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toke.c, perldiag: Note delay of some things to 5.18
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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
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
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
de42a5a9 53=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
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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
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92=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
93
94(W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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95bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
96(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
97like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
98assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
99clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
100really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 101
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102=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
103
104(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
105asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
106named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 107the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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108function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
109and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
110
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111=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
112
113=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 114
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115(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo
116represents the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for
117element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write
118C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to
119the function named foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it
120returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
121
122In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
123to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
124C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length>
125followed by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what
126you want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/>
127to the unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to
128something that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by
129simply turning off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 130
bdac9d71 131=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
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132
133(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
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134string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
135the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
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136write C<-foo()>.
137
79ef86ee 138=item Ambiguous use of 's//le...' resolved as 's// le...'; Rewrite as 's//el' if you meant 'use locale rules and evaluate rhs as an expression'. In Perl 5.18, it will be resolved the other way
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139
140(W deprecated, ambiguous) You wrote a pattern match with substitution
79ef86ee 141immediately followed by "le". In Perl 5.16 and earlier, this is
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142resolved as meaning to take the result of the substitution, and see if
143it is stringwise less-than-or-equal-to what follows in the expression.
144Having the "le" immediately following a pattern is deprecated behavior,
79ef86ee 145so in Perl 5.18, this expression will be resolved as meaning to do the
94b03d7d 146pattern match using the rules of the current locale, and evaluate the
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147rhs as an expression when doing the substitution. In 5.14, and 5.16 if
148you want the latter interpretation, you can simply write "el" instead.
149But note that the C</l> modifier should not be used explicitly anyway;
150you should use C<use locale> instead. See L<perllocale>.
94b03d7d 151
6df41af2 152=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 153
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154(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
155redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
156redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 157
6df41af2 158=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 159
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160(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
161redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
162into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
163though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
164which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 165
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166 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
167 while (<STDIN>) {
168 print;
169 print OUT;
170 }
171 close OUT;
c9f97d15 172
6df41af2 173=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 174
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175(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
176transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 177one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 178a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
179hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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180you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
181alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 182
6df41af2 183=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 184
6df41af2 185(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 186
b0fdf69e 187=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 188
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189(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
190subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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191
192 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 193 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 194 &do_something
a0d0e21e 195
8ea97a1e 196=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 197
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198(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
199such as:
5f05dabc 200
201 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 202 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 203
8ea97a1e 204or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 205
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206 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
207 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 208
6df41af2 209=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 210
6df41af2 211(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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212name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
213error.
a0d0e21e 214
f86702cc 215=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 216
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217(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
218that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
219will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 220
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221=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
222
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223(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
224system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
225take care of transforming data between external and internal
226representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
227point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
228didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
229result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 230
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231=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
232
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233(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
234spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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235
236=item assertion botched: %s
237
21b5e840 238(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
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239
240=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
241
21b5e840 242(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 243
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244=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
245
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246(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
247the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 248
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249=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
250
251(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
252must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
253know which context to supply to the right side.
254
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255=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
256
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257(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily
258the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
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259Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
260created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
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261thread. See L<threads>.
262
2393f1b9 263=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 264
49293501 265(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 266the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 267
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268=item Attempt to bless into a reference
269
270(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 271the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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272supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
273
274 bless $self, $proto;
275
276when you intended
277
278 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
279
280If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
281of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
282example by:
283
284 bless $self, "$proto";
285
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286=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
287
288(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
289which is not in its key set.
290
291=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
292
293(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
294declared readonly from a restricted hash.
295
de42a5a9 296=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 297
f84fe999 298(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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299that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
300outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 301
12578ffb 302=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 303
f84fe999 304(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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305strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
306strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
307of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 308
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309=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
310
f84fe999 311(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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312free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
313SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
314free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
315try to free it.
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316
317=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
318
f84fe999 319(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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320
321=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
322
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323(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
324see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
325earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
326This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
327that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
328mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
329corrupted.
a0d0e21e 330
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331=item Attempt to join self
332
333(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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334impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
335to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 336
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337=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
338
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339(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
340function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
341means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
342invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
343literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
344avoid this warning.
84902520 345
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346=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
347
348(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
349compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
350unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
351L<perlvar/%INC>.
352
1b20cd17
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353=item Attempt to set length of freed array
354
355(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
356can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
357of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
358
359 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
360 $$r = 503
361
b7a902f4 362=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
363
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364(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
365used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
366dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 367
c32124fe
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368=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
369
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370(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
371"locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
372obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
373will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
c32124fe 374
f1a3ce43
NC
375=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
376
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377(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
378the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
379The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
380will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
f1a3ce43 381
de42a5a9 382=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 383
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384(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
385or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 386S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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387S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
388
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389=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
390
496a33f5 391(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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392substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
393most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
394
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395=item Bad filehandle: %s
396
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397(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
398symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
399open(), or did it in another package.
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400
401=item Bad free() ignored
402
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403(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
404been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 405setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 406
9ea8bc6d 407This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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408dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
409which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 410
aa689395 411=item Bad hash
412
413(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
414
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415=item Badly placed ()'s
416
417(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
418of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
419Perl yourself.
420
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421=item Bad name after %s::
422
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423(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
424didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
425of quotes, so
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426
427 $var = 'myvar';
428 $sym = mypack::$var;
429
430is not the same as
431
432 $var = 'myvar';
433 $sym = "mypack::$var";
434
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JV
435=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
436
437(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
438plugin API.
439
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440=item Bad realloc() ignored
441
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442(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
443never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
4dcecea4 444by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 445
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446=item Bad symbol for array
447
448(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
449wasn't a symbol table entry.
450
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SP
451=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
452
453(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
454that wasn't a symbol table entry.
455
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456=item Bad symbol for filehandle
457
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458(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
459that wasn't a symbol table entry.
a0d0e21e
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460
461=item Bad symbol for hash
462
463(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
464wasn't a symbol table entry.
465
34d09196
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466=item Bareword found in conditional
467
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468(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
469conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
470of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
471
472 open FOO || die;
473
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474It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
475a bareword:
34d09196
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476
477 use constant TYPO => 1;
478 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
479
480The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
481
6df41af2
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482=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
483
484(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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485subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
486symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
487
488=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
489
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490(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
491compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
492you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 493
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494=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
495
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496(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
497subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
498exited.
a0d0e21e 499
68dc0745 500=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
501
502(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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503implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
504occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
505be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
506depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 507
6df41af2
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508=item \1 better written as $1
509
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510(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
511The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
512substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
513because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
514there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 515
252aa082
JH
516=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
517
e476b1b5 518(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
519(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
520L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 521
69282e91 522=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 523
be771a83
GS
524(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
525check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 526
c289d2f7
JH
527=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
528
529(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 530Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 531
f866a7cd
FC
532=item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
533
534=item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
535
536(W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
537C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
538itself in a future release.
