2764because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2765list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2766parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2767of "||".
a0d0e21e 2768
3cdd684c
TP
2769=item Premature end of script headers
2770
2771See Server error.
2772
6df41af2
GS
2773=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2774
be771a83 2775(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 2776before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 2777
9a7dcd9c 2778=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2779
be771a83 2780(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 2781before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 2782
6df41af2 2783=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 2784
6df41af2
GS
2785(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2786applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2787port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2788L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 2789in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 2790
3fe9a6f1 2791=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 2792
be771a83
GS
2793(S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2794declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 2795
79eeca27 2796=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d before << HERE in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 2797
b45f050a 2798(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
79eeca27 2799{min,max} construct. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 2800the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 2801
551e1d92 2802=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression before << HERE %s
9baa0206 2803
b45f050a
JF
2804(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2805it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2806quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2807"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2808C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 2809
89ea2908
GA
2810=item Range iterator outside integer range
2811
2812(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2813are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
2814One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2815by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 2816
9a7dcd9c 2817=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2818
75b44862 2819(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 2820before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 2821
6df41af2
GS
2822=item Reallocation too large: %lx
2823
2824(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2825
4ad56ec9
IZ
2826=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2827
be771a83
GS
2828(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2829already been freed.
4ad56ec9 2830
a0d0e21e
LW
2831=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2832
be771a83
GS
2833(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2834the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
2835which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2836
3e0ccd42 2837=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e
LW
2838
2839(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2840an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2841
7a4340ed 2842=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 2843
be771a83
GS
2844(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2845a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2846hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 2847
1930e939
TP
2848=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2849
be771a83
GS
2850(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2851with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2852means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2853parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
2854
2855 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2856 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2857 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2858 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2859
810b8aa5
GS
2860=item Reference is already weak
2861
e476b1b5 2862(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
2863Doing so has no effect.
2864
a0d0e21e
LW
2865=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2866
be771a83
GS
2867(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2868a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 2869
b1866b2d 2870=item Reference to nonexistent group before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2871
2872(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2873not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2874wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2875prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
9baa0206 2876
79eeca27 2877The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 2878discovered.
9baa0206 2879
a0d0e21e
LW
2880=item regexp memory corruption
2881
2882(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2883expression compiler gave it.
2884
b45f050a 2885=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 2886
be771a83
GS
2887(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2888earlier.
a0d0e21e 2889
7a95317d
GS
2890=item Repeat count in pack overflows
2891
be771a83
GS
2892(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2893signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7a95317d
GS
2894
2895=item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2896
be771a83
GS
2897(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2898signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
7a95317d 2899
a0d0e21e
LW
2900=item Reversed %s= operator
2901
be771a83
GS
2902(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2903always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e
LW
2904
2905=item Runaway format
2906
2907(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2908produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2909199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2910themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2911shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2912
2913=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2914
be771a83
GS
2915(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2916single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2917value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2918behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2919argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2920and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2921if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 2922
748a9306 2923On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 2924element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
2925Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2926L<perlref>.
2927
a6006777 2928=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2929
75b44862 2930(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
2931element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
2932(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
2933like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2934argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2935and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2936if you're expecting only one subscript.
2937
2938On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
2939as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
2940not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 2941L<perlref>.
2942
3e2f796a
NIS
2943=item Scalars leaked: %d
2944
2945(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
2946not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
2947What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
2948especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
2949
a0d0e21e
LW
2950=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2951
54310121 2952(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2953or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e
LW
2954
2955=item Search pattern not terminated
2956
2957(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2958construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 2959Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 2960
9ddeeac9 2961=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 2962
be771a83
GS
2963(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
2964filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e
LW
2965
2966=item select not implemented
2967
2968(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2969
ae21d580 2970=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 2971
ae21d580
JH
2972(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
2973the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 2974
6df41af2 2975=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 2976
75b44862
GS
2977(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
2978semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
2979
2980=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2981
be771a83
GS
2982(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
2983scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 2984
6df41af2 2985=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 2986
6df41af2 2987(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 2988
69282e91 2989=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2990
be771a83 2991(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 2992before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 2993
79eeca27 2994=item Sequence (? incomplete before << HERE mark in regex m/%s/
7b8d334a 2995
79eeca27 2996(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <<<HERE
b45f050a 2997shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 2998L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 2999
551e1d92 3000=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in %s
b45f050a
JF
3001
3002(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3003for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3004
551e1d92 3005=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented before << HERE mark in %s
a0d0e21e 3006
b45f050a 3007(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
79eeca27 3008has not yet been written. The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
3009where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3010
551e1d92 3011=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized before << HERE mark in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3012
3013(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
79eeca27 3014The << HERE shows in the regular expression about
64977eb6 3015where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e
LW
3016See L<perlre>.
3017
b45f050a 3018=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3019
3020(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3021parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
3022
3023=item 500 Server error
3024
3025See Server error.
3026
a5f75d66
AD
3027=item Server error
3028
3cdd684c 3029This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
3030to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3031varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3032are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3033contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3034produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 3035
3036B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3037
be771a83
GS
3038You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3039user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3040account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3041(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3042location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3043Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 3044
be94a901
GS
3045 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3046 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
9607fc9c 3047 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3048 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3049 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
a5f75d66 3050
be94a901
GS
3051You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3052
a0d0e21e
LW
3053=item setegid() not implemented
3054
be771a83
GS
3055(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3056support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3057didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3058
3059=item seteuid() not implemented
3060
be771a83
GS
3061(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3062support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3063didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3064
81777298
GS
3065=item setpgrp can't take arguments
3066
be771a83
GS
3067(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3068arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3069group ID.