539
c5a0f51a
JH
540=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
541
e476b1b5 542(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 543
4633a7c4
LW
544=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
545
be771a83 546(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
4dcecea4 547copiable.
4633a7c4 548
f675dbe5
CB
549=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
550
be771a83
GS
551(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
552iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
553which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 554
a0d0e21e
LW
555=item Callback called exit
556
4929bf7b 557(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
558exited by calling exit.
559
6df41af2 560=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 561
be771a83
GS
562(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
563parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
564that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
565early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
566subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
567checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
568function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
569the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 570
49704364 571=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
572
573(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
574compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
575attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
576See L<perlfunc/pack>.
577
49704364 578=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
579
580(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
581format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
582
5c1f4d79
NC
583=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
584
585(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
586then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
587triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
588from that type of reference to a typeglob.
589
ba2fdce6
NC
590=item Cannot copy to %s in %s
591
592(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 593be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 594
b5d97229
RGS
595=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
596
597(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
598either with open() or binmode().
599
96ebfdd7
RK
600=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
601
602(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
603integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
604to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
605
a0d0e21e
LW
606=item Can't bless non-reference value
607
608(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
609encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
610
dc57907a
RGS
611=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
612
0d863452
RH
613(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
614a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
615
616=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 617
0d863452
RH
618(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
619
6df41af2
GS
620=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
621
622(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
623object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
624like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
625
626 $BADREF = undef;
627 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
628 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
629
a0d0e21e
LW
630=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
631
54310121 632(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
633ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
634didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
635object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
636
637=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
638
639(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
640object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
641defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
642Something like this will reproduce the error:
643
644 $BADREF = 42;
645 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
646 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
647
a0d0e21e
LW
648=item Can't chdir to %s
649
650(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
651that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
652
0545a864 653=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 654
be771a83
GS
655(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
656nosuid.
104d25b7 657
22e74366 658=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
659
660(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 661(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
662say things like:
663
664 *foo += 1;
665
666You CAN say
667
668 $foo = *foo;
669 $foo += 1;
670
671but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
672
0d863452 673=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 674
0d863452
RH
675(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
676or C<default> block.
677
a0d0e21e
LW
678=item Can't create pipe mailbox
679
be771a83
GS
680(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
681quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 682
eb64745e
GS
683=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
684
30c282f6
NC
685(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
686"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 687
fc7debfb
FC
688=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
689
690(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
691C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
692issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
693error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
694
6df41af2
GS
695=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
696
be771a83
GS
697(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
698a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 699
a0d0e21e
LW
700=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
701
be771a83
GS
702(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
703reason.
a0d0e21e 704
54310121 705=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 706
be771a83
GS
707(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
708reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
709C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 710
10f9c03d 711=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 712
e476b1b5 713(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
714characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
715inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 716
7253e4e3 717=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 718
b45f050a 719(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 720regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 721regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 722
a0d0e21e
LW
723=item Can't do waitpid with flags
724
be771a83
GS
725(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
726waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 727
a0d0e21e
LW
728=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
729
be771a83
GS
730(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
731point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
732line.
a0d0e21e 733
1109a392
MHM
734=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
735
736(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
737or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
738little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
739See L<perlfunc/pack>.
740
a0d0e21e
LW
741=item Can't exec "%s": %s
742
d1be9408 743(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
744named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
745permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
746C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
747architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
748can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
749#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
750
751=item Can't exec %s
752
be771a83
GS
753(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
754that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
755need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
756
757=item Can't execute %s
758
be771a83
GS
759(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
760found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 761
6df41af2 762=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 763
be771a83
GS
764(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
765is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 766
56ca2fc0
JH
767=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
768
769(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
e1b711da
KW
770could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
771See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
772for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 773
6df41af2
GS
774=item Can't find label %s
775
be771a83
GS
776(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
777possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
778
779=item Can't find %s on PATH
780
be771a83
GS
781(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
782found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 783
6df41af2 784=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 785
be771a83
GS
786(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
787found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
788script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
789
790=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
791
be771a83
GS
792(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
793that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
794nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 795
fb73857a 796 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
797
97b3d10f 798If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
799included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
800may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
801a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
802L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 803
660a4616
TS
804=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
805
5f8ad6b6
FC
806(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
807property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
808letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
e1b711da 809L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
5f8ad6b6
FC
810for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
811mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by C<\\p>
812(just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
813until C<\E>).
660a4616 814
b3647a36 815=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 816
be771a83
GS
817(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
818pipeline.
a0d0e21e 819
b3647a36
SR
820=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
821
c973c02e 822(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
823after five seconds.
824
748a9306
LW
825=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
826
be771a83
GS
827(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
828between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
829Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
830the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
831account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
832the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 833the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
834the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
835if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
836because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
837appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
838and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
839routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
840shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
841only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 842
a0d0e21e
LW
843=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
844
be771a83
GS
845(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
846pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
847
848=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
849
748a9306
LW
850(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
851mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 852
6df41af2 853=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 854
be771a83
GS
855(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
856loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
857
858=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
859
be771a83
GS
860(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
861a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
862you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
863See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 864
9850bf21 865=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 866
9850bf21
RH
867(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
868comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
869as the reduce() function in List::Util).
870
c74ace89 871=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 872
be771a83 873(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 874"string" or block.
b150fb22 875
6df41af2
GS
876=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
877
be771a83
GS
878(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
879subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
880cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
881routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 882
0b5b802d
GS
883=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
884
be771a83
GS
885(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
886signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
887signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
888processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
889situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
890may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 891
e2c0f81f
DG
892=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
893
894(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
895attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
896process identifier.
897
6df41af2 898=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 899
6df41af2 900(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
901except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
902block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
903block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
904usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
905inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
906L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 907
2c7d6b9c
RGS
908=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
909
910(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
911package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
912
b8170e59
JB
913=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
914
915(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
916may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
917incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
918between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
16d98ec5 919extension was built against an older version of the library that is
b8170e59
JB
920installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
921extensions.
922
748a9306
LW
923=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
924
2ba9eb46 925(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
30c282f6 926lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
748a9306
LW
927localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
928package name.
929
6df41af2 930=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 931
6df41af2
GS
932(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
933handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 934pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 935that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 936
ea071790 937=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
938
939(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
940found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
941unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
942need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
943the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
944to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
945L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 946
6df41af2
GS
947=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
948
be771a83
GS
949(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
950autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
951are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
952the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 953
b8170e59
JB
954=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
955
956(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
957for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
958unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
959
a0d0e21e
LW
960=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
961
962(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
963functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 964method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
965
966=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
967
be771a83
GS
968(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
969doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 970
2f7da168
RK
971=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
972
973(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
974e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
975
3e3baf6d
TB
976=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
977
be771a83
GS
978(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
979VMS.
3e3baf6d 980
a0d0e21e
LW
981=item Can't modify %s in %s
982
be771a83
GS
983(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
984to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 985
54310121 986=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
987
988(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
989a NULL.
990
6df41af2
GS
991=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
992
993(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 994such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 995
5f05dabc 996=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 997
5f05dabc 998(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
999buffer.
1000
6df41af2
GS
1001=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1002
1003(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1004there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1005count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1006grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1007though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1008once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1009
a0d0e21e
LW
1010=item Can't open %s: %s
1011
c47ff5f1 1012(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
1013filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1014switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
1015is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1016the command line.
a0d0e21e 1017
9a869a14
RGS
1018=item Can't open a reference
1019
1020(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1021using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1022
1023 open FH, '>', $ref;
1024
1025but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1026open is not supported.
1027
a0d0e21e
LW
1028=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1029
be771a83
GS
1030(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1031You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1032as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1033">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1034
748a9306
LW
1035=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1036
be771a83
GS
1037(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1038redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1039the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1040
1041=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1042
be771a83
GS
1043(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1044redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1045command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1046
1047=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1048
be771a83
GS
1049(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1050redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1051the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1052
1053=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1054
be771a83
GS
1055(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1056redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1057for stdout.
748a9306 1058
2b8ca739 1059=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1060
1061(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1062
fa3aa65a
JC
1063If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1064shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1065you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1066
6df41af2
GS
1067=item Can't read CRTL environ
1068
1069(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1070from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1071missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1072or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1073searched.
6df41af2 1074
6df41af2
GS
1075=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1076
1077(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1078there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1079count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1080or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1081though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1082loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1083
64977eb6 1084=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1085
be771a83
GS
1086(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1087file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1088the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1089
a0d0e21e
LW
1090=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1091
e476b1b5 1092(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1093probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1094
748a9306
LW
1095=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1096
be771a83
GS
1097(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1098to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1099
fe13d51d 1100=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1101
1fa582fa
FC
1102(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1103opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1104package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1105
cd06dffe
GS
1106=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1107
be771a83
GS
1108(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1109temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1110is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1111
96ebfdd7
RK
1112=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1113
1114(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1115there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1116
78f9721b
SM
1117=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1118
1119(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1120but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1121to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1122the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1123list context.
1124
a0d0e21e
LW
1125=item Can't stat script "%s"
1126
be771a83
GS
1127(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1128open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1129
a0d0e21e
LW
1130=item Can't take log of %g
1131
fb73857a 1132(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1133negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1134standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1135negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1136
1137=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1138
1139(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1140negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1141with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1142
1143=item Can't undef active subroutine
1144
1145(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1146however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1147redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1148
c81225bc 1149=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1150
be771a83
GS
1151(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1152into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1153specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1154indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1155
1db89ea5
BS
1156=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1157
e27ad1f2 1158(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1159table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1160for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1161
96ebfdd7
RK
1162=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1163
1164(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1165be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1166
6df41af2
GS
1167=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1168
be771a83
GS
1169(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1170references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1171
90b75b61 1172=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1173
1174(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1175Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1176provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1177
1109a392
MHM
1178=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1179
1180(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1181byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1182allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1183
6df41af2
GS
1184=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1185
be771a83
GS
1186(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1187foreach.
6df41af2 1188
aab6a793 1189=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1190
be771a83
GS
1191(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1192is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1193(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1194have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1195weren't.
1196
6d3b25aa
RGS
1197=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1198
1199(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1200that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1201For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1202is inside a big-endian group.
1203
c07a80fd 1204=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1205
1206(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1207You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1208and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1209Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1210lexical variable.
1211
a0d0e21e
LW
1212=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1213
1214(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1215reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1216test the type of the reference, if need be.
1217
748a9306 1218=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1219
be771a83
GS
1220(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1221references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1222
748a9306
LW
1223=item Can't use subscript on %s
1224
1225(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1226subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1227didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1228
6df41af2
GS
1229=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1230
75b44862
GS
1231(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1232creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1233backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1234expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1235value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1236instead.
6df41af2 1237
810b8aa5
GS
1238=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1239
1240(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1241references can be weakened.
1242
fc7debfb
FC
1243=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1244
1245(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1246loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1247from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1248or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1249
5f05dabc 1250=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1251
be771a83
GS
1252(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1253with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1254Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1255
4a68bf9d 1256=item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
f9d13529 1257
1fa582fa 1258(F)(W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
79ef86ee 1259It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.18. In the
17a3df4c
KW
1260cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1261derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1262
1263Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
f9d13529 1264
f337b084 1265=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1266
1267(W pack) You said
1268
1269 pack("C", $x)
1270
1271where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1272only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1273and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1274
1275 pack("C", $x & 255)
1276
1277If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1278instead.
1279
f337b084
TH
1280=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1281
1282(W pack) You said
1283
1284 pack("U0W", $x)
1285
1286where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1287all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1288meant:
1289
1290 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1291
1292=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1293
1294(W pack) You said
1295
1296 pack("c", $x)
1297
1298where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1299is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1300and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1301
1302 pack("c", $x & 255);
1303
1304If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1305instead.
1306
f337b084
TH
1307=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1308
1309(W unpack) You tried something like
1310
1311 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1312
1a147d38 1313where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
f337b084
TH
1314below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1315modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1316
1317 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1318
1319=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1320
1321(W pack) You tried something like
1322
1323 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1324
1a147d38
YO
1325where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1326value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1327uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1328
1329 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1330
1331=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1332
1333(W unpack) You tried something like
1334
1335 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1336
1a147d38
YO
1337where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1338value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1339uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1340
1341 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1342
f866a7cd
FC
1343=item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1344
1345(D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1346to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1347evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
79ef86ee 1348ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.18. Just use a
f866a7cd
FC
1349semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1350
1351=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1352
1353(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1354non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1355written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1356characters.
1357
96ebfdd7
RK
1358=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1359
1360(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1361
abc7ecad
SP
1362=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1363
1364(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1365a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1366
541ed3a9
FC
1367=item Closure prototype called
1368
1369(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1370handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1371This subroutine cannot be called.
1372
49704364
WL
1373=item Code missing after '/'
1374
1375(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1376template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1377
0876b9a0
KW
1378=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1379
c634fdd3 1380=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed
9ae3ac1a 1381
8457b38f 1382(W utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum of U+10FFFF.