81777298 3070
a0d0e21e
LW
3071=item setrgid() not implemented
3072
be771a83
GS
3073(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3074support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3075didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3076
3077=item setruid() not implemented
3078
be771a83
GS
3079(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3080support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3081didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3082
6df41af2
GS
3083=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3084
be771a83
GS
3085(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3086forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
3087L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3088
a0d0e21e
LW
3089=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3090
be771a83
GS
3091(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3092world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e
LW
3093
3094=item shm%s not implemented
3095
3096(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3097
6df41af2
GS
3098=item <> should be quotes
3099
3100(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3101C<require 'file'>.
3102
3103=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3104
3105(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
3106as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3107result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3108probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 3109
69282e91 3110=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3111
75b44862
GS
3112(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3113superfluous.
a0d0e21e 3114
f86702cc 3115=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 3116
be771a83
GS
3117(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3118Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e
LW
3119
3120=item sort is now a reserved word
3121
3122(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3123But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3124
3125=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3126
3127(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
c47ff5f1 3128it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e
LW
3129See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3130
3131=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3132
3133(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3134or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3135
3136=item Split loop
3137
be771a83
GS
3138(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3139iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3140happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 3141
a0d0e21e
LW
3142=item Statement unlikely to be reached
3143
be771a83
GS
3144(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3145die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3146unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3147instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3148a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 3149
9ddeeac9 3150=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 3151
355b1299
JH
3152(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3153was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 3154
7a4340ed 3155=item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
e7ea3e70 3156
be771a83
GS
3157(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3158stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3159C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 3160
a0d0e21e
LW
3161=item Subroutine %s redefined
3162
e476b1b5 3163(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
3164
3165 {
4438c4b7 3166 no warnings;
a0d0e21e
LW
3167 eval "sub name { ... }";
3168 }
3169
3170=item Substitution loop
3171
be771a83
GS
3172(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3173shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3174is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5f05dabc 3175L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
3176
3177=item Substitution pattern not terminated
3178
3179(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3180construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3181Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3182
3183=item Substitution replacement not terminated
3184
3185(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3186construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3187Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
3188
3189=item substr outside of string
3190
be771a83
GS
3191(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3192a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3193length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3194substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3195assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 3196
f86702cc 3197=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
a0d0e21e 3198
be771a83
GS
3199(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3200a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
a0d0e21e 3201
551e1d92 3202=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches before << HE%s
b45f050a
JF
3203
3204(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3205branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3206contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3207clustering parentheses:
3208
3209 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3210
79eeca27 3211The << HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
3212discovered. See L<perlre>.
3213
79eeca27 3214=item Switch condition not recognized before << HERE in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3215
3216(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
79eeca27 3217number, it can be only a number. The << HERE shows in the regular expression
b45f050a
JF
3218about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3219
85ab1d1d
JH
3220=item switching effective %s is not implemented
3221
be771a83
GS
3222(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3223and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 3224
a0d0e21e
LW
3225=item syntax error
3226
3227(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3228
3229 A keyword is misspelled.
3230 A semicolon is missing.
3231 A comma is missing.
3232 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3233 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3234 A closing quote is missing.
3235
3236Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3237error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3238The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3239it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 3240before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
3241Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3242the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3243C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
be771a83
GS
3244if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3245questions>.
a0d0e21e 3246
cb1a09d0
AD
3247=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3248
be771a83
GS
3249(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3250of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3251yourself.
cb1a09d0 3252
6df41af2
GS
3253=item %s syntax OK
3254
3255(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3256
6087ac44 3257=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 3258
6087ac44
JH
3259(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3260"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3261machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3262unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 3263
69282e91 3264=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3265
be771a83 3266(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3267before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3268
fc36a67e 3269=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3270
be771a83
GS
3271(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3272for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 3273
9ddeeac9 3274=item tell() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3275
be771a83
GS
3276(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3277was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3278
a0d0e21e
LW
3279=item That use of $[ is unsupported
3280
be771a83
GS
3281(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3282as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e
LW
3283
3284 $[ = 0;
3285 $[ = 1;
3286 ...
3287 local $[ = 0;
3288 local $[ = 1;
3289 ...
3290
be771a83
GS
3291This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3292from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
a0d0e21e 3293
f86702cc 3294=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
3295
3296(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3297probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 3298think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
3299will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3300will deny it.
3301
6df41af2
GS
3302=item The %s function is unimplemented
3303
3304The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3305to the probings of Configure.
3306
5e1c7ca2 3307=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 3308
be771a83
GS
3309(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3310linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3311past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3312instead.
a0d0e21e 3313
437784d6 3314=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
3315
3316=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3317
75b44862 3318(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
3319element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3320wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3321need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3322F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3323target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
3324%ENV which produced the warning.
3325
a0d0e21e
LW
3326=item times not implemented
3327
be771a83
GS
3328(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3329suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e
LW
3330
3331=item Too few args to syscall
3332
3333(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3334system call to call, silly dilly.
3335
9607fc9c 3336=item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3337
3338(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
8cc95fdb 3339B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3340This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3341script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3342So Perl gives up.
f86702cc 3343
9607fc9c 3344If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
be771a83
GS
3345mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3346editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3347argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
f86702cc 3348
9607fc9c 3349If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3350B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
f86702cc 3351
8cc95fdb 3352=item Too late for "-%s" option
3353
3354(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3355B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3356are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3357
ddda08b7
GS
3358=item Too late to run %s block
3359
3360(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3361when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
3362loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3363instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3364BEGIN block.
ddda08b7