0876b9a0
KW
1383
1384Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code
1385points, up to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on
1386your system, but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems.
1387At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
13880x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require
1389larger than a 32 bit word.
1390
9ae3ac1a
KW
1391None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1392code point. For example,
1393
1394 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1395
1396will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1397
1398 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1399
1400will match.
1401
94b42e47
KW
1402This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1403
1404 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Fails.
1405 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also fails!
1406
1407and both these succeed:
1408
1409 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Succeeds.
1410 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also succeeds!
1411
6df41af2
GS
1412=item %s: Command not found
1413
be771a83
GS
1414(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1415Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1416
7a2e2cd6 1417=item Compilation failed in require
1418
1419(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1420Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1421encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1422
c3464db5
DD
1423=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1424
be771a83
GS
1425(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1426situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1427to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1428arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1429recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1430under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1431in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1432that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1433on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1434
38875929
DM
1435=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1436
1437(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1438cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
a568ca76 1439function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
38875929 1440cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
a568ca76
FC
1441has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread
1442first to wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
38875929
DM
1443after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1444lock.
1445
38875929
DM
1446=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1447
1448(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1449cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
a568ca76 1450function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
38875929 1451cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
a568ca76
FC
1452has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread
1453first to wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
38875929
DM
1454after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1455lock.
1456
69282e91 1457=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1458
be771a83
GS
1459(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1460to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1461L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1462
41ab332f 1463=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1464
be771a83
GS
1465(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1466an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1467specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1468corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1469L<overload>.
6df41af2 1470
fc8cd66c
YO
1471=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1472
1a147d38
YO
1473(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1474the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1475forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1476See L<charnames>.
1477
779c5bc9
GS
1478=item Constant is not %s reference
1479
1480(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1481is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1482The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1483usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1484See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1485
4cee8e80
CS
1486=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1487
aeb94125
FC
1488(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1489been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1490for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1491
9607fc9c 1492=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1493
be771a83
GS
1494(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1495for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1496workarounds.
9607fc9c 1497
e7ea3e70
IZ
1498=item Copy method did not return a reference
1499
64977eb6 1500(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1501L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1502
4aaa4757
FC
1503=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1504
1505(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
7530120a 1506with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Most subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1507in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1508called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1509
1510 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1511 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1512
6798c92b
GS
1513=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1514
1515(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1516
a0d0e21e
LW
1517=item corrupted regexp pointers
1518
1519(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1520expression compiler gave it.
1521
1522=item corrupted regexp program
1523
be771a83
GS
1524(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1525valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1526
de42a5a9 1527=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1528
1529(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1530
49704364
WL
1531=item Count after length/code in unpack
1532
1533(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1534you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1535L<perlfunc/pack>.
1536
a0d0e21e
LW
1537=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1538
be771a83
GS
1539(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1540100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1541infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1542which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1543
aad1d01f
NC
1544This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1545setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1546
f10b0346 1547=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1548
be771a83
GS
1549(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1550checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1551array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1552
f10b0346 1553=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1554
f0ec9725
KR
1555(D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1556discouraged since 5.004.
1557
1558Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1559becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1560weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1561These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1562
1563If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1564context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
16546e45
KR
1565
1566 if (%hash) {
1567 # not empty
1568 }
1569
f0ec9725
KR
1570If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1571variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1572a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1573it's loaded, etc.
1574
69794302 1575
bcb95744
FC
1576=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1577
1578(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1579most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1580of the C<....> part.
1581
1582The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1583discovered.
1584
62658f4d
PM
1585=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1586
1587(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1588there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1589
fc36a67e 1590=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1591
be771a83
GS
1592(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1593long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1594that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1595
4a68bf9d 1596=item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1597
1598(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
5fca8acb
FC
1599But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1600are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1601and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1602parentheses or colons.
cb233ae3 1603
6d3b25aa
RGS
1604=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1605
1606(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1607There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1608not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1609conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1610static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1611relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1612declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1613
6d3b25aa
RGS
1614 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1615
1616becomes
1617
1618 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1619
36fb85f3
RGS
1620Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1621have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1622
1623 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1624
500ab966
RGS
1625=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1626
1627(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1628just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1629to create a dangling reference.
1630
3cdd684c
TP
1631=item Did not produce a valid header
1632
1633See Server error.
1634
6df41af2
GS
1635=item %s did not return a true value
1636
1637(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1638it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1639traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1640do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1641
cc507455 1642=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1643
413ff9f6
FC
1644(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1645some such.
4633a7c4 1646
cc507455 1647=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1648
be771a83
GS
1649(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1650variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1651seems superfluous.
33633739 1652
cc507455 1653=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1654
be771a83
GS
1655(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1656@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1657carried away.
748a9306 1658
7e1af8bc 1659=item Died
5f05dabc 1660
1661(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 1662you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 1663
3cdd684c
TP
1664=item Document contains no data
1665
1666See Server error.
1667
62658f4d
PM
1668=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1669
1670(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1671define a C<$VERSION.>
1672
49704364
WL
1673=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1674
1675(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1676See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1677
a0d0e21e
LW
1678=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1679
1680(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1681
1682=item do_study: out of memory
1683
1684(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1685
6df41af2
GS
1686=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1687
56da5a46
RGS
1688(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1689"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1690name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1691because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1692"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1693something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1694subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1695"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1696
ac206dc8
RGS
1697=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1698
1699(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1700qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1701
84d78eb7
YO
1702=item dump is not supported
1703
1704(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1705
a0d0e21e
LW
1706=item Duplicate free() ignored
1707
be771a83
GS
1708(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1709already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1710
1109a392
MHM
1711=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1712
1713(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1714in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1715
4633a7c4
LW
1716=item elseif should be elsif
1717
56da5a46
RGS
1718(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1719ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1720"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1721unlikely to be what you want.
1722
ab13f0c7
JH
1723=item Empty %s
1724
af6f566e
HS
1725(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1726described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1727a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1728
85ab1d1d 1729=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1730
85ab1d1d 1731(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1732effective uids or gids failed.
1733
c038024b
RGS
1734=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1735
1736(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1737aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1738program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1739
748a9306
LW
1740=item Error converting file specification %s
1741
5f05dabc 1742(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1743specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1744single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1745an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1746conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1747
e4d48cc9
GS
1748=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1749
be771a83
GS
1750(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1751expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1752is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1753
fc8f615e 1754=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
e4d48cc9 1755
be771a83
GS
1756(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1757C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
1758pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1759it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1760C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1761interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1762L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1763
6df41af2
GS
1764=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1765
be771a83
GS
1766(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1767assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1768pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1769
1a147d38
YO
1770=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1771
1772(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1773any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1774
1775The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1776discovered.
1777
fc36a67e 1778=item Excessively long <> operator
1779
1780(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1781Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1782filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1783variable and glob that.
1784
ed9aa3b7
SG
1785=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1786
af8bb25a
FC
1787(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
1788OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 1789
fe13d51d 1790=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1791
1792(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1793
1794=item Exiting eval via %s
1795
be771a83
GS
1796(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1797goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1798
1799=item Exiting format via %s
1800
9a2ff54b 1801(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1802goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1803
0a753a76 1804=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1805
be771a83
GS
1806(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1807sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1808loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1809
a0d0e21e
LW
1810=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1811
be771a83
GS
1812(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1813as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1814
1815=item Exiting substitution via %s
1816
be771a83
GS
1817(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1818as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1819
7b8d334a
GS
1820=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1821
be771a83
GS
1822(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1823the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1824usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1825e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1826
6df41af2
GS
1827=item %s: Expression syntax
1828
be771a83
GS
1829(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1830Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1831
1832=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1833
3c10abe3
AG
1834(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1835CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1836queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1837
7253e4e3 1838=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1839
be771a83 1840(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1841character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1842in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1843"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1844problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1845
1b1ee2ef 1846=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1847
be771a83
GS
1848(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1849system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1850details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1851you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1852
1853=item fcntl is not implemented
1854
1855(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1856PDP-11 or something?
1857
22846ab4
AB
1858=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1859
1860(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1861is not possible.
1862
f337b084
TH
1863=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1864
1865(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1866which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1867a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 1868C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 1869
af8c498a 1870=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1871
6c8d78fb
HS
1872(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1873it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1874"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1875write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1876
af8c498a 1877=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1878
6c8d78fb
HS
1879(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1880you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
1881with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1882read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1883is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1884output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1885
1886=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1887
1888(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1889as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1890previously.
1891
1892=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1893
1894(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1895as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1896
1897=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1898
1899(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1900a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1901happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1902name.
a0d0e21e 1903
56e90b21
GS
1904=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1905
be771a83 1906(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1907some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1908filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1909same name?
56e90b21 1910
6df41af2
GS
1911=item Format not terminated
1912
1913(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1914to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1915
a0d0e21e
LW
1916=item Format %s redefined
1917
e476b1b5 1918(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1919
1920 {
271595cc 1921 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1922 eval "format NAME =...";
1923 }
1924
a0d0e21e
LW
1925=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1926
e476b1b5 1927(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1928
1929 if ($foo = 123)
1930
1931when you meant
1932
1933 if ($foo == 123)
1934
1935(or something like that).
1936
6df41af2
GS
1937=item %s found where operator expected
1938
56da5a46
RGS
1939(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1940If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1941operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1942operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1943
a0d0e21e
LW
1944=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1945
1946(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1947
1948=item gethostent not implemented
1949
1950(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1951because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1952on the Internet.
1953
69282e91 1954=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1955
be771a83
GS
1956(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1957socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1958
748a9306
LW
1959=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1960
1961(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1962C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1963
6df41af2
GS
1964=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1965
be771a83
GS
1966(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1967forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1968L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1969
1970=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1971
a4edf47d 1972(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1973that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1974declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1975which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1976
e476b1b5
GS
1977=item glob failed (%s)
1978
be771a83
GS
1979(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1980C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1981C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1982nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1983resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1984broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1985config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1986were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1987empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1988think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1989C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1990
a0d0e21e
LW
1991=item Glob not terminated
1992
1993(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1994a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1995not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1996earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1997
bcd05b94 1998=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 1999
e9200be3 2000(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2001it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
b539c2c9 2002date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2003not-a-number value).
2004
bcd05b94 2005=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2006
e9200be3 2007(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
fc003d4b 2008it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
b539c2c9 2009date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b 2010not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 2011
6df41af2 2012=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2013
6df41af2
GS
2014(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2015version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2016
2017=item goto must have label
2018
2019(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2020unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2021
49704364 2022=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 2023
bca4a986
FC
2024(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2025something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 2026
fe13d51d 2027=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2028
2029(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2030
a0d0e21e
LW
2031=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2032
be771a83
GS
2033(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2034to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2035created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
2036
2037=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2038
be771a83
GS
2039(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2040spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 2041
6df41af2
GS
2042=item %s has too many errors
2043
2044(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2045Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2046
e6897b1a
KW
2047=item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
2048
2049(D syntax)
2050
bd0e971a 2051You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following a
b6fa137b
FC
2052pattern without an intervening space. If you are trying to use the C</le>
2053flags on a substitution, use C</el> instead. Otherwise, add white space
2054between the pattern and following word to eliminate the warning. As an
2055example of the latter, the two constructs:
e6897b1a
KW
2056
2057 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
2058 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
2059
21356872 2060both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow the first
79ef86ee 2061form in Perl 5.18. And,
e6897b1a
KW
2062
2063 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
2064
2065will be disallowed too.
2066
252aa082
JH
2067=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2068
e476b1b5 2069(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2070(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2071L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2072
8903cb82 2073=item Identifier too long
2074
2075(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2076about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2077names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2078of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2079
c3c41406 2080=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 2081
ff3f963a
KW
2082(W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
2083zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1a147d38 2084its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
2085been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2086
6df41af2 2087=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 2088
6df41af2 2089(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2090
6df41af2 2091=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2092
be771a83
GS
2093(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2094binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2095offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2096
6597eb22
FC
2097=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2098
2099(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2100Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2101
78d0fecf 2102=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
4fdae800 2103
d5898338 2104(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2105would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2106when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2107version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2108to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2109
d37a9538
ST
2110=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2111
197afce1 2112(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2113Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
d37a9538 2114
904d85c5
RGS
2115=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2116
2117(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2118you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2119
8e742a20
MHM
2120=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2121
2122(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2123
a0d0e21e
LW
2124=item Illegal division by zero
2125
be771a83
GS
2126(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2127your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2128meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2129
6df41af2
GS
2130=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2131
be771a83
GS
2132(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2133A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2134number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2135
a0d0e21e
LW
2136=item Illegal modulus zero
2137
be771a83
GS
2138(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2139numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2140
6df41af2 2141=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2142
6df41af2
GS
2143(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2144two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2145
2146=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2147
d1be9408 2148(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2149
399388f4 2150=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2151
d1be9408 2152(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2153Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2154
fe13d51d 2155=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2156
6df41af2 2157(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2158following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2159
6df41af2 2160=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2161
75b44862 2162(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2163internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2164delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2165
6df41af2 2166=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2167
be771a83
GS
2168(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2169name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2170didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2171ignored.
54310121 2172
6df41af2 2173=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2174
be771a83
GS
2175(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2176the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2177system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2178times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2179would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2180
be771a83
GS
2181Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2182also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2183
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2184=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2185
2186(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2187C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2188documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2189
979699d9
JH
2190=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2191
2192(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2193Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2194encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2195
1a147d38
YO
2196=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2197
2198(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2199text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2200either consume text or fail.
2201
2202The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2203discovered.
2204
6dbe9451
NC
2205=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2206
2207(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2208of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2209C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2210as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2211
a0d0e21e
LW
2212=item Insecure dependency in %s
2213
8b1a09fc 2214(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2215The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2216setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2217tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2218from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2219such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2220L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2221
2222=item Insecure directory in %s
2223
be771a83
GS
2224(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2225setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2226the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2227See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2228
62f468fc 2229=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2230
2231(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2232setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2233C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2234supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2235the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2236
0e9be77f
DM
2237=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2238
2239(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2240expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2241function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2242See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2243
b9ef414d
FC
2244=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2245
2246(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2247or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2248integers for your architecture.
2249
a7ae9550
GS
2250=item Integer overflow in %s number
2251
75b44862 2252(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2253either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2254your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2255On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2256representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
22570b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2258transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2259internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2260operations.
bbce6d69 2261
46314c13
JP
2262=item Integer overflow in version
2263
2264(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2265size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2266because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2267element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2268trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2269100/9.
2270
7253e4e3 2271=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2272
2273(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2274The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2275discovered.
2276
748a9306
LW
2277=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2278
be771a83
GS
2279(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2280you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2281to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2282L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2283Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2284terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2285
7253e4e3 2286=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2287
7253e4e3
RK
2288(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2289<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2290discovered.
a0d0e21e 2291
6df41af2
GS
2292=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2293
75b44862 2294(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2295followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2296operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2297L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2298
09bef843
SB
2299=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2300
a4a4c9e2 2301(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
2302by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2303
2304=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2305
a4a4c9e2 2306(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 2307recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2308
c635e13b 2309=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2310
be771a83
GS
2311(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2312L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2313
9e08bc66
TS
2314=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2315
2316(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2317didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2318from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2319The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2320The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2321escape was discovered.
2322
8149aa9f
FC
2323=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2324
2325(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
2326number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
23270 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 2328
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2329=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2330
162a3e34
FC
2331(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2332where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2333the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2334a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 2335
7253e4e3 2336=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2337
2338(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2339greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2340C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2341up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2342problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2343
d1573ac7 2344=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2345
2346(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2347character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2348
09bef843
SB
2349=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2350
0120eecf 2351(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2352elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2353parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2354See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2355
b4581f09
JH
2356=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2357
2bfc5f71
FC
2358(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2359than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
2360If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2361list was terminated too soon.
2362
2c86d456
DG
2363=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2364
2365(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2366A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2367decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2368v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2369The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2370See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2371
49704364 2372=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2373
49704364
WL
2374(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2375See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2376(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2377silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2378
2c86d456
DG
2379=item Invalid version format (%s)
2380
2381(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2382A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2383decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
9da2b86b
FC
2384v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it must
2385have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional.
2386Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2c86d456
DG
2387component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2388dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
a6485a24 2389criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2c86d456 2390allowed version formats.
46314c13 2391
798ae1b7
DG
2392=item Invalid version object
2393
2394(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2395the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2396was blessed into the "version" class.
2397
a0d0e21e
LW
2398=item ioctl is not implemented
2399
2400(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2401strange for a machine that supports C.
2402
c289d2f7
JH
2403=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2404
2405(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 2406Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 2407
fe13d51d 2408=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2409
2410(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 2411you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
2412with 'useperlio'.
2413
80cbd5ad
JH
2414=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2415
2416(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 2417neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 2418
b4581f09
JH
2419=item $* is no longer supported
2420
a58ac25e
FC
2421(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2422perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
2423previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2424matching within a string.
4fd19576
B
2425
2426Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
570dedd4
FC
2427modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2428with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2429then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2430
8ae1fe26
RGS
2431=item $# is no longer supported
2432
a58ac25e
FC
2433(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2434perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
2435should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
8ae1fe26 2436
ccf3535a 2437=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 2438
04a80ee0
RGS
2439(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2440needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
2441to a subroutine.
2442
ccf3535a 2443=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 2444
04a80ee0
RGS
2445(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2446unaware of.
6ad11d81 2447
a0d0e21e
LW
2448=item junk on end of regexp
2449
2450(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2451
2452=item Label not found for "last %s"
2453
be771a83
GS
2454(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2455of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2456L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2457
2458=item Label not found for "next %s"
2459
2460(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2461that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2462L<perlfunc/last>.
2463
2464=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2465
2466(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2467that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2468L<perlfunc/last>.
2469
85ab1d1d 2470=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2471
85ab1d1d 2472(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2473effective uids or gids failed.
2474
49704364
WL
2475=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2476
d7f8936a 2477(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
49704364
WL
2478length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2479an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2480
e508c8a4
MH
2481=item length() used on %s
2482
0d46a4e7
FC
2483(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2484probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
2485
2486Array size can be obtained by doing:
2487
2488 scalar(@array);
2489
2490The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2491
2492 scalar(keys %hash);
2493
f0e67a1d
Z
2494=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2495
2496(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
96090e4f 2497(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character
d35a2c71
FC
2498that couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2499of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where it
2500is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
2501
2502=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2503
2504(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2505detectable way.
2506
69282e91 2507=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2508
be771a83
GS
2509(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2510to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2511L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2512
bcd05b94 2513=item localtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2514
e9200be3 2515(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
fc003d4b 2516than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
b539c2c9 2517wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2518not-a-number value).
2519
bcd05b94 2520=item localtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2521
e9200be3 2522(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
fc003d4b 2523than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
b539c2c9 2524wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b 2525not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 2526
58e23c8d 2527=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2528
2529(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
58e23c8d 2530handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2531
b88df990
NC
2532=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2533
2534(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2535for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2536hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2537because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2538are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2539You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2540
2f7da168
RK
2541=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2542
2543(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2544by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2545instead on the filehandle.)
2546
bb3abb05
FC
2547=item lvalue attribute cannot be removed after the subroutine has been defined
2548
2549(W misc) The lvalue attribute on a Perl subroutine cannot be turned off
2550once the subroutine is defined.
2551
885ef6f5
GG
2552=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2553
bb3abb05
FC
2554(W misc) Making a Perl subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been
2555defined, whether by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute
2556or by using L<attributes.pm|attributes>, is not possible. To make the subroutine an
2557lvalue subroutine, add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put
2558the declaration before the definition.
885ef6f5 2559
2db62bbc 2560=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 2561
2db62bbc 2562(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2563are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2564
2565=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2566
2db62bbc 2567(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2568are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2569
6df41af2
GS
2570=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2571
2572(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2573
2574 prefix1;prefix2
2575
2576or
6df41af2
GS
2577 prefix1 prefix2
2578
be771a83
GS
2579with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2580a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2581appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2582"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2583
2f758a16
ST
2584=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2585
d37a9538
ST
2586(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2587syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2588obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2589when the function is called.
2f758a16 2590
ba210ebe
JH
2591=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2592
2575c402
JW
2593(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2594encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2595
2575c402
JW
2596One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2597you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
25988-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2599
2600If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2601sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2602set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2603message.
2604
2605See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2606
ff3f963a
KW
2607=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2608
2609(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2610
4a5d3a93
FC
2611=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2612
2613(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2614rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2615
f337b084
TH
2616=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2617
2618(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2619rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2620
2621=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2622
2623(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2624rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2625
4a5d3a93 2626=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 2627
4a5d3a93
FC
2628(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2629doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2630
2631=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2632
2633(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2634regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2635shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2636See L<perlre>.
f337b084 2637
de42a5a9 2638=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 2639
2db62bbc 2640(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2641usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2642too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2643resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2644safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2645
25f58aea
PN
2646=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2647
2648(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2649interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2650"use" or "my".
2651
49704364 2652=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2653
2654(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2655checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2656See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2657
a0d0e21e
LW
2658=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2659
2660(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2661doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2662
3cdd684c
TP
2663=item Method %s not permitted
2664
2665See Server error.
2666
a0d0e21e
LW
2667=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2668
2669(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2670by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2671ended earlier on the current line.
2672
2673=item Misplaced _ in number
2674
d4ced10d
JH
2675(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2676separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2677
7baa4690
HS
2678=item Missing argument in %s
2679
2680(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2681supplied.
2682
9e81e6a1
RGS
2683=item Missing argument to -%c
2684
2685(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2686immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2687
ff3f963a 2688=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2689
4a2d328f 2690(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
2691double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2692(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2693This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2694follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 2695
f0a2b745
KW
2696=item Missing braces on \o{}
2697
2698(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2699
a0d0e21e
LW
2700=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2701
2702(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2703"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2704
06eaf0bc
GS
2705=item Missing command in piped open
2706
be771a83
GS
2707(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2708C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2709blank.
06eaf0bc 2710
961ce445
RGS
2711=item Missing control char name in \c
2712
2713(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2714character name.
2715
6df41af2
GS
2716=item Missing name in "my sub"
2717
be771a83
GS
2718(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2719they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2720
2721=item Missing $ on loop variable
2722
be771a83
GS
2723(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2724are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2725can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2726
cc507455 2727=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2728
56da5a46
RGS
2729(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2730"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2731
ab13f0c7
JH
2732=item Missing right brace on %s
2733
ff3f963a
KW
2734(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2735
4a68bf9d 2736=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 2737
d32207c9
FC
2738(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2739
2740The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2741meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
2742name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2743double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2744it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2745
2746Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2747in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2748for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2749
2750This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2751by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2752form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2753means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
27543; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2755C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2756
2757However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2758mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2759If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2760escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2761
d98d5fff 2762=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2763
be771a83
GS
2764(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2765ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2766were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2767
6df41af2
GS
2768=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2769
56da5a46
RGS
2770(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2771"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2772the previous line just because you saw this message.
2773
a0d0e21e
LW
2774=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2775
2776(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2777constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2778catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2779
2780 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2781 mod(2);
2782
2783Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2784
c5674021
PDF
2785Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2786is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2787
2788 $x = 1;
2789 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2790 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2791 }
c5674021 2792
7a4340ed 2793=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2794
2795(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2796subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2797backwards.
2798
7a4340ed 2799=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2800
be771a83
GS
2801(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2802couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2803
2804=item Module name must be constant
2805
2806(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2807
be98fb35 2808=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2809
be98fb35
GS
2810(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2811you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2812about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2813
fe13d51d 2814=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7
SG
2815
2816(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2817can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2818list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2819See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2820
a0d0e21e
LW
2821=item msg%s not implemented
2822
2823(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2824
2825=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2826
75b44862
GS
2827(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2828They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2829
49704364 2830=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2831
49704364
WL
2832(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2833follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2834See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2835
2836=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2837
be771a83
GS
2838(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2839that yet.
6df41af2 2840
fd1b7234 2841=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2842
be771a83
GS
2843(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2844sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2845local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2846
8149aa9f
FC
2847=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2848
2849(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2850If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2851again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2852provided for this purpose.
2853
2854NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2855%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2856the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2857will not trigger this warning.
2858
4a68bf9d 2859=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
ff3f963a 2860
c3c41406 2861(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
f4e361c7
FC
2862character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses
2863its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not
2864what you want.
c3c41406 2865
4a68bf9d 2866=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
c3c41406 2867
f4e361c7
FC
2868(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
2869sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
2870bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
7fae04b9 2871backslash in double-quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2872
2873 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2874 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2875 /$re/;
2876
b09c05e6 2877Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2878
2879 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2880 /$re/;
2881
2882The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2883components:
2884
2885 $re = '\N';
2886 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2887
2888It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2889doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2890
2891Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2892C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2893
2894 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2895 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2896
49704364
WL
2897=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2898
2899(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2900negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2901
a0d0e21e
LW
2902=item Negative length
2903
be771a83
GS
2904(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2905length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2906
ed9aa3b7
SG
2907=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2908
2909(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2910greater than or equal to zero.
2911
7253e4e3 2912=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2913
b45f050a 2914(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2915things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2916expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2917
7253e4e3 2918Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2919C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2920
6df41af2 2921=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2922
be771a83
GS
2923(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2924scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2925
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2926=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2927
2928(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2929real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2930See L<mro>.
2931
a0d0e21e
LW
2932=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2933
be771a83
GS
2934(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2935setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2936will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2937securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2938
a0d0e21e
LW
2939=item No comma allowed after %s
2940
2941(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2942allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2943Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2944
0a753a76 2945One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2946constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2947importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2948does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
f7af5ce1 2949explicit import list for the constants you expect to see; please see
0a753a76 2950L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2951would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2952remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2953constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2954list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2955this error was triggered?
2956
748a9306
LW
2957=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2958
be771a83
GS
2959(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2960redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2961doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2962
a0d0e21e
LW
2963=item No DB::DB routine defined
2964
be771a83 2965(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 2966for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
2967module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2968statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2969
2970=item No dbm on this machine
2971
2972(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2973supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2974
ccafdc96 2975=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2976
ccafdc96
RGS
2977(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2978for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2979module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2980of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2981
c47ff5f1 2982=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2983
be771a83
GS
2984(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2985redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2986find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2987
49704364
WL
2988=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2989
2990(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2991matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2992
c47ff5f1 2993=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2994
be771a83
GS
2995(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2996redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2997name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2998
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2999=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3000
3001(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3002in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3003it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3004or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3005
6df41af2
GS
3006=item "no" not allowed in expression
3007
be771a83
GS
3008(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3009returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 3010
c47ff5f1 3011=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 3012
be771a83
GS
3013(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3014redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3015doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 3016
c47ff5f1 3017=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 3018
be771a83
GS
3019(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3020redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3021find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 3022
1ec3e8de
GS
3023=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3024
be771a83
GS
3025(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3026declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3027semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 3028
a0d0e21e
LW
3029=item No Perl script found in input
3030
3031(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3032with #! and containing the word "perl".
3033
3034=item No setregid available
3035
3036(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3037your system.
3038
3039=item No setreuid available
3040
3041(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3042your system.
3043
6df41af2
GS
3044=item No %s specified for -%c
3045
3046(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
3047you haven't specified one.
f7af5ce1 3048
e75d1f10
RD
3049=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3050
3051(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
3052but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
3053package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
3054
2c692339
RGS
3055=item No such class %s
3056
dc7e5945
FC
3057(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3058declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2c692339 3059
3c20a832
SP
3060=item No such hook: %s
3061
dc7e5945
FC
3062(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3063Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 3064
6df41af2
GS
3065=item No such pipe open
3066
3067(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
3068close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3069earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 3070
a0d0e21e
LW
3071=item No such signal: SIG%s
3072
be771a83
GS
3073(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3074not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3075names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
3076
3077=item Not a CODE reference
3078
3079(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3080subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3081use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3082also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3083
3084=item Not a format reference
3085
3086(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
3087format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
3088
3089=item Not a GLOB reference
3090
be771a83
GS
3091(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3092symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3093something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3094kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3095
3096=item Not a HASH reference
3097
be771a83
GS
3098(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3099reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3100find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3101
6df41af2
GS
3102=item Not an ARRAY reference
3103
be771a83
GS
3104(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3105a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3106to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 3107
d4fc4415
FC
3108=item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3109
3110(F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3111another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3112or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3113
a0d0e21e
LW
3114=item Not a SCALAR reference
3115
be771a83
GS
3116(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3117a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3118to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3119
3120=item Not a subroutine reference
3121
3122(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3123subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3124use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3125also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3126
e7ea3e70 3127=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3128
3129(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3130doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3131
a0d0e21e
LW
3132=item Not enough arguments for %s
3133
3134(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3135
6df41af2
GS
3136=item Not enough format arguments
3137
be771a83
GS
3138(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3139supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3140
3141=item %s: not found
3142
be771a83
GS
3143(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3144of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3145yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3146
3147=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3148
6df41af2
GS
3149(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3150timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3151to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3152F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3153need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3154
f0a2b745
KW
3155=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3156
5493e060
FC
3157(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3158unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as
3159indicated.
f0a2b745 3160
4ef2275c
GA
3161=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3162
3163(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3164Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
bc4b151d 3165select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4ef2275c 3166
a0d0e21e
LW
3167=item Null filename used
3168
be771a83
GS
3169(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3170machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 3171
6df41af2
GS
3172=item NULL OP IN RUN
3173
f84fe999 3174(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 3175pointer.
6df41af2 3176
55497cff 3177=item Null picture in formline
3178
3179(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3180specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3181supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3182
a0d0e21e
LW
3183=item Null realloc
3184
3185(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3186
3187=item NULL regexp argument
3188
5f05dabc 3189(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3190
3191=item NULL regexp parameter
3192
3193(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3194
fc36a67e 3195=item Number too long
3196
be771a83 3197(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3198about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3199versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3200the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3201"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3202
f0a2b745
KW
3203=item Number with no digits
3204
1043934d
FC
3205(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
3206a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
3207the braces.
f0a2b745 3208
6df41af2
GS
3209=item Octal number in vector unsupported
3210
be771a83
GS
3211(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3212The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3213future version.
6df41af2 3214
252aa082
JH
3215=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3216
75b44862 3217(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3218(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3219L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 3220
6ad11d81
JH
3221=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3222
04a80ee0
RGS
3223(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3224arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3225
b21befc1
MG
3226=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3227
3228(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3229which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3230
1930e939 3231=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3232
be771a83
GS
3233(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3234which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3235
bbce6d69 3236=item Offset outside string
3237
1fa582fa 3238(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 3239with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3240imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3241take place when going past the end of the string when either
3242C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3243for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3244with real files).
bbce6d69 3245
c289d2f7 3246=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3247
3248(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3249never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3250call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3251
96ebfdd7
RK
3252=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3253
3254(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3255that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3256
a0d0e21e
LW
3257=item oops: oopsAV
3258
e476b1b5 3259(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3260
3261=item oops: oopsHV
3262
e476b1b5 3263(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3264
abc718f2
RGS
3265=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3266
a4a4c9e2 3267(W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3268a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3269Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3270and is deprecated.
3271
3272=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3273
a4a4c9e2 3274(W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3275a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3276Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3277and is deprecated.
3278
a0288114 3279=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3280
be771a83
GS
3281(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3282handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3283of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 3284the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3285
5ff1373f 3286=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 3287
8457b38f
KW
3288(W utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3289semantics on a code
5ff1373f
FC
3290point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not defined. Perl
3291has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3292
3293If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3294matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3295
3296If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3297C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 3298
5ff1373f 3299=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 3300
8457b38f
KW
3301(W utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3302semantics on a Unicode
5ff1373f
FC
3303surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of surrogates for anything but
3304storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics are (reluctantly) defined for
3305the surrogates, and they are to do nothing for this operation. Because
3306the use of surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3307
3308If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3309matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3310
3311If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3312C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 3313
748a9306
LW
3314=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3315
be771a83
GS
3316(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3317was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3318use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3319example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3320"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3321
6df41af2
GS
3322=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3323
be771a83
GS
3324(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3325in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3326
a80b8354
GS
3327=item Out of memory!
3328
3329(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3330remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3331no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3332
19a52907
JH
3333At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3334process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3335C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3336the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3337and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3338
6d3b25aa
RGS
3339=item Out of memory during %s extend
3340
3341(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond