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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
466416ed 23below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
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24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
fa816bf3 26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
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27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
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53=item Aliasing via reference is experimental
54
55(S experimental::refaliasing) This warning is emitted if you use
56a reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment to
57alias one variable to another. Simply suppress the warning if you
58want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
59the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be
60removed in a future Perl version:
61
62 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
63 use feature "refaliasing";
64 \$x = \$y;
65
de42a5a9 66=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 67
6df41af2 68(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 69
04f74579 70=item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
ef54e1a4 71
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72(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
73after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 74
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75=item alpha->numify() is lossy
76
77(W numeric) An alpha version can not be numified without losing
78information.
79
6df41af2 80=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 81
75b44862 82(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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83keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
84one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
85subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 86
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87To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
88before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
89Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
90imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 91
6df41af2 92To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 93on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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94to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
95L<attributes>).
43192e07 96
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97=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
98
99(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
100all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
101first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
102C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
103
6df41af2 104=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 105
7c7af292 106(S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
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107you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
108a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 109
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110=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
111
112(S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
113string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
114the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
115write C<-foo()>.
116
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117=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
118
7c7af292 119(S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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120bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
121(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
122like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
123assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
124clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
125really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 126
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127=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
128
129(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
130asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
131named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 132the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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133function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
134and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
135
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136=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
137
138=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 139
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140(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
141the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
1422 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
143might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
144foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
145that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
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146
147In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
148to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
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149C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
150by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
151want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
152unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
153that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
154off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 155
6df41af2 156=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 157
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158(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
159redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
160redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 161
6df41af2 162=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 163
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164(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
165redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
166into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
167though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
168which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 169
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170 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
171 while (<STDIN>) {
172 print;
173 print OUT;
174 }
175 close OUT;
c9f97d15 176
6df41af2 177=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 178
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179(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
180transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 181one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 182a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
183hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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184you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
185alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 186
6df41af2 187=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 188
6df41af2 189(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 190
f86702cc 191=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 192
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193(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
194that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
195will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 196
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197Note that for the C<Inf> and C<NaN> (infinity and not-a-number) the
198definition of "numeric" is somewhat unusual: the strings themselves
199(like "Inf") are considered numeric, and anything following them is
200considered non-numeric.
201
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202=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
203
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204(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
205system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
206take care of transforming data between external and internal
207representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
208point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
209didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
210result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 211
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212=item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
213
214(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
215operator which expects either a number or a string matching
216C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
217Auto-decrement> for details.
218
637494ac 219=item Array passed to stat will be coerced to a scalar%s
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220
221(W syntax) You called stat() on an array, but the array will be
222coerced to a scalar - the number of elements in the array.
223
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224=item A signature parameter must start with '$', '@' or '%'
225
226(F) Each subroutine signature parameter declaration must start with a valid
227sigil; for example:
228
229 sub foo ($a, $, $b = 1, @c) {}
230
231=item A slurpy parameter may not have a default value
232
233(F) Only scalar subroutine signature parameters may have a default value;
234for example:
235
236 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
237 sub foo (@a = (1)) {} # invalid
238 sub foo (%a = (a => b)) {} # invalid
239
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240=item assertion botched: %s
241
21b5e840 242(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
a0d0e21e 243
0eacef8e 244=item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
a0d0e21e 245
21b5e840 246(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 247
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248=item Assigned value is not a reference
249
250(F) You tried to assign something that was not a reference to an lvalue
251reference (e.g., C<\$x = $y>). If you meant to make $x an alias to $y, use
252C<\$x = \$y>.
253
254=item Assigned value is not %s reference
255
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256(F) You tried to assign a reference to a reference constructor, but the
257two references were not of the same type. You cannot alias a scalar to
258an array, or an array to a hash; the two types must match.
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259
260 \$x = \@y; # error
261 \@x = \%y; # error
262 $y = [];
263 \$x = $y; # error; did you mean \$y?
264
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265=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
266
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267(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled
268(e.g., and under C<use v5.16;>, and as of Perl 5.30)
7d345e3d 269the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 270
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271=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
272
273(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
274must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
275know which context to supply to the right side.
276
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277=item Assuming NOT a POSIX class since %s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
278
279(W regexp) You had something like these:
280
281 [[:alnum]]
282 [[:digit:xyz]
283
284They look like they might have been meant to be the POSIX classes
285C<[:alnum:]> or C<[:digit:]>. If so, they should be written:
286
287 [[:alnum:]]
288 [[:digit:]xyz]
289
290Since these aren't legal POSIX class specifications, but are legal
291bracketed character classes, Perl treats them as the latter. In the
292first example, it matches the characters C<":">, C<"[">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
293C<"m">, C<"n">, and C<"u">.
294
295If these weren't meant to be POSIX classes, this warning message is
296spurious, and can be suppressed by reordering things, such as
297
298 [[al:num]]
299
300or
301
302 [[:munla]]
303
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304=item <> at require-statement should be quotes
305
306(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
307C<require 'file'>.
308
2393f1b9 309=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 310
49293501 311(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 312the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 313
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314=item Attempt to bless into a freed package
315
316(F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
317the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
0c5a5b27 318do, so it throws up its hands in despair.
dcdfe746 319
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320=item Attempt to bless into a reference
321
322(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 323the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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324supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
325
326 bless $self, $proto;
327
328when you intended
329
330 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
331
332If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
333of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
334example by:
335
336 bless $self, "$proto";
337
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338=item Attempt to clear deleted array
339
340(S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
341Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
342can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
343callback on the array.
344
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345=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
346
347(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
348which is not in its key set.
349
350=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
351
352(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
353declared readonly from a restricted hash.
354
de42a5a9 355=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 356
f84fe999 357(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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358that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
359outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 360
12578ffb 361=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 362
f84fe999 363(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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364strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
365strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
366of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 367
7d5b40b4 368=item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 369
f84fe999 370(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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371free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
372SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
373free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
374try to free it.
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375
376=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
377
f84fe999 378(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e 379
7d5b40b4 380=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 381
8f7e4d2c 382(S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
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383see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
384earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
385This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
386that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
387mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
388corrupted.
a0d0e21e 389
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390=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
391
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392(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
393function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
394means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
395invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
396literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
397avoid this warning.
84902520 398
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399=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
400
401(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
402compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
403unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
404L<perlvar/%INC>.
405
1b20cd17
NC
406=item Attempt to set length of freed array
407
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FC
408(W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
409been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
410scalar representing the last index of an array and later
411assigning through that reference. For example
1b20cd17
NC
412
413 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
414 $$r = 503
415
b7a902f4 416=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
417
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418(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
419used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
420dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 421
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422=item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
423
424(W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
425example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
426declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
427
ccce04a4
FC
428=item av_reify called on tied array
429
430(S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
431confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
432
de42a5a9 433=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 434
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435(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
436or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 437S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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438S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
439
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440=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
441
496a33f5 442(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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443substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
444most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
445
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446=item Bad filehandle: %s
447
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448(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
449symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
450open(), or did it in another package.
a0d0e21e
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451
452=item Bad free() ignored
453
be771a83 454(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
fa816bf3 455been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 456setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 457
9ea8bc6d 458This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 459dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 460which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 461
aa689395 462=item Bad hash
463
464(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
465
6df41af2
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466=item Badly placed ()'s
467
468(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
469of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
470Perl yourself.
471
a7cb8dae 472=item Bad name after %s
a0d0e21e 473
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474(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
475didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
476of quotes, so
a0d0e21e
LW
477
478 $var = 'myvar';
479 $sym = mypack::$var;
480
481is not the same as
482
483 $var = 'myvar';
484 $sym = "mypack::$var";
485
88e1f1a2
JV
486=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
487
488(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
489plugin API.
490
4ad56ec9
IZ
491=item Bad realloc() ignored
492
6903afa2
FC
493(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
494had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
495be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 496
a0d0e21e
LW
497=item Bad symbol for array
498
499(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
500wasn't a symbol table entry.
501
4df3f177
SP
502=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
503
504(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
505that wasn't a symbol table entry.
506
a0d0e21e
LW
507=item Bad symbol for filehandle
508
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509(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
510that wasn't a symbol table entry.
a0d0e21e
LW
511
512=item Bad symbol for hash
513
514(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
515wasn't a symbol table entry.
516
e6d55c99
FC
517=item Bad symbol for scalar
518
519(P) An internal request asked to add a scalar entry to something that
520wasn't a symbol table entry.
521
34d09196
GS
522=item Bareword found in conditional
523
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524(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
525conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
526of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
527
528 open FOO || die;
529
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530It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
531a bareword:
34d09196
GS
532
533 use constant TYPO => 1;
534 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
535
536The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
537
a52f2cce
NC
538=item Bareword in require contains "%s"
539
a52f2cce
NC
540=item Bareword in require maps to disallowed filename "%s"
541
09eb1f39 542=item Bareword in require maps to empty filename
5bad2b39 543
a52f2cce 544(F) The bareword form of require has been invoked with a filename which could
d4e5761f 545not have been generated by a valid bareword permitted by the parser. You
a52f2cce
NC
546shouldn't be able to get this error from Perl code, but XS code may throw it
547if it passes an invalid module name to C<Perl_load_module>.
548
5bad2b39
DM
549=item Bareword in require must not start with a double-colon: "%s"
550
551(F) In C<require Bare::Word>, the bareword is not allowed to start with a
d4e5761f 552double-colon. Write C<require ::Foo::Bar> as C<require Foo::Bar> instead.
5bad2b39 553
6df41af2
GS
554=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
555
556(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
be771a83
GS
557subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
558symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
559
560=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
561
be771a83
GS
562(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
563compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
564you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 565
a0d0e21e
LW
566=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
567
be771a83
GS
568(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
569subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
570exited.
a0d0e21e 571
68dc0745 572=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
573
574(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
be771a83
GS
575implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
576occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
577be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
578depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 579
c782d7ee 580=item \%d better written as $%d
6df41af2 581
be771a83
GS
582(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
583The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
584substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
585because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
586there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 587
252aa082
JH
588=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
589
e476b1b5 590(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
591(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
592L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 593
69282e91 594=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 595
be771a83
GS
596(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
597check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 598
c289d2f7
JH
599=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
600
601(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 602Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 603
c5a0f51a
JH
604=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
605
e476b1b5 606(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 607
043c750c 608=item Bizarre copy of %s
4633a7c4 609
be771a83 610(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
ab830aa0 611copiable.
4633a7c4 612
5a25739d
FC
613=item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
614
434f489b 615(P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
5a25739d
FC
616encountered an invalid data type.
617
b927b7e9 618=item Both or neither range ends should be Unicode in regex; marked by
6e8a73f2 619S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b927b7e9
KW
620
621(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
622
623In a bracketed character class in a regular expression pattern, you
624had a range which has exactly one end of it specified using C<\N{}>, and
625the other end is specified using a non-portable mechanism. Perl treats
626the range as a Unicode range, that is, all the characters in it are
627considered to be the Unicode characters, and which may be different code
628points on some platforms Perl runs on. For example, C<[\N{U+06}-\x08]>
629is treated as if you had instead said C<[\N{U+06}-\N{U+08}]>, that is it
630matches the characters whose code points in Unicode are 6, 7, and 8.
631But that C<\x08> might indicate that you meant something different, so
632the warning gets raised.
633
f675dbe5
CB
634=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
635
be771a83
GS
636(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
637iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
638which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 639
a0d0e21e
LW
640=item Callback called exit
641
4929bf7b 642(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
643exited by calling exit.
644
6df41af2 645=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 646
be771a83
GS
647(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
648parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
649that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
650early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
651subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
652checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
653function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
654the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 655
0c7df902
JH
656=item Cannot chr %f
657
658(F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
659
1b4d0d79
TC
660=item Cannot complete in-place edit of %s: %s
661
662(F) Your perl script appears to have changed directory while
663performing an in-place edit of a file specified by a relative path,
664and your system doesn't include the directory relative POSIX functions
665needed to handle that.
666
5dee29d4 667=item Cannot compress %f in pack
0c7df902 668
5dee29d4
JH
669(F) You tried compressing an infinity or not-a-number as an unsigned
670integer with BER, which makes no sense.
0c7df902 671
49704364 672=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b 673
717feafc
JH
674(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress.
675The BER compressed integer format can only be used with positive
676integers, and you attempted to compress a very large number (> 1e308).
677See L<perlfunc/pack>.
0258719b 678
49704364 679=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
680
681(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
682format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
683
5c1f4d79
NC
684=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
685
6903afa2
FC
686(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
687in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
688The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
689no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 690
4040665a 691=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
692
693(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 694be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 695
b5d97229
RGS
696=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
697
698(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
699either with open() or binmode().
700
714f94d1
FC
701=item Cannot open %s as a dirhandle: it is already open as a filehandle
702
703(F) You tried to use opendir() to associate a dirhandle to a symbol (glob
704or scalar) that already holds a filehandle. Since this idiom might render
705your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
706is a fatal error.
707
708=item Cannot open %s as a filehandle: it is already open as a dirhandle
709
710(F) You tried to use open() to associate a filehandle to a symbol (glob
711or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle. Since this idiom might render
712your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
713is a fatal error.
714
0c7df902
JH
715=item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
716
5dee29d4 717(F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an integer,
0c7df902
JH
718which makes no sense.
719
720=item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
721
722(F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
723which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
724
7355df7e
FC
725=item Cannot set tied @DB::args
726
727(F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
728is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
729
ce65bc73
FC
730=item Cannot tie unreifiable array
731
732(P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
733keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
734do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
735Perl code, but are only used internally.
736
26b0dc0c 737=item Cannot yet reorder sv_vcatpvfn() arguments from va_list
46e58bd2 738
26b0dc0c 739(F) Some XS code tried to use C<sv_vcatpvfn()> or a related function with a
46e58bd2 740format string that specifies explicit indexes for some of the elements, and
d4e5761f
FC
741using a C-style variable-argument list (a C<va_list>). This is not currently
742supported. XS authors wanting to do this must instead construct a C array
743of C<SV*> scalars containing the arguments.
46e58bd2 744
96ebfdd7
RK
745=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
746
747(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
748integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
749to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
750
a0d0e21e
LW
751=item Can't bless non-reference value
752
753(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
754encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
755
7896dde7
Z
756=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
757
758(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
759a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
760
761=item Can't "break" outside a given block
762
763(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
764
6df41af2
GS
765=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
766
767(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
768object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
769like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
770
771 $BADREF = undef;
772 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
773 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
774
a0d0e21e
LW
775=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
776
54310121 777(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
778ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
779didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
780object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
781
782=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
783
784(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
785object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
786defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
787Something like this will reproduce the error:
788
789 $BADREF = 42;
790 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
791 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
792
dfe378f1
FC
793=item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
794
795(P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
796symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
797
2bf7e7b2
FC
798=item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
799
800(F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
801not attached to the symbol table.
802
a0d0e21e
LW
803=item Can't chdir to %s
804
f703fc96 805(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
a0d0e21e
LW
806that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
807
0545a864 808=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 809
be771a83
GS
810(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
811nosuid.
104d25b7 812
22e74366 813=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
814
815(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 816(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
817say things like:
818
819 *foo += 1;
820
821You CAN say
822
823 $foo = *foo;
824 $foo += 1;
825
826but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
827
7896dde7 828=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 829
7896dde7
Z
830(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
831or C<default> block.
0d863452 832
a0d0e21e
LW
833=item Can't create pipe mailbox
834
be771a83
GS
835(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
836quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 837
eb64745e
GS
838=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
839
30c282f6
NC
840(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
841"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 842
7896dde7
Z
843=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
844
845(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
846C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
847issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
848error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
849
1e85b658
DM
850=item Can't determine class of operator %s, assuming BASEOP
851
852(S) This warning indicates something wrong in the internals of perl.
853Perl was trying to find the class (e.g. LISTOP) of a particular OP,
854and was unable to do so. This is likely to be due to a bug in the perl
855internals, or due to a bug in XS code which manipulates perl optrees.
856
a2162cd9
FC
857=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
858
859(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
860a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
861
862=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
863
864(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
865reason.
866
a2162cd9
FC
867=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
868
869(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
870characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
871inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
872
ab0b796c
KW
873=item Can't do %s("%s") on non-UTF-8 locale; resolved to "%s".
874
875(W locale) You are 1) running under "C<use locale>"; 2) the current
876locale is not a UTF-8 one; 3) you tried to do the designated case-change
877operation on the specified Unicode character; and 4) the result of this
878operation would mix Unicode and locale rules, which likely conflict.
879Mixing of different rule types is forbidden, so the operation was not
880done; instead the result is the indicated value, which is the best
881available that uses entirely Unicode rules. That turns out to almost
882always be the original character, unchanged.
883
884It is generally a bad idea to mix non-UTF-8 locales and Unicode, and
885this issue is one of the reasons why. This warning is raised when
886Unicode rules would normally cause the result of this operation to
887contain a character that is in the range specified by the locale,
8880..255, and hence is subject to the locale's rules, not Unicode's.
889
890If you are using locale purely for its characteristics related to things
891like its numeric and time formatting (and not C<LC_CTYPE>), consider
892using a restricted form of the locale pragma (see L<perllocale/The "use
893locale" pragma>) like "S<C<use locale ':not_characters'>>".
894
895Note that failed case-changing operations done as a result of
896case-insensitive C</i> regular expression matching will show up in this
897warning as having the C<fc> operation (as that is what the regular
898expression engine calls behind the scenes.)
899
a0d0e21e
LW
900=item Can't do waitpid with flags
901
be771a83
GS
902(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
903waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 904
a0d0e21e
LW
905=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
906
be771a83
GS
907(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
908point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
909line.
a0d0e21e 910
1109a392
MHM
911=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
912
913(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
914or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
915little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
916See L<perlfunc/pack>.
917
a0d0e21e
LW
918=item Can't exec "%s": %s
919
d1be9408 920(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
921named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
922permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
923C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
924architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
925can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
926#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
927
928=item Can't exec %s
929
be771a83
GS
930(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
931that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
932need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
933
934=item Can't execute %s
935
be771a83
GS
936(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
937found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 938
6df41af2 939=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 940
be771a83
GS
941(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
942is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2
GS
943
944=item Can't find label %s
945
be771a83
GS
946(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
947possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
948
949=item Can't find %s on PATH
950
be771a83
GS
951(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
952found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 953
6df41af2 954=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 955
be771a83
GS
956(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
957found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
958script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
959
960=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
961
be771a83
GS
962(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
963that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
964nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 965
fb73857a 966 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
967
97b3d10f 968If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
969included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
970may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
971a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
972L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 973
660a4616
TS
974=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
975
29f52644
KW
976=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
977
978(F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
979known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
e1b711da 980L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
29f52644
KW
981for a complete list of available official
982properties. If it is a
983L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
984it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
985matched.
986
987If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
988by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
5f8ad6b6 989until C<\E>).
660a4616 990
b3647a36 991=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 992
be771a83
GS
993(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
994pipeline.
a0d0e21e 995
b3647a36
SR
996=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
997
c973c02e 998(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
999after five seconds.
1000
748a9306
LW
1001=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
1002
be771a83
GS
1003(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
1004between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
1005Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
1006the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
1007account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
1008the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 1009the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
1010the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
1011if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
1012because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
1013appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
1014and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
1015routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
1016shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
1017only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 1018
a0d0e21e
LW
1019=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
1020
be771a83
GS
1021(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
1022pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
1023
1024=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
1025
748a9306
LW
1026(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
1027mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 1028
6d90e983
FC
1029=item Can't "goto" into a binary or list expression
1030
1031(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a binary
1032or list expression. You can't get there from here. The reason for this
1033restriction is that the interpreter would get confused as to how many
1034arguments there are, resulting in stack corruption or crashes. This
1035error occurs in cases such as these:
1036
1037 goto F;
1038 print do { F: }; # Can't jump into the arguments to print
1039
1040 goto G;
1041 $x + do { G: $y }; # How is + supposed to get its first operand?
1042
a01f4640
FC
1043=item Can't "goto" into a "given" block
1044
1045(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a C<given>
1046block. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1047
6df41af2 1048=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 1049
be771a83
GS
1050(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
1051loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
1052
1053=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
1054
be771a83
GS
1055(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
1056a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
1057you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
1058See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 1059
5a25739d
FC
1060=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
1061
1062(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
1063"string" or block.
1064
9850bf21 1065=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 1066
9850bf21
RH
1067(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
1068comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
1069as the reduce() function in List::Util).
1070
6df41af2
GS
1071=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
1072
be771a83
GS
1073(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
1074subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
1075cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
1076routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 1077
0b5b802d
GS
1078=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
1079
be771a83
GS
1080(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
1081signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
1082signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
1083processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
1084situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
1085may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 1086
e2c0f81f
DG
1087=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
1088
1089(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
1090attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
1091process identifier.
1092
6df41af2 1093=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 1094
6df41af2 1095(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
1096except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
1097block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
1098block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
1099usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
1100inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
1101L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 1102
2c7d6b9c
RGS
1103=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
1104
1105(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
1106package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
1107
b8170e59
JB
1108=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
1109
6903afa2
FC
1110(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
1111This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
1112that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
1113to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
1114dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
1115that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
1116dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 1117
748a9306
LW
1118=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
1119
2ba9eb46 1120(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
1121lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
1122want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
1123the package name.
748a9306 1124
6df41af2 1125=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 1126
6df41af2
GS
1127(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
1128handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 1129pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 1130that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 1131
ea071790 1132=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a 1133
fa816bf3
FC
1134(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
1135Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
1136the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
1137to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
1138extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
be771a83
GS
1139to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
1140L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 1141
6df41af2
GS
1142=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
1143
be771a83
GS
1144(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
1145autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
1146are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
1147the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 1148
b8170e59
JB
1149=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
1150
1151(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 1152for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
1153unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
1154
a0d0e21e
LW
1155=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
1156
1157(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
1158functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 1159method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 1160
8af56b9d
FC
1161=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
1162to load "%s"?)
1163
1164(F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
1165could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
1166requires a package that has not been loaded.
1167
a0d0e21e
LW
1168=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
1169
be771a83
GS
1170(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
1171doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 1172
2f7da168
RK
1173=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1174
1175(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1176e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1177
f4ad53f4 1178=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 1179
be771a83
GS
1180(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1181VMS.
3e3baf6d 1182
cd40cd58
NC
1183=item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1184
ff9c1ae8 1185(S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
cd40cd58
NC
1186that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1187process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1188the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1189from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1190functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1191
a0d0e21e
LW
1192=item Can't modify %s in %s
1193
be771a83
GS
1194(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1195to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 1196
54310121 1197=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
1198
1199(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1200a NULL.
1201
0f948285 1202=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s
6df41af2 1203
8d9d0498
FC
1204=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s in %s
1205
6df41af2 1206(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 1207such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 1208
cf6e1fa1
FC
1209=item Can't modify reference to %s in %s assignment
1210
1211(F) Only a limited number of constructs can be used as the argument to a
1212reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment, and what
1213you used was not one of them. See L<perlref/Assigning to References>.
1214
1215=item Can't modify reference to localized parenthesized array in list
1216assignment
1217
1218(F) Assigning to C<\local(@array)> or C<\(local @array)> is not supported, as
1219it is not clear exactly what it should do. If you meant to make @array
1220refer to some other array, use C<\@array = \@other_array>. If you want to
1221make the elements of @array aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1222right-hand side, use C<\(@array) = @scalar_refs>.
1223
1224=item Can't modify reference to parenthesized hash in list assignment
1225
1226(F) Assigning to C<\(%hash)> is not supported. If you meant to make %hash
1227refer to some other hash, use C<\%hash = \%other_hash>. If you want to
1228make the elements of %hash into aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1229right-hand side, use a hash slice: C<\@hash{@keys} = @those_scalar_refs>.
1230
5f05dabc 1231=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 1232
5f05dabc 1233(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1234buffer.
1235
6df41af2
GS
1236=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1237
1238(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1239there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1240count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1241grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1242though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1243once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1244
a0d0e21e
LW
1245=item Can't open %s: %s
1246
c47ff5f1 1247(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e 1248filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
46fa9b26
FC
1249switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1250this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1251you named on the command line.
1252
1253(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1254your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
a0d0e21e 1255
9a869a14
RGS
1256=item Can't open a reference
1257
1258(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1259using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1260
1261 open FH, '>', $ref;
1262
1263but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1264open is not supported.
1265
a0d0e21e
LW
1266=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1267
be771a83
GS
1268(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1269You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1270as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1271">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1272
748a9306
LW
1273=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1274
be771a83
GS
1275(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1276redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1277the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1278
1279=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1280
be771a83
GS
1281(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1282redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1283command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1284
1285=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1286
be771a83
GS
1287(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1288redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1289the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1290
1291=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1292
be771a83
GS
1293(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1294redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1295for stdout.
748a9306 1296
3b1cf97d 1297=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1298
1299(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1300
fa3aa65a
JC
1301If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1302shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1303you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1304
6df41af2
GS
1305=item Can't read CRTL environ
1306
1307(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1308from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1309missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1310or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1311searched.
6df41af2 1312
f3106bc8
LM
1313=item Can't redeclare "%s" in "%s"
1314
1315(F) A "my", "our" or "state" declaration was found within another declaration,
1316such as C<my ($x, my($y), $z)> or C<our (my $x)>.
1317
6df41af2
GS
1318=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1319
1320(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1321there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1322count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1323or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1324though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1325loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1326
64977eb6 1327=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1328
be771a83
GS
1329(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1330file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1331the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1332
e0d4aead
TC
1333=item Can't rename in-place work file '%s' to '%s': %s
1334
1335(F) When closed implicitly, the temporary file for in-place editing
1336couldn't be renamed to the original filename.
1337
ecc6274e
FC
1338=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1339
1340(F) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1341probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1342
748a9306
LW
1343=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1344
be771a83
GS
1345(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1346to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1347
9415f659
KW
1348=item Can't represent character for Ox%X on this platform
1349
1350(F) There is a hard limit to how big a character code point can be due
1351to the fundamental properties of UTF-8, especially on EBCDIC
1352platforms. The given code point exceeds that. The only work-around is
1353to not use such a large code point.
1354
4f12ec0e
FC
1355=item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1356
1357(F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1358all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1359the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1360supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1361
fe13d51d 1362=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1363
1fa582fa
FC
1364(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1365opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1366package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1367
cd06dffe
GS
1368=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1369
be771a83
GS
1370(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1371temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1372is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1373
96ebfdd7
RK
1374=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1375
1376(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1377there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1378
78f9721b
SM
1379=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1380
6903afa2
FC
1381(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1382subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1383think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1384write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1385Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1386
a0d0e21e
LW
1387=item Can't stat script "%s"
1388
be771a83
GS
1389(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1390open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1391
a0d0e21e
LW
1392=item Can't take log of %g
1393
fb73857a 1394(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1395negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1396standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1397negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1398
1399=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1400
1401(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1402negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1403with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1404
1405=item Can't undef active subroutine
1406
1407(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1408however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1409redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1410
ecc6274e
FC
1411=item Can't unweaken a nonreference
1412
1413(F) You attempted to unweaken something that was not a reference. Only
1414references can be unweakened.
1415
c81225bc 1416=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1417
be771a83
GS
1418(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1419into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1420specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1421indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1422
6651ba0b
FC
1423=item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1424
1425(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1426other than "=" after the module name.
1427
1f1ec7b5
KW
1428=item Can't use a hash as a reference
1429
1430(F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1431C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1432<= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1433have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5
KW
1434
1435=item Can't use an array as a reference
1436
1437(F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1438C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1439used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1440was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5 1441
1db89ea5
BS
1442=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1443
e27ad1f2 1444(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1445table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1446for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1447
96ebfdd7
RK
1448=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1449
1450(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1451be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1452
6df41af2
GS
1453=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1454
be771a83
GS
1455(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1456references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1457
90b75b61 1458=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1459
20561843 1460(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1461Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1462provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1463
1109a392
MHM
1464=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1465
1466(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1467byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1468allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1469
e35475de
KW
1470=item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1471
1472(F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1473checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1474array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1475
1476=item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1477
1478(F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1479
1480Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1481becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1482weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1483These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1484generates a fatal error.
1485
1486If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1487context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1488
1489 if (%hash) {
1490 # not empty
1491 }
1492
1493If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1494variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1495a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1496it's loaded, etc.
1497
6df41af2
GS
1498=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1499
c1f06047 1500(P) The parser got confused when trying to parse a C<foreach> loop.
6df41af2 1501
f27832e7 1502=item Can't use global %s in %s
6df41af2 1503
be771a83
GS
1504(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1505is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1506(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1507have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1508weren't.
1509
6d3b25aa
RGS
1510=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1511
1512(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1513that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1514For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1515is inside a big-endian group.
1516
c07a80fd 1517=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1518
1519(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1520You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1521and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1522Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1523lexical variable.
1524
a0d0e21e
LW
1525=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1526
1527(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1528reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1529test the type of the reference, if need be.
1530
748a9306 1531=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1532
5e634d20
FC
1533=item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1534
b41bf23f
FC
1535(F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1536C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1537L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1538in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1539for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1540of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1541symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
a0d0e21e 1542
748a9306
LW
1543=item Can't use subscript on %s
1544
1545(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1546subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1547didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1548
6df41af2
GS
1549=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1550
75b44862
GS
1551(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1552creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1553backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1554expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1555value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1556instead.
6df41af2 1557
810b8aa5
GS
1558=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1559
1560(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1561references can be weakened.
1562
7896dde7
Z
1563=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1564
1565(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1566loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1567from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1568or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1569
5f05dabc 1570=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1571
be771a83
GS
1572(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1573with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1574Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1575
a04e6aad 1576=item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
f9d13529 1577
7357bd17 1578(F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
17a3df4c 1579
727b6379 1580Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
7357bd17 1581discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
d4360efa 1582L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
f9d13529 1583
163a633c
KW
1584=item Character following \%c must be '{' or a single-character Unicode property name in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1585
1586(F) (In the above the C<%c> is replaced by either C<p> or C<P>.) You
1587specified something that isn't a legal Unicode property name. Most
1588Unicode properties are specified by C<\p{...}>. But if the name is a
1589single character one, the braces may be omitted.
1590
f337b084 1591=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1592
1593(W pack) You said
1594
1595 pack("C", $x)
1596
1597where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1598only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1599and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1600
1601 pack("C", $x & 255)
1602
1603If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1604instead.
1605
f337b084 1606=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1607
1608(W pack) You said
1609
1610 pack("c", $x)
1611
1612where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1613is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1614and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1615
1616 pack("c", $x & 255);
1617
1618If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1619instead.
1620
f337b084
TH
1621=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1622
1623(W unpack) You tried something like
1624
1625 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1626
1a147d38 1627where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1628below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1629value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1630
1631 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1632
5a25739d
FC
1633=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1634
1635(W pack) You said
1636
1637 pack("U0W", $x)
1638
1639where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1640expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1641as if you meant:
1642
1643 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1644
f337b084
TH
1645=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1646
1647(W pack) You tried something like
1648
1649 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1650
1a147d38 1651where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1652value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1653uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1654
1655 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1656
1657=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1658
1659(W unpack) You tried something like
1660
1661 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1662
1a147d38 1663where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1664value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1665uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1666
1667 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1668
8d9d0498
FC
1669=item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple
1670spaces; marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
f51551f7
FC
1671
1672(F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1673in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1674defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1675could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1676L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1677
8d9d0498
FC
1678=item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space;
1679marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
f51551f7
FC
1680
1681(F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1682character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1683defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1684could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1685See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1686
60121127
TC
1687=item chdir() on unopened filehandle %s
1688
1689(W unopened) You tried chdir() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1690
d4360efa 1691=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
f866a7cd 1692
d4360efa
S
1693(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1694non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1695is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1696for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1697between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
f866a7cd 1698
6651ba0b
FC
1699=item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1700
1701(F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1702
abc7ecad
SP
1703=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1704
1705(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1706a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1707
5a25739d
FC
1708=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1709
1710(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1711
541ed3a9
FC
1712=item Closure prototype called
1713
1714(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1715handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1716This subroutine cannot be called.
1717
74d1b2e4
FC
1718=item \C no longer supported in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1719
1720(F) The \C character class used to allow a match of single byte
1721within a multi-byte utf-8 character, but was removed in v5.24 as
1722it broke encapsulation and its implementation was extremely buggy.
1723If you really need to process the individual bytes, you probably
1724want to convert your string to one where each underlying byte is
1725stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1726
49704364
WL
1727=item Code missing after '/'
1728
6903afa2
FC
1729(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1730another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1731
c0236afe
KW
1732=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, and not portable
1733
dc4a6683 1734(S non_unicode portable) You had a code point that has never been in any
c0236afe 1735standard, so it is likely that languages other than Perl will NOT
dc4a6683
KW
1736understand it. This code point also will not fit in a 32-bit word on
1737ASCII platforms and therefore is non-portable between systems.
1738
1739At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
17400x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher, and this code point is higher.
c0236afe
KW
1741
1742Acceptance of these code points is a Perl extension, and you should
1743expect that nothing other than Perl can handle them; Perl itself on
1744EBCDIC platforms before v5.24 does not handle them.
1745
c0236afe
KW
1746Perl also makes no guarantees that the representation of these code
1747points won't change at some point in the future, say when machines
1748become available that have larger than a 64-bit word. At that time,
aaa9d2b4
KW
1749files containing any of these, written by an older Perl might require
1750conversion before being readable by a newer Perl.
c0236afe 1751
5a25739d
FC
1752=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1753
2d88a86a 1754(S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1b64326b
FC
1755of U+10FFFF.
1756
c0236afe
KW
1757Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, but
1758these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. Further, even if
1759these languages/systems accept these large code points, they may have
1760chosen a different representation for them than the UTF-8-like one that
1761Perl has, which would mean files are not exchangeable between them and
1762Perl.
1763
1764On EBCDIC platforms, code points above 0x3FFF_FFFF have a different
1765representation in Perl v5.24 than before, so any file containing these
1766that was written before that version will require conversion before
1767being readable by a later Perl.
0876b9a0 1768
6df41af2
GS
1769=item %s: Command not found
1770
a892b81a 1771(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
66a1f5ec
FC
1772instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1773Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
8f721816 1774
3bcfc7b3
LM
1775 #!/usr/bin/perl
1776
1777=item %s: command not found
1778
1779(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<bash> or another shell
1780instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1781Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1782
1783 #!/usr/bin/perl
1784
1785=item %s: command not found: %s
1786
1787(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<zsh> or another shell
1788instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1789Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1790
1791 #!/usr/bin/perl
6df41af2 1792
7a2e2cd6 1793=item Compilation failed in require
1794
1795(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1796Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1797encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1798
c3464db5
DD
1799=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1800
be771a83
GS
1801(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1802situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1803to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1804arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1805recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1806under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1807in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1808that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1809on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1810
69282e91 1811=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1812
be771a83
GS
1813(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1814to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1815L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1816
e21e7c6a
FC
1817=item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1818
1819(F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1820(see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1821L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1822
1823=item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1824
1825(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1826overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
f738a371 1827L<overload> pragma?
e21e7c6a 1828
779c5bc9
GS
1829=item Constant is not %s reference
1830
1831(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1832is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1833The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1834usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1835See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1836
30fc7a28 1837=item Constants from lexical variables potentially modified elsewhere are no longer permitted
0ac016fc 1838
30fc7a28 1839(F) You wrote something like
0ac016fc
FC
1840
1841 my $var;
1842 $sub = sub () { $var };
1843
1844but $var is referenced elsewhere and could be modified after the C<sub>
1845expression is evaluated. Either it is explicitly modified elsewhere
1846(C<$var = 3>) or it is passed to a subroutine or to an operator like
1847C<printf> or C<map>, which may or may not modify the variable.
1848
1849Traditionally, Perl has captured the value of the variable at that
1850point and turned the subroutine into a constant eligible for inlining.
1851In those cases where the variable can be modified elsewhere, this
1852breaks the behavior of closures, in which the subroutine captures
1853the variable itself, rather than its value, so future changes to the
1854variable are reflected in the subroutine's return value.
1855
30fc7a28 1856This usage was deprecated, and as of Perl 5.32 is no longer allowed,
9840d1d6 1857making it possible to change the behavior in the future.
0ac016fc
FC
1858
1859If you intended for the subroutine to be eligible for inlining, then
1860make sure the variable is not referenced elsewhere, possibly by
1861copying it:
1862
1863 my $var2 = $var;
1864 $sub = sub () { $var2 };
1865
1866If you do want this subroutine to be a closure that reflects future
1867changes to the variable that it closes over, add an explicit C<return>:
1868
1869 my $var;
1870 $sub = sub () { return $var };
1871
4cee8e80
CS
1872=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1873
aeb94125
FC
1874(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1875been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1876for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1877
9607fc9c 1878=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1879
be771a83
GS
1880(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1881for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1882workarounds.
9607fc9c 1883
5a25739d
FC
1884=item Constant(%s) unknown
1885
1886(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1887to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1888character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
3ee1a09c 1889forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?
5a25739d 1890
4a873d7a
FC
1891=item :const is experimental
1892
1893(S experimental::const_attr) The "const" attribute is experimental.
1894If you want to use the feature, disable the warning with C<no warnings
1895'experimental::const_attr'>, but know that in doing so you are taking
1896the risk that your code may break in a future Perl version.
1897
b77472f9
FC
1898=item :const is not permitted on named subroutines
1899
1900(F) The "const" attribute causes an anonymous subroutine to be run and
465068b9 1901its value captured at the time that it is cloned. Named subroutines are
b77472f9
FC
1902not cloned like this, so the attribute does not make sense on them.
1903
e7ea3e70
IZ
1904=item Copy method did not return a reference
1905
6903afa2 1906(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1907L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1908
4aaa4757
FC
1909=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1910
1911(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1912with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1913in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1914called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1915
1916 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1917 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1918
6798c92b
GS
1919=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1920
1921(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1922
675fa9ff
FC
1923=item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1924
1925(P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1926one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
8166b4e0 1927latter, report the problem to L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
675fa9ff 1928
a0d0e21e
LW
1929=item corrupted regexp pointers
1930
1931(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1932expression compiler gave it.
1933
1934=item corrupted regexp program
1935
be771a83
GS
1936(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1937valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1938
de42a5a9 1939=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1940
1941(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1942
49704364
WL
1943=item Count after length/code in unpack
1944
1945(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1946you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1947L<perlfunc/pack>.
1948
3f645a4e
FC
1949=item Declaring references is experimental
1950
1951(S experimental::declared_refs) This warning is emitted if you use
1952a reference constructor on the right-hand side of C<my>, C<state>, C<our>, or
1953C<local>. Simply suppress the warning if you want to use the feature, but
1954know that in doing so you are taking the risk of using an experimental
1955feature which may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
1956
1957 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
1958 use feature "declared_refs";
1959 $fooref = my \$foo;
1960
f2cccb4c
KW
1961=for comment
1962The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1963share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1964
6651ba0b
FC
1965=item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1966
a0d0e21e
LW
1967=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1968
be771a83
GS
1969(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1970100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1971infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1972which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1973
aad1d01f
NC
1974This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1975setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1976
e0e4a6e3
FC
1977=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1978S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
bcb95744 1979
6903afa2 1980(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1981most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1982of the C<....> part.
1983
6e8a73f2 1984The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
bcb95744
FC
1985discovered.
1986
62658f4d
PM
1987=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1988
1989(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1990there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1991
0ffcbc25
FC
1992=item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1993
4a0af295 1994(F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
0ffcbc25
FC
1995such as:
1996
1997 $foo{$bar}
1998 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
1999
2000or a hash or array slice, such as:
2001
2002 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
2003 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2004
cc0776d6
DIM
2005or a hash key/value or array index/value slice, such as:
2006
2007 %foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
2008 %{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2009
fc36a67e 2010=item Delimiter for here document is too long
2011
be771a83
GS
2012(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
2013long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
2014that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 2015
c437f7ac 2016=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30
6d3b25aa 2017
fa816bf3
FC
2018(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
2019has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6d3b25aa 2020not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 2021conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
fa816bf3 2022static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 2023relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 2024declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 2025
6d3b25aa
RGS
2026 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
2027
2028becomes
2029
2030 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
2031
ea9d9ebc 2032Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
fa816bf3 2033lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
36fb85f3
RGS
2034
2035 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
2036
c437f7ac
A
2037This use of C<my()> in a false conditional has been deprecated since
2038Perl 5.10, and it will become a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
2039
500ab966
RGS
2040=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
2041
2042(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
2043just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
2044than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 2045
3cdd684c
TP
2046=item Did not produce a valid header
2047
3de20fbe 2048See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 2049
6df41af2
GS
2050=item %s did not return a true value
2051
2052(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
2053it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
2054traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
2055do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
2056
cc507455 2057=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 2058
413ff9f6
FC
2059(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
2060some such.
4633a7c4 2061
cc507455 2062=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 2063
52e3acf8 2064(W shadow) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
be771a83
GS
2065variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
2066seems superfluous.
33633739 2067
cc507455 2068=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 2069
be771a83
GS
2070(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
2071@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
2072carried away.
748a9306 2073
7e1af8bc 2074=item Died
5f05dabc 2075
2076(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 2077you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 2078
3cdd684c
TP
2079=item Document contains no data
2080
3de20fbe 2081See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 2082
62658f4d
PM
2083=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
2084
2085(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
943fc58e 2086define a C<$VERSION>.
62658f4d 2087
49704364
WL
2088=item '/' does not take a repeat count
2089
2090(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
2091See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2092
1c99110e 2093=item do "%s" failed, '.' is no longer in @INC; did you mean do "./%s"?
2a0461a3 2094
b28683c9 2095(D deprecated) Previously C< do "somefile"; > would search the current
1c99110e
DM
2096directory for the specified file. Since perl v5.26.0, F<.> has been
2097removed from C<@INC> by default, so this is no longer true. To search the
2098current directory (and only the current directory) you can write
2099C< do "./somefile"; >.
2a0461a3 2100
95cb0d72
FC
2101=item Don't know how to get file name
2102
2103(P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
2104somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
2105
4021c788 2106=item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
a0d0e21e
LW
2107
2108(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
2109
2110=item do_study: out of memory
2111
2112(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
2113
6df41af2
GS
2114=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
2115
56da5a46
RGS
2116(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2117"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
2118name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
2119because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
2120"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
2121something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
2122subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
2123"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 2124
d8ff3e95 2125=item dump() must be written as CORE::dump() as of Perl 5.30
ac206dc8 2126
d8ff3e95
JK
2127(F) You used the obsolete C<dump()> built-in function. That was deprecated in
2128Perl 5.8.0. As of Perl 5.30 it must be written in fully qualified format:
2129C<CORE::dump()>.
30b17cc1
A
2130
2131See L<perlfunc/dump>.
ac206dc8 2132
84d78eb7
YO
2133=item dump is not supported
2134
2135(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
2136
a0d0e21e
LW
2137=item Duplicate free() ignored
2138
be771a83
GS
2139(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
2140already been freed.
a0d0e21e 2141
1109a392
MHM
2142=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
2143
35f0cd76
FC
2144(W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
2145type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1109a392 2146
4633a7c4
LW
2147=item elseif should be elsif
2148
fa816bf3
FC
2149(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
2150it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
2151named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
2152unlikely to be what you want.
2153
c30c479a
KW
2154=item Empty \%c in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2155
ccad8842
KW
2156=item Empty \%c{}
2157
e0e4a6e3 2158=item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 2159
e750debb
KW
2160(F) You used something like C<\b{}>, C<\B{}>, C<\o{}>, C<\p>, C<\P>, or
2161C<\x> without specifying anything for it to operate on.
2162
2163Unfortunately, for backwards compatibility reasons, an empty C<\x> is
2164legal outside S<C<use re 'strict'>> and expands to a NUL character.
ab13f0c7 2165
d9a91485
KW
2166=item Empty (?) without any modifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2167
2168(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>>)
2169C<(?)> does nothing, so perhaps this is a typo.
2170
fd503f5c 2171=item ${^ENCODING} is no longer supported
a15a3d9b 2172
fd503f5c 2173(F) The special variable C<${^ENCODING}>, formerly used to implement
a15a3d9b
FC
2174the C<encoding> pragma, is no longer supported as of Perl 5.26.0.
2175
fd503f5c
DIM
2176Setting it to anything other than C<undef> is a fatal error as of Perl
21775.28.
ac641426 2178
85ab1d1d 2179=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2180
85ab1d1d 2181(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2182effective uids or gids failed.
2183
c038024b
RGS
2184=item %ENV is aliased to %s
2185
2186(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
2187aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 2188program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 2189
748a9306
LW
2190=item Error converting file specification %s
2191
5f05dabc 2192(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 2193specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
2194single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
2195an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
2196conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 2197
ad19ef22 2198=item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
e4d48cc9 2199
be771a83
GS
2200(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2201expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
2202is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 2203
ad19ef22 2204=item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
e4d48cc9 2205
be771a83
GS
2206(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
2207C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
2208pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
2209it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
2210C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
2211interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
2212L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 2213
ad19ef22 2214=item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 2215
be771a83
GS
2216(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
2217assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
2218pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 2219
e0e4a6e3
FC
2220=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
2221S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
2222
2223(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 2224any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38 2225
6e8a73f2 2226The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
2227discovered.
2228
fc36a67e 2229=item Excessively long <> operator
2230
2231(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
2232Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
2233filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
2234variable and glob that.
2235
ed9aa3b7
SG
2236=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
2237
af8bb25a 2238(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 2239OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 2240
c77da5ff 2241=item %sExecution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
2242
2243(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
2244
0ffcbc25
FC
2245=item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
2246
4a0af295 2247(F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
0ffcbc25
FC
2248subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
2249
2250 $foo{$bar}
2251 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
2252 &do_something
2253
2254=item exists argument is not a subroutine name
2255
ccfc2567
FC
2256(F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
2257and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
0ffcbc25 2258
a0d0e21e
LW
2259=item Exiting eval via %s
2260
be771a83
GS
2261(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
2262goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
2263
2264=item Exiting format via %s
2265
9a2ff54b 2266(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 2267goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 2268
0a753a76 2269=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
2270
be771a83
GS
2271(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
2272sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
2273loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 2274
a0d0e21e
LW
2275=item Exiting subroutine via %s
2276
be771a83
GS
2277(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
2278as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2279
2280=item Exiting substitution via %s
2281
be771a83
GS
2282(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
2283as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 2284
e0e4a6e3 2285=item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2286
675fa9ff 2287(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2288
2289 (?13
2290
2291to denote a capturing group of the form
2292L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
2293but omitted the C<")">.
2294
d8d1dede
KW
2295=item Expecting interpolated extended charclass in regex; marked by <--
2296HERE in m/%s/
c9ffefcc 2297
d8d1dede
KW
2298(F) It looked like you were attempting to interpolate an
2299already-compiled extended character class, like so:
c9ffefcc 2300
d8d1dede
KW
2301 my $thai_or_lao = qr/(?[ \p{Thai} + \p{Lao} ])/;
2302 ...
2303 qr/(?[ \p{Digit} & $thai_or_lao ])/;
c9ffefcc 2304
d8d1dede
KW
2305But the marked code isn't syntactically correct to be such an
2306interpolated class.
27350048 2307
baabe3fb 2308=item Experimental aliasing via reference not enabled
1f8155a2 2309
baabe3fb 2310(F) To do aliasing via references, you must first enable the feature:
1f8155a2 2311
baabe3fb
FC
2312 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
2313 use feature "refaliasing";
1f8155a2
FC
2314 \$x = \$y;
2315
74d1b2e4
FC
2316=item Experimental %s on scalar is now forbidden
2317
2318(F) An experimental feature added in Perl 5.14 allowed C<each>, C<keys>,
2319C<push>, C<pop>, C<shift>, C<splice>, C<unshift>, and C<values> to be called with a
2320scalar argument. This experiment is considered unsuccessful, and
2321has been removed. The C<postderef> feature may meet your needs better.
2322
30d9c59b
Z
2323=item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
2324
2325(F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
2326
caa35032 2327 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
30d9c59b
Z
2328 use feature "signatures";
2329 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
2330
7b8d334a
GS
2331=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
2332
be771a83
GS
2333(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
2334the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
2335usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
2336e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 2337
6df41af2
GS
2338=item %s: Expression syntax
2339
be771a83
GS
2340(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
2341Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2342
2343=item %s failed--call queue aborted
2344
3c10abe3
AG
2345(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
2346CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
2347queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 2348
e0d4aead 2349=item Failed to close in-place work file %s: %s
502aca56
TC
2350
2351(F) Closing an output file from in-place editing, as with the C<-i>
2352command-line switch, failed.
2353
e0e4a6e3 2354=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
73b437c8 2355
98d31c73 2356(W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3 2357character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
3c6ca74a
FC
2358in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
2359construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
e0e4a6e3 2360the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
3c6ca74a 2361the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 2362
1b1ee2ef 2363=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 2364
be771a83
GS
2365(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
2366system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
2367details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
2368you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
2369
2370=item fcntl is not implemented
2371
2372(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2373PDP-11 or something?
2374
22846ab4
AB
2375=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2376
2377(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2378is not possible.
2379
f337b084
TH
2380=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2381
d8b5cc61 2382(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
2383which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2384a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 2385C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 2386
a0e213fc
A
2387=item File::Glob::glob() will disappear in perl 5.30. Use File::Glob::bsd_glob() instead.
2388
2389(D deprecated) C<< File::Glob >> has a function called C<< glob >>, which
2390just calls C<< bsd_glob >>. However, its prototype is different from the
2391prototype of C<< CORE::glob >>, and hence, C<< File::Glob::glob >> should
2392not be used.
2393
2394C<< File::Glob::glob() >> was deprecated in perl 5.8.0. A deprecation
2395message was issued from perl 5.26.0 onwards, and the function will
2396disappear in perl 5.30.0.
2397
2398Code using C<< File::Glob::glob() >> should call
2399C<< File::Glob::bsd_glob() >> instead.
2400
af8c498a 2401=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 2402
6c8d78fb
HS
2403(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2404it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2405"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2406write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 2407
af8c498a 2408=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 2409
6c8d78fb
HS
2410(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2411you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
2412with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2413read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2414is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2415output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
2416
2417=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2418
2419(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 2420as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
2421previously.
2422
2423=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2424
2425(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
fa816bf3 2426as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
2427
2428=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2429
2430(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
2431a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2432happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2433name.
a0d0e21e 2434
56e90b21
GS
2435=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2436
be771a83 2437(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 2438some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
2439filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2440same name?
56e90b21 2441
6df41af2
GS
2442=item Format not terminated
2443
2444(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2445to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2446
a0d0e21e
LW
2447=item Format %s redefined
2448
e476b1b5 2449(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
2450
2451 {
271595cc 2452 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
2453 eval "format NAME =...";
2454 }
2455
a0d0e21e
LW
2456=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2457
e476b1b5 2458(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
2459
2460 if ($foo = 123)
2461
2462when you meant
2463
2464 if ($foo == 123)
2465
2466(or something like that).
2467
6df41af2
GS
2468=item %s found where operator expected
2469
56da5a46
RGS
2470(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2471If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
2472operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2473operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 2474
a0d0e21e
LW
2475=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2476
2477(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2478
2479=item gethostent not implemented
2480
2481(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2482because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2483on the Internet.
2484
69282e91 2485=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2486
be771a83
GS
2487(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2488socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 2489
748a9306
LW
2490=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2491
2492(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2493C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2494
6df41af2
GS
2495=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2496
be771a83
GS
2497(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2498forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2499L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2500
0f539b13
BF
2501=item given is experimental
2502
7896dde7
Z
2503(S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2504is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2505in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2506L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 2507
68567d27
FC
2508=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2509declare "my %s"?)
6df41af2 2510
a4edf47d 2511(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 2512that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
2513declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2514which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 2515
e476b1b5
GS
2516=item glob failed (%s)
2517
5ead438e 2518(S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
73c4e9dc
FC
2519for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2520pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 2521nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
2522resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2523is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2524in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2525if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2526all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 2527think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 2528C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 2529
a0d0e21e
LW
2530=item Glob not terminated
2531
2532(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
2533a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2534not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2535earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 2536
b35b96b6
JH
2537=item gmtime(%f) failed
2538
2539(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2540too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2541
bcd05b94 2542=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2543
e9200be3 2544(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2545it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2546date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2547not-a-number value).
2548
bcd05b94 2549=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2550
e9200be3 2551(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2552it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2553
6df41af2 2554=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2555
6df41af2
GS
2556(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2557version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2558
2559=item goto must have label
2560
2561(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2562unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2563
6651ba0b
FC
2564=item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2565
2566(F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2567the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2568has since been undefined.
2569
6fbc9859 2570=item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 2571S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1f4f6bf1
YO
2572
2573(F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
f26c79ba
FC
2574they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2575this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
1f4f6bf1 2576
5a25739d
FC
2577=item ()-group starts with a count
2578
2579(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2580something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2581
fe13d51d 2582=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2583
2584(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2585
a0d0e21e
LW
2586=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2587
be771a83
GS
2588(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2589to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2590created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e 2591
6df41af2
GS
2592=item %s has too many errors
2593
2594(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2595Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2596
61e61fbc
JH
2597=item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2598
d8f2b442 2599(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
61e61fbc
JH
2600than the floating point supports.
2601
2602=item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2603
d8f2b442 2604(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
b6d9b423
JH
2605than the floating point supports. With the IEEE 754 floating point,
2606this may also mean that the subnormals (formerly known as denormals)
2607are being used, which may or may not be an error.
61e61fbc 2608
5488d373 2609=item Hexadecimal float: internal error (%s)
cf4f6003
JH
2610
2611(F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2612
61e61fbc
JH
2613=item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2614
2615(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2616the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2617the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2618
40bca5ae
JH
2619=item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2620
2621(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2622digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2623long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2624(needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2625
2626=item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2627
2628(F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
d8f2b442 2629the internals of the long double format are unknown;
40bca5ae
JH
2630therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2631
252aa082
JH
2632=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2633
e476b1b5 2634(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2635(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2636L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2637
8903cb82 2638=item Identifier too long
2639
2640(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2641about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2642names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2643of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2644
e0e4a6e3
FC
2645=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2646S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
fc8cd66c 2647
f3ba6905 2648(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
0f44b2a5
FC
2649zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character
2650class its behavior is not well defined. Check that the correct
2651escape has been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
fc8cd66c 2652
bcfb98ec 2653=item Illegal %s digit '%c' ignored
f675dbe5 2654
bcfb98ec
KW
2655(W digit) Here C<%s> is one of "binary", "octal", or "hex".
2656You may have tried to use a digit other than one that is legal for the
2657given type, such as only 0 and 1 for binary. For octals, this is raised
2658only if the illegal character is an '8' or '9'. For hex, 'A' - 'F' and
2659'a' - 'f' are legal.
2660Interpretation of the number stopped just before the offending digit or
2661character.
f675dbe5 2662
bcfb98ec 2663=item Illegal binary digit '%c'
a0d0e21e 2664
bcfb98ec 2665(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
a0d0e21e 2666
6597eb22
FC
2667=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2668
e4d150f1
FC
2669(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2670declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2671indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2672or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
6597eb22 2673
b913d0b8
FC
2674=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2675
2676(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as
2677it would any other whitespace, which means you should never see
2678this error when Perl was built using standard options. For some
2679reason, your version of Perl appears to have been built without
2680this support. Talk to your Perl administrator.
2681
bb6b75cd 2682=item Illegal character following sigil in a subroutine signature
d3d9da4a
DM
2683
2684(F) A parameter in a subroutine signature contained an unexpected character
d4e5761f
FC
2685following the C<$>, C<@> or C<%> sigil character. Normally the sigil
2686should be followed by the variable name or C<=> etc. Perhaps you are
d3d9da4a
DM
2687trying use a prototype while in the scope of C<use feature 'signatures'>?
2688For example:
2689
2690 sub foo ($$) {} # legal - a prototype
2691
2692 use feature 'signatures;
2693 sub foo ($$) {} # illegal - was expecting a signature
2694 sub foo ($a, $b)
2695 :prototype($$) {} # legal
2696
2697
d37a9538
ST
2698=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2699
197afce1 2700(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2701Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
30d9c59b
Z
2702Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2703that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2704instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
d37a9538 2705
904d85c5
RGS
2706=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2707
2708(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2709you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2710
8e742a20
MHM
2711=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2712
6903afa2 2713(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2714
a0d0e21e
LW
2715=item Illegal division by zero
2716
be771a83
GS
2717(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2718your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2719meaningless input.
a0d0e21e
LW
2720
2721=item Illegal modulus zero
2722
be771a83
GS
2723(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2724numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2725
6df41af2 2726=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2727
6df41af2
GS
2728(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2729two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4 2730
283151b7 2731=item Illegal octal digit '%c'
a0d0e21e 2732
d1be9408 2733(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2734
ecc6274e
FC
2735=item Illegal operator following parameter in a subroutine signature
2736
2737(F) A parameter in a subroutine signature, was followed by something
2738other than C<=> introducing a default, C<,> or C<)>.
2739
2740 use feature 'signatures';
2741 sub foo ($=1) {} # legal
2742 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
2743 sub foo ($a += 1) {} # illegal
2744 sub foo ($a == 1) {} # illegal
2745
e0e4a6e3 2746=item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2747
675fa9ff 2748(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2749
2750 (?+foo)
2751
2752The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2753capturing group. See
2754L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2755
375ed12a
JH
2756=item Illegal suidscript
2757
2758(F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2759
fe13d51d 2760=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2761
6df41af2 2762(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2763following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2764
4003ea29
KW
2765=item Illegal user-defined property name
2766
2767(F) You specified a Unicode-like property name in a regular expression
2768pattern (using C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>) that Perl knows isn't an official
2769Unicode property, and was likely meant to be a user-defined property
2770name, but it can't be one of those, as they must begin with either C<In>
2771or C<Is>. Check the spelling. See also
2772L</Can't find Unicode property definition "%s">.
2773
6df41af2 2774=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2775
75b44862 2776(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2777internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2778delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2779
6df41af2 2780=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2781
be771a83
GS
2782(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2783name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2784didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2785ignored.
54310121 2786
6df41af2 2787=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2788
be771a83
GS
2789(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2790the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2791system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2792times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2793would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2794
be771a83
GS
2795Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2796also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2797
e0e4a6e3
FC
2798=item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2799in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 2800
675fa9ff 2801(F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
0d0b4b3b
KW
2802expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2803too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2804enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2805
6fbc9859
MH
2806=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2807parent '%s'
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2808
2809(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2810C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2811documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2812
cdd6375d
MH
2813=item Indentation on line %d of here-doc doesn't match delimiter
2814
2815(F) You have an indented here-document where one or more of its lines
2816have whitespace at the beginning that does not match the closing
2817delimiter.
2818
2819For example, line 2 below is wrong because it does not have at least
28202 spaces, but lines 1 and 3 are fine because they have at least 2:
2821
2822 if ($something) {
2823 print <<~EOF;
2824 Line 1
2825 Line 2 not
2826 Line 3
2827 EOF
2828 }
2829
2830Note that tabs and spaces are compared strictly, meaning 1 tab will
2831not match 8 spaces.
2832
6a2ed79a 2833=item Infinite recursion in regex
1a147d38
YO
2834
2835(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2836text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2837either consume text or fail.
2838
714f94d1
FC
2839=item Infinite recursion via empty pattern
2840
2841(F) You tried to use the empty pattern inside of a regex code block,
2842for instance C</(?{ s!!! })/>, which resulted in re-executing
2843the same pattern, which is an infinite loop which is broken by
2844throwing an exception.
2845
f99042c8 2846=item Initialization of state variables in list currently forbidden
6dbe9451 2847
f99042c8
Z
2848(F) C<state> only permits initializing a single variable, specified
2849without parentheses. So C<state $a = 42> and C<state @a = qw(a b c)> are
2850allowed, but not C<state ($a) = 42> or C<(state $a) = 42>. To initialize
2851more than one C<state> variable, initialize them one at a time.
6dbe9451 2852
2186f873
FC
2853=item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2854
2855(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2856(indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2857it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2858is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2859returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2860a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2861expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2862returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2863
2864=item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2865
2866(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2867(indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2868better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2869is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2870it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2871provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2872if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2873it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2874
a0d0e21e
LW
2875=item Insecure dependency in %s
2876
8b1a09fc 2877(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2878The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2879setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2880tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2881from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2882such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2883L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2884
2885=item Insecure directory in %s
2886
be771a83
GS
2887(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2888setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2889the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2890See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2891
62f468fc 2892=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2893
2894(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2895setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2896C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2897supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2898the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2899
0e9be77f
DM
2900=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2901
2902(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2903expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2904function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2905See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2906
b9ef414d
FC
2907=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2908
2909(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2910or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2911integers for your architecture.
2912
a7ae9550
GS
2913=item Integer overflow in %s number
2914
35928bc5 2915(S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2916either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2917your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2918On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2919representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
29200b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2921transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2922internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2923operations.
bbce6d69 2924
fc89ca81
FC
2925=item Integer overflow in srand
2926
2927(S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2928in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2929replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2930architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2931you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2932return the same sequence of random numbers.
2933
46314c13
JP
2934=item Integer overflow in version
2935
18da5252
FC
2936=item Integer overflow in version %d
2937
784d71ed
FC
2938(W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2939the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
f084e84f 2940because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
784d71ed
FC
2941element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2942to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
46314c13 2943
e0e4a6e3 2944=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2945
2946(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
e0e4a6e3 2947The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2948discovered.
2949
748a9306
LW
2950=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2951
be771a83
GS
2952(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2953you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2954to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2955L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2956Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2957terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2958
870978ae
FC
2959=item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2960
2961(S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2962formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2963C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2964by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2965message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2966reserved format.
2967
e0e4a6e3 2968=item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 2969
fa816bf3 2970(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
e0e4a6e3 2971S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
7253e4e3 2972discovered.
a0d0e21e 2973
6df41af2
GS
2974=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2975
75b44862 2976(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2977followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2978operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2979L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2980
f51551f7
FC
2981=item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2982marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2983
2984(F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2985expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2986intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2987with whitespace.
2988
d9790612 2989=item In '(*...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
edf23316
FC
2990marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2991
d9790612 2992(F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in this context in a regular
edf23316 2993expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
d9790612
KW
2994intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
2995Fix the pattern and retry.
edf23316 2996
09bef843
SB
2997=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2998
a4a4c9e2 2999(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
3000by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
3001
3002=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
3003
a4a4c9e2 3004(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 3005recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 3006
e0e4a6e3
FC
3007=item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
3008S<<-- HERE> in '%s
225fb84f
KW
3009
3010(F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
3011the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
3012the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3013
c8028aa6
TC
3014=item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
3015
fa3234e3
FC
3016(W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
3017arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
3018formerly ignored by system calls.
c8028aa6 3019
e0e4a6e3 3020=item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
a690c7c4
FC
3021
3022(F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
3023indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3024
c635e13b 3025=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
3026
be771a83
GS
3027(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
3028L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 3029
e0e4a6e3
FC
3030=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
3031S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9e08bc66 3032
98d31c73 3033(W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
9e08bc66
TS
3034didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
3035from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
98d31c73
FC
3036The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
3037instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
e0e4a6e3 3038The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
9e08bc66
TS
3039escape was discovered.
3040
8149aa9f
FC
3041=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
3042
e0e4a6e3
FC
3043=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
3044S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3045
8149aa9f 3046(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
3047number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
30480 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 3049
6651ba0b
FC
3050=item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
3051
3052(F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
3053cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
3054arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
3055B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
3056
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3057=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
3058
162a3e34
FC
3059(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
3060where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
3061the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
3062a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 3063
40e4140b
FC
3064=item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
3065
3066(W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
abc0aa9d 3067not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
40e4140b
FC
3068character (U+FFFD).
3069
74d1b2e4
FC
3070=item Invalid number '%s' for -C option.
3071
3072(F) You supplied a number to the -C option that either has extra leading
3073zeroes or overflows perl's unsigned integer representation.
3074
6651ba0b
FC
3075=item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
3076
8ff21bfe
FC
3077(S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
3078with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
982c4ecb 3079See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
6651ba0b 3080
6e8a73f2 3081=item Invalid quantifier in {,} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
35cd12d1
HS
3082
3083(F) The pattern looks like a {min,max} quantifier, but the min or max
3084could not be parsed as a valid number - either it has leading zeroes,
3085or it represents too big a number to cope with. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3086where in the regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3087
e0e4a6e3 3088=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3089
3090(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
3091greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
3092C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
e0e4a6e3 3093up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 3094problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 3095
d1573ac7 3096=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
3097
3098(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
3099character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
3100
09bef843
SB
3101=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
3102
0120eecf 3103(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
3104elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
3105parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
3106See L<attributes>.
09bef843 3107
b4581f09
JH
3108=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
3109
2bfc5f71
FC
3110(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
3111than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
3112If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
3113list was terminated too soon.
3114
2c86d456
DG
3115=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
3116
fa816bf3 3117(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
3118A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3119decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
3120v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 3121The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
3122See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
3123
49704364 3124=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 3125
49704364
WL
3126(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
3127See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 3128
49704364 3129(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 3130silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 3131
2c86d456
DG
3132=item Invalid version format (%s)
3133
fa816bf3 3134(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
3135A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3136decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
fa816bf3
FC
3137v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
3138must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
3139optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
3140trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
3141after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
3142text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
3143for more details on allowed version formats.
46314c13 3144
798ae1b7
DG
3145=item Invalid version object
3146
fa816bf3
FC
3147(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
3148Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
3149an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
798ae1b7 3150
cd209d9d 3151=item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
e0e4a6e3 3152marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff 3153
edf23316
FC
3154(F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in this context in a regular
3155expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
3156intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
675fa9ff 3157
a0d0e21e
LW
3158=item ioctl is not implemented
3159
3160(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
3161strange for a machine that supports C.
3162
c289d2f7
JH
3163=item ioctl() on unopened %s
3164
3165(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 3166Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 3167
fe13d51d 3168=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
3169
3170(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 3171you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
3172with 'useperlio'.
3173
80cbd5ad
JH
3174=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
3175
3176(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 3177neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 3178
6e8a73f2 3179=item '%s' is an unknown bound type in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
64935bc6
KW
3180
3181(F) You used C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}> and the C<...> is not known to
3182Perl. The current valid ones are given in
3183L<perlrebackslash/\b{}, \b, \B{}, \B>.
3184
ac3afc4b
YO
3185=item %s is forbidden - matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3186m/%s/
3187
3188(F) The pattern you've specified might cause the regular expression to
3189infinite loop so it is forbidden. The S<<-- HERE>
3190shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3191See L<perlre>.
3192
1ed4b776 3193=item %s() isn't allowed on :utf8 handles
74d1b2e4 3194
1ed4b776
TC
3195(F) The sysread(), recv(), syswrite() and send() operators are
3196not allowed on handles that have the C<:utf8> layer, either explicitly, or
74d1b2e4
FC
3197implicitly, eg., with the C<:encoding(UTF-16LE)> layer.
3198
1ed4b776
TC
3199Previously sysread() and recv() currently use only the C<:utf8> flag for the stream,
3200ignoring the actual layers. Since sysread() and recv() did no UTF-8
74d1b2e4
FC
3201validation they can end up creating invalidly encoded scalars.
3202
1ed4b776
TC
3203Similarly, syswrite() and send() used only the C<:utf8> flag, otherwise ignoring
3204any layers. If the flag is set, both wrote the value UTF-8 encoded, even if
74d1b2e4
FC
3205the layer is some different encoding, such as the example above.
3206
3207Ideally, all of these operators would completely ignore the C<:utf8> state,
3208working only with bytes, but this would result in silently breaking existing
1972ac5c
A
3209code.
3210
d4360efa 3211=item "%s" is more clearly written simply as "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
acdfc3b6 3212
d4360efa 3213(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
30b17cc1 3214
3f673807
FC
3215You specified a character that has the given plainer way of writing it, and
3216which is also portable to platforms running with different character sets.
acdfc3b6 3217
dcb414ac 3218=item $* is no longer supported as of Perl 5.30
a678626e 3219
dcb414ac
JK
3220(F) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, was removed in
32215.10.0, is no longer supported and is a fatal error as of Perl 5.30. In
a678626e
A
3222previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
3223matching within a string.
3224
3225Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
3226modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
3227with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
3228then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
3229
37398dc1
A
3230Use of this variable will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
3231
dcb414ac 3232=item $# is no longer supported as of Perl 5.30
a678626e 3233
dcb414ac
JK
3234(F) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, was removed as of
32355.10.0, is no longer supported and is a fatal error as of Perl 5.30. You
a678626e
A
3236should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
3237
ccf3535a 3238=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 3239
6903afa2
FC
3240(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
3241overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
3242an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 3243
ccf3535a 3244=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 3245
04a80ee0
RGS
3246(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
3247unaware of.
6ad11d81 3248
813e85a0
PE
3249=item isa is experimental
3250
3251(S experimental::isa) This warning is emitted if you use the (C<isa>)
3252operator. This operator is currently experimental and its behaviour may
3253change in future releases of Perl.
3254
5a25739d
FC
3255=item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
3256
3257(S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
3258that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
3259given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
3260make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
3261it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
3262should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
028611fa 3263line. See L<perlrun|perlrun/-i[extension]> for more details.
5a25739d 3264
aec0ef10 3265=item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
3266
3267(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
3268
105c827d
TC
3269=item \K not permitted in lookahead/lookbehind in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3270
3271(F) Your regular expression used C<\K> in a lookhead or lookbehind
3272assertion, which isn't permitted.
3273
a0d0e21e
LW
3274=item Label not found for "last %s"
3275
be771a83
GS
3276(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
3277of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3278L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3279
3280=item Label not found for "next %s"
3281
3282(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
3283that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3284L<perlfunc/last>.
3285
3286=item Label not found for "redo %s"
3287
3288(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
3289that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3290L<perlfunc/last>.
3291
85ab1d1d 3292=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 3293
85ab1d1d 3294(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
3295effective uids or gids failed.
3296
49704364
WL
3297=item length/code after end of string in unpack
3298
d7f8936a 3299(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
3300length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
3301an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 3302
25e26107 3303=item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
e508c8a4 3304
0d46a4e7
FC
3305(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
3306probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
3307
3308Array size can be obtained by doing:
3309
3310 scalar(@array);
3311
3312The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
3313
3314 scalar(keys %hash);
3315
f0e67a1d
Z
3316=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
3317
d4fe7078
RS
3318(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
3319(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
3320couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
3321of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
6903afa2 3322it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
3323
3324=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
3325
3326(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
3327detectable way.
3328
69282e91 3329=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3330
be771a83
GS
3331(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
3332to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3333L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 3334
6651ba0b
FC
3335=item List form of piped open not implemented
3336
3337(F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
3338form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
3339Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
3340
2a6971a9
KW
3341=item Literal vertical space in [] is illegal except under /x in regex;
3342marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3343
3344(F) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
3345
3346Likely you forgot the C</x> modifier or there was a typo in the pattern.
3347For example, did you really mean to match a form-feed? If so, all the
3348ASCII vertical space control characters are representable by escape
3349sequences which won't present such a jarring appearance as your pattern
3350does when displayed.
3351
3352 \r carriage return
3353 \f form feed
3354 \n line feed
3355 \cK vertical tab
3356
dc6bb7ba
FC
3357=item %s: loadable library and perl binaries are mismatched (got handshake key %p, needed %p)
3358
3359(P) A dynamic loading library C<.so> or C<.dll> was being loaded into the
3360process that was built against a different build of perl than the
3361said library was compiled against. Reinstalling the XS module will
3362likely fix this error.
3363
8b7358b9 3364=item Locale '%s' contains (at least) the following characters which
f03e1e3a 3365have unexpected meanings: %s The Perl program will use the expected
8b7358b9
KW
3366meanings
3367
3368(W locale) You are using the named UTF-8 locale. UTF-8 locales are
578a6a87
KW
3369expected to have very particular behavior, which most do. This message
3370arises when perl found some departures from the expectations, and is
3371notifying you that the expected behavior overrides these differences.
3372In some cases the differences are caused by the locale definition being
3373defective, but the most common causes of this warning are when there are
3374ambiguities and conflicts in following the Standard, and the locale has
3375chosen an approach that differs from Perl's.
3376
3377One of these is because that, contrary to the claims, Unicode is not
a2d13ee0
FC
3378completely locale insensitive. Turkish and some related languages
3379have two types of C<"I"> characters. One is dotted in both upper- and
578a6a87
KW
3380lowercase, and the other is dotless in both cases. Unicode allows a
3381locale to use either the Turkish rules, or the rules used in all other
3382instances, where there is only one type of C<"I">, which is dotless in
3383the uppercase, and dotted in the lower. The perl core does not (yet)
3384handle the Turkish case, and this message warns you of that. Instead,
8b7358b9
KW
3385the L<Unicode::Casing> module allows you to mostly implement the Turkish
3386casing rules.
3387
578a6a87
KW
3388The other common cause is for the characters
3389
3390 $ + < = > ^ ` | ~
3391
3392These are probematic. The C standard says that these should be
3393considered punctuation in the C locale (and the POSIX standard defers to
a2d13ee0
FC
3394the C standard), and Unicode is generally considered a superset of
3395the C locale. But Unicode has added an extra category, "Symbol", and
578a6a87
KW
3396classifies these particular characters as being symbols. Most UTF-8
3397locales have them treated as punctuation, so that L<ispunct(2)> returns
a2d13ee0
FC
3398non-zero for them. But a few locales have it return 0. Perl takes
3399the first approach, not using C<ispunct()> at all (see L<Note [5] in
3400perlrecharclass|perlrecharclass/[5]>), and this message is raised to notify you that you
3401are getting Perl's approach, not the locale's.
8b7358b9 3402
8c6180a9
KW
3403=item Locale '%s' may not work well.%s
3404
780fcc9f 3405(W locale) You are using the named locale, which is a non-UTF-8 one, and
dae67c56
KW
3406which perl has determined is not fully compatible with what it can
3407handle. The second C<%s> gives a reason.
8c6180a9
KW
3408
3409By far the most common reason is that the locale has characters in it
3410that are represented by more than one byte. The only such locales that
3411Perl can handle are the UTF-8 locales. Most likely the specified locale
3412is a non-UTF-8 one for an East Asian language such as Chinese or
3413Japanese. If the locale is a superset of ASCII, the ASCII portion of it
780fcc9f 3414may work in Perl.
8c6180a9
KW
3415
3416Some essentially obsolete locales that aren't supersets of ASCII, mainly
3417those in ISO 646 or other 7-bit locales, such as ASMO 449, can also have
3418problems, depending on what portions of the ASCII character set get
3419changed by the locale and are also used by the program.
3420The warning message lists the determinable conflicting characters.
3421
780fcc9f
KW
3422Note that not all incompatibilities are found.
3423
3424If this happens to you, there's not much you can do except switch to use a
3425different locale or use L<Encode> to translate from the locale into
3426UTF-8; if that's impracticable, you have been warned that some things
3427may break.
3428
3429This message is output once each time a bad locale is switched into
3430within the scope of C<S<use locale>>, or on the first possibly-affected
3431operation if the C<S<use locale>> inherits a bad one. It is not raised
3432for any operations from the L<POSIX> module.
3433
a2162cd9
FC
3434=item localtime(%f) failed
3435
3436(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
3437too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
3438
3439=item localtime(%f) too large
3440
3441(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
3442than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3443wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
3444not-a-number value).
3445
3446=item localtime(%f) too small
3447
3448(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
3449than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3450wrong date.
3451
58e23c8d 3452=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3453
3454(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 3455handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 3456
b88df990
NC
3457=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
3458
e63e8a91
FC
3459(W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
3460is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
3461accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
3462warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
3463when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
3464insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
b88df990 3465
93fad930 3466=item lstat() on filehandle%s
2f7da168
RK
3467
3468(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
3469by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
3470instead on the filehandle.)
3471
345d70e3 3472=item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
bb3abb05 3473
345d70e3
FC
3474(W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
3475attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
3476does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
3477want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
3478details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
3479if you really know what you are doing.
bb3abb05 3480
885ef6f5
GG
3481=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
3482
345d70e3
FC
3483(W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
3484subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
3485not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
3486add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
3487foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
3488
3489See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
885ef6f5 3490
6f1b3ab0
FC
3491=item Magical list constants are not supported
3492
3493(F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
3494to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
3495something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
3496
2db62bbc 3497=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 3498
2db62bbc 3499(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
3500are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3501
3502=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
3503
2db62bbc 3504(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
3505are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3506
6df41af2
GS
3507=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3508
3509(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3510
3511 prefix1;prefix2
3512
3513or
6df41af2
GS
3514 prefix1 prefix2
3515
be771a83
GS
3516with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
3517a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
3518appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 3519"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3520
2f758a16
ST
3521=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
3522
d37a9538
ST
3523(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
3524syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
3525obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
3526when the function is called.
30d9c59b
Z
3527Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
3528but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
3529so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2f758a16 3530
2b5e7bc2 3531=item Malformed UTF-8 character%s
ba210ebe 3532
7cf8d05d
KW
3533(S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that should be UTF-8, but didn't
3534comply with UTF-8 encoding rules, or represents a code point whose
3535ordinal integer value doesn't fit into the word size of the current
3536platform (overflows). Details as to the exact malformation are given in
3537the variable, C<%s>, part of the message.
ba210ebe 3538
2575c402 3539One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
3f673807
FC
3540you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit
3541data). To guard against this, you can use C<Encode::decode('UTF-8', ...)>.
2575c402
JW
3542
3543If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
3f673807
FC
3544sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is set
3545without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error message.
2575c402
JW
3546
3547See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 3548
bde9e88d 3549=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
ff3f963a
KW
3550
3551(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
3552
714f94d1
FC
3553=item Malformed UTF-8 string in "%s"
3554
3555(F) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl core or in XS
3556code. Such code was trying to find out if a character, allegedly
3557stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such as
3558being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded
3559in legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used
3560by knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked
3561against was.
3562
3563Passing malformed strings was deprecated in Perl 5.18, and
3564became fatal in Perl 5.26.
3565
4a5d3a93
FC
3566=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
3567
3568(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3569rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3570
f337b084
TH
3571=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
3572
3573(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3574rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3575
3576=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
3577
3578(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3579rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3580
4a5d3a93 3581=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 3582
4a5d3a93
FC
3583(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
3584doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
3585
30d9c59b
Z
3586=item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
3587
3588(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
3589$b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
3590Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
3591caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
3592as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
3593optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
3594
2d88a86a
KW
3595=item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
3596not be portable
3597
3598(S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
3599Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
0202c428 3600in a signed integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
2d88a86a
KW
3601other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3602containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3603the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3604C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3605so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3606in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3607unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3608given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3609L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3610
3611This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3612immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3613not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3614the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3615Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3616every code point except these 22.)
3617
3618Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3619should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3620that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3621category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3622off this category.
3623
3624See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3625
e0e4a6e3
FC
3626=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3627m/%s/
4a5d3a93
FC
3628
3629(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
e0e4a6e3 3630regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 3631shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4a5d3a93 3632See L<perlre>.
f337b084 3633
de42a5a9 3634=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 3635
6903afa2 3636(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
3637usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3638too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3639resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 3640safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 3641
25f58aea
PN
3642=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3643
3644(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3645interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3646"use" or "my".
3647
0d2487cd 3648=item '%' may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
3649
3650(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
3651checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3652See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 3653
a0d0e21e
LW
3654=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3655
3656(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 3657doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3658
3cdd684c
TP
3659=item Method %s not permitted
3660
3de20fbe 3661See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 3662
a0d0e21e
LW
3663=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3664
3665(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3666by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3667ended earlier on the current line.
3668
3669=item Misplaced _ in number
3670
d4ced10d
JH
3671(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3672separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 3673
0ea23158
DM
3674=item Missing argument for %n in %s
3675
3676(F) A C<%n> was used in a format string with no corresponding argument for
3677perl to write the current string length to.
3678
7baa4690
HS
3679=item Missing argument in %s
3680
3664866e
AB
3681(W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3682arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3683
3684Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3685arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3686other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3687functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
7baa4690 3688
9e81e6a1
RGS
3689=item Missing argument to -%c
3690
3691(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3692immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3693
ff3f963a 3694=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 3695
e0e4a6e3 3696=item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3697
4a2d328f 3698(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
3699double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3700(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3701This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3702follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 3703
f0a2b745
KW
3704=item Missing braces on \o{}
3705
3706(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3707
a0d0e21e
LW
3708=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3709
3710(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3711"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3712
06eaf0bc
GS
3713=item Missing command in piped open
3714
be771a83
GS
3715(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3716C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3717blank.
06eaf0bc 3718
961ce445
RGS
3719=item Missing control char name in \c
3720
3721(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3722character name.
3723
591f5ca2
FC
3724=item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3725
bfe11873 3726(W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
591f5ca2 3727
8767b1ab 3728=item Missing name in "%s sub"
6df41af2 3729
87444db5 3730(F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
be771a83 3731they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
3732
3733=item Missing $ on loop variable
3734
be771a83
GS
3735(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3736are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3737can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 3738
cc507455 3739=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 3740
56da5a46
RGS
3741(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3742"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 3743
33fe1955 3744=item Missing or undefined argument to %s
f51551f7 3745
33fe1955 3746(F) You tried to call require or do with no argument or with an undefined
f51551f7 3747value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
33fe1955
LM
3748file-specification as an argument; do expects a filename. See
3749L<perlfunc/require EXPR> and L<perlfunc/do EXPR>.
f51551f7 3750
e0e4a6e3 3751=item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 3752
ff3f963a
KW
3753(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3754
605eee60 3755=item Missing right brace on \N{}
faad849d 3756
4a68bf9d 3757=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 3758
d32207c9
FC
3759(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3760
3761The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3762meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
fa816bf3 3763name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
d32207c9
FC
3764double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3765it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3766
3767Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3768in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3769for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3770
3771This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3772by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3773form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3774means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
37753; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3776C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3777
3778However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3779mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3780If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3781escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 3782
d98d5fff 3783=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 3784
be771a83
GS
3785(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3786ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3787were last editing.
a0d0e21e 3788
6df41af2
GS
3789=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3790
56da5a46
RGS
3791(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3792"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
3793the previous line just because you saw this message.
3794
a0d0e21e
LW
3795=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3796
3797(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 3798constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
3799catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3800
3801 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3802 mod(2);
3803
3804Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3805
c5674021
PDF
3806Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3807is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3808
b7e4ecc1
FC
3809 $x = 1;
3810 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3811 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3812 } # modify the 2
c5674021 3813
7a4340ed 3814=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3815
3816(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3817subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3818backwards.
3819
7a4340ed 3820=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 3821
be771a83
GS
3822(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3823couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
3824
3825=item Module name must be constant
3826
3827(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3828
be98fb35 3829=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 3830
be98fb35 3831(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
028611fa
DB
3832you omitted the name of the module. Consult
3833L<perlrun|perlrun/-m[-]module> for full details about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 3834
fe13d51d 3835=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 3836
6903afa2 3837(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
3838can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3839list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3840See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3841
85396b18
FC
3842=item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3843
3844(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3845L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3846could not be made read-only.
3847
92951bce
FC
3848=item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3849
85396b18
FC
3850(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3851but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3852
3853=item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3854
3855(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3856L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3857buffer could not be made mutable.
3858
92951bce
FC
3859=item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3860
3861(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
85396b18
FC
3862L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3863mutable before freeing the ops.
92951bce 3864
a0d0e21e
LW
3865=item msg%s not implemented
3866
3867(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3868
3869=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3870
75b44862
GS
3871(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3872They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 3873
d3d9da4a
DM
3874=item Multiple slurpy parameters not allowed
3875
3876(F) In subroutine signatures, a slurpy parameter (C<@> or C<%>) must be
3877the last parameter, and there must not be more than one of them; for
3878example:
3879
3880 sub foo ($a, @b) {} # legal
3881 sub foo ($a, @b, %) {} # invalid
3882
49704364 3883=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 3884
49704364
WL
3885(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3886follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3887See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2 3888
c869951c 3889=item %s must not be a named sequence in transliteration operator
f4240379
KW
3890
3891(F) Transliteration (C<tr///> and C<y///>) transliterates individual
3892characters. But a named sequence by definition is more than an
dabde021 3893individual character, and hence doing this operation on it doesn't make
f4240379
KW
3894sense.
3895
6df41af2
GS
3896=item "my sub" not yet implemented
3897
be771a83
GS
3898(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3899that yet.
6df41af2 3900
a21eb52b
FC
3901=item "my" subroutine %s can't be in a package
3902
3903(F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3904sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
3905
5a25739d
FC
3906=item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3907
3908(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3909You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3910sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3911lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3912name, or rename the lexical variable.
3913
fd1b7234 3914=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 3915
be771a83
GS
3916(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3917sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3918local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 3919
8149aa9f
FC
3920=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3921
c59aba6c
FC
3922(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3923names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3924just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
08a33b6b 3925declaration is also provided for this purpose.
c59aba6c 3926
66a1f5ec
FC
3927NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3928only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3929warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3930%c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
c59aba6c
FC
3931format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3932but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3933Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3934identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
8149aa9f 3935
e0e4a6e3 3936=item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b
KW
3937
3938(F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3939exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3940constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3941
3942 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3943 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3944 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3945
3946The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
675fa9ff
FC
3947need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3948two separate things, you need to separate them:
0d0b4b3b
KW
3949
3950 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3951 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3952 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3953 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3954
49704364
WL
3955=item Negative '/' count in unpack
3956
3957(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3958negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3959
a0d0e21e
LW
3960=item Negative length
3961
be771a83
GS
3962(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3963length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 3964
ed9aa3b7
SG
3965=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3966
3967(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3968greater than or equal to zero.
3969
b3211734
KW
3970=item Negative repeat count does nothing
3971
3972(W numeric) You tried to execute the
3973L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3974times, which doesn't make sense.
3975
e0e4a6e3 3976=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3977
6903afa2 3978(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
e0e4a6e3 3979So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 3980whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 3981
7253e4e3 3982Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 3983C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3984
6df41af2 3985=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 3986
be771a83
GS
3987(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3988scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 3989
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3990=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3991
3992(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3993real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3994See L<mro>.
3995
5a25739d 3996=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
e0e4a6e3 3997marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5a25739d 3998
32a77fbe
FC
3999(F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
4000bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
4001class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
4002probably not what you want.
5a25739d 4003
1a7108fe 4004=item \N{} here is restricted to one character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
0b4ce96d 4005
f3ba6905
FC
4006(F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
4007multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
4008supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
bc035eed
KW
4009whole thing correctly, except under certain conditions. These currently
4010are
4011
4012=over 4
4013
4014=item When the class is inverted (C<[^...]>)
4015
4016The mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
f3ba6905 4017is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
bc035eed
KW
4018forbid it.
4019
4020=item The escape is the beginning or final end point of a range
4021
4022Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
f3ba6905 4023C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
8f0cd35a
KW
4024
4025 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
4026
f3ba6905
FC
4027What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
4028of code points, so this is made an error.
0b4ce96d 4029
bc035eed
KW
4030=item In a regex set
4031
4032The syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression yields a list of
4033single code points, none can be a sequence.
4034
4035=back
4036
a0d0e21e
LW
4037=item No %s allowed while running setuid
4038
be771a83
GS
4039(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
4040setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
4041will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
4042securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 4043
6651ba0b
FC
4044=item No code specified for -%c
4045
4046(F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
4047you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
4048argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
4049
4050 perl -e ""
4051 perl -e0
4052 perl -e1
4053
a0d0e21e
LW
4054=item No comma allowed after %s
4055
6903afa2
FC
4056(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
4057not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
4058Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
4059
6903afa2
FC
4060One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
4061a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
4062importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
4063system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
4064use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
4065please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
4066explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
4067it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
4068still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
4069the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
4070constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 4071
748a9306
LW
4072=item No command into which to pipe on command line
4073
be771a83
GS
4074(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4075redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
4076doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 4077
a0d0e21e
LW
4078=item No DB::DB routine defined
4079
be771a83 4080(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 4081for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
4082module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
4083statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
4084
4085=item No dbm on this machine
4086
4087(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 4088supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 4089
ccafdc96 4090=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 4091
ccafdc96
RGS
4092(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
4093for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
4094module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
4095of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 4096
1ef28cc3
TC
4097=item No digits found for %s literal
4098
4099(F) No hexadecimal digits were found following C<0x> or no binary digits
4100were found following C<0b>.
4101
6651ba0b
FC
4102=item No directory specified for -I
4103
4104(F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
4105I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
4106
c47ff5f1 4107=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 4108
be771a83
GS
4109(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4110redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
4111find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 4112
49704364
WL
4113=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
4114
4115(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 4116matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 4117
c47ff5f1 4118=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 4119
be771a83
GS
4120(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4121redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
4122name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 4123
2c7d6b9c
RGS
4124=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
4125
4126(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
4127in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
4128it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
fa816bf3 4129or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2c7d6b9c 4130
02a7a248
JH
4131=item Non-finite repeat count does nothing
4132
4133(W numeric) You tried to execute the
8a737443
FC
4134L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator C<Inf> (or
4135C<-Inf>) or C<NaN> times, which doesn't make sense.
02a7a248 4136
e0e4a6e3 4137=item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4138
4139(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
4140a hex one was expected, like
4141
4142 (?[ [ \xDG ] ])
4143 (?[ [ \x{DEKA} ] ])
4144
8d1e72f0
KW
4145=item Non-hex character '%c' terminates \x early. Resolved as "%s"
4146
4147(W digit) In parsing a hexadecimal numeric constant, a character was
4148unexpectedly encountered that isn't hexadecimal. The resulting value
4149is as indicated.
4150
4151Note that, within braces, every character starting with the first
4152non-hexadecimal up to the ending brace is ignored.
4153
e0e4a6e3 4154=item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4155
4156(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
4157an octal one was expected, like
4158
4159 (?[ [ \o{1278} ] ])
4160
8d1e72f0 4161=item Non-octal character '%c' terminates \o early. Resolved as "%s"
675fa9ff
FC
4162
4163(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
4164unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
4165is as indicated.
4166
fcc04d73
KW
4167When not using C<\o{...}>, you wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179>
4168in a double-quotish string. The resolution is as indicated, with all
4169but the last digit treated as a single character, specified in octal.
4170The last digit is the next character in the string. To tell Perl that
4171this is indeed what you want, you can use the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use
4172exactly three digits to specify the octal for the character.
4173
8d1e72f0
KW
4174Note that, within braces, every character starting with the first
4175non-octal up to the ending brace is ignored.
4176
6df41af2
GS
4177=item "no" not allowed in expression
4178
be771a83
GS
4179(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4180returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 4181
675fa9ff
FC
4182=item Non-string passed as bitmask
4183
4184(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
4185Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
4186select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4187
c47ff5f1 4188=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 4189
be771a83
GS
4190(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4191redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
4192doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 4193
c47ff5f1 4194=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 4195
be771a83
GS
4196(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4197redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
4198find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 4199
8d9d0498
FC
4200=item No package name allowed for subroutine %s in "our"
4201
1ec3e8de
GS
4202=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
4203
8d9d0498
FC
4204(F) Fully qualified subroutine and variable names are not allowed in "our"
4205declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing rules.
4206Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 4207
a0d0e21e
LW
4208=item No Perl script found in input
4209
4210(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
4211with #! and containing the word "perl".
4212
4213=item No setregid available
4214
4215(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
4216your system.
4217
4218=item No setreuid available
4219
4220(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
4221your system.
4222
5a25739d
FC
4223=item No such class %s
4224
4225(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
4226declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
4227
e75d1f10
RD
4228=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
4229
b7e4ecc1
FC
4230(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
4231variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
4232The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
4233L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 4234
3c20a832
SP
4235=item No such hook: %s
4236
dc7e5945
FC
4237(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
4238Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 4239
6df41af2
GS
4240=item No such pipe open
4241
4242(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
4243close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
4244earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 4245
a0d0e21e
LW
4246=item No such signal: SIG%s
4247
be771a83
GS
4248(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
4249not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
4250names on your system.
a0d0e21e 4251
1532347b
KW
4252=item No Unicode property value wildcard matches:
4253
4254(W regexp) You specified a wildcard for a Unicode property value, but
4255there is no property value in the current Unicode release that matches
4256it. Check your spelling.
4257
a0d0e21e
LW
4258=item Not a CODE reference
4259
4260(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4261subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
4262use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4263also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4264
a0d0e21e
LW
4265=item Not a GLOB reference
4266
be771a83
GS
4267(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
4268symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
4269something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
4270kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4271
4272=item Not a HASH reference
4273
be771a83
GS
4274(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
4275reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
4276find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4277
b913d0b8
FC
4278=item '#' not allowed immediately following a sigil in a subroutine signature
4279
4280(F) In a subroutine signature definition, a comment following a sigil
dabde021 4281(C<$>, C<@> or C<%>), needs to be separated by whitespace or a comma etc., in
b913d0b8
FC
4282particular to avoid confusion with the C<$#> variable. For example:
4283
4284 # bad
4285 sub f ($# ignore first arg
4286 , $b) {}
4287 # good
4288 sub f ($, # ignore first arg
4289 $b) {}
4290
6df41af2
GS
4291=item Not an ARRAY reference
4292
be771a83
GS
4293(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
4294a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4295to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 4296
a0d0e21e
LW
4297=item Not a SCALAR reference
4298
be771a83
GS
4299(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
4300a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4301to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4302
4303=item Not a subroutine reference
4304
4305(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4306subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
4307use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4308also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4309
e7ea3e70 4310=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
4311
4312(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 4313doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 4314
a0d0e21e
LW
4315=item Not enough arguments for %s
4316
4317(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
4318
6df41af2
GS
4319=item Not enough format arguments
4320
be771a83
GS
4321(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
4322supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
4323
4324=item %s: not found
4325
be771a83
GS
4326(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4327of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4328yourself.
6df41af2
GS
4329
4330=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 4331
6df41af2
GS
4332(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
4333timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
4334to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
4335F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
4336need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 4337
6df41af2
GS
4338=item NULL OP IN RUN
4339
f84fe999 4340(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 4341pointer.
6df41af2 4342
55497cff 4343=item Null picture in formline
4344
4345(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
4346specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
4347supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
4348
a0d0e21e
LW
4349=item Null realloc
4350
4351(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
4352
4353=item NULL regexp argument
4354
5f05dabc 4355(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
4356
4357=item NULL regexp parameter
4358
4359(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
4360
fc36a67e 4361=item Number too long
4362
be771a83 4363(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 4364about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
4365versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
4366the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
4367"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 4368
f0a2b745
KW
4369=item Number with no digits
4370
1043934d 4371(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 4372a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 4373the braces.
f0a2b745 4374
027471cf
TC
4375=item Numeric format result too large
4376
4377(F) The length of the result of a numeric format supplied to sprintf()
4378or printf() would have been too large for the underlying C function to
4379report. This limit is typically 2GB.
4380
60267e1d
YO
4381=item Numeric variables with more than one digit may not start with '0'
4382
4383(F) The only numeric variable which is allowed to start with a 0 is C<$0>,
4384and you mentioned a variable that starts with 0 that has more than one
4385digit. You probably want to remove the leading 0, or if the intent was
4386to express a variable name in octal you should convert to decimal.
4387
252aa082
JH
4388=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
4389
75b44862 4390(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
4391(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
4392L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 4393
ac7609e4 4394=item Odd name/value argument for subroutine '%s'
30d9c59b
Z
4395
4396(F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
4397received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
4398the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
35e5ce67 4399The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
30d9c59b 4400
ac7609e4
AC
4401The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
4402subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
4403regardless of what name the caller used.
4404
6ad11d81
JH
4405=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
4406
04a80ee0 4407(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 4408arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 4409
b21befc1
MG
4410=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
4411
4412(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4413which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4414
1930e939 4415=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 4416
be771a83
GS
4417(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4418which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 4419
bbce6d69 4420=item Offset outside string
4421
1fa582fa 4422(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 4423with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
4424imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
4425take place when going past the end of the string when either
4426C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
0f44b2a5 4427for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behavior
1a7a2554 4428with real files).
bbce6d69 4429
2cb35ee0
FC
4430=item Old package separator used in string
4431
4432(W syntax) You used the old package separator, "'", in a variable
4433named inside a double-quoted string; e.g., C<"In $name's house">. This
4434is equivalent to C<"In $name::s house">. If you meant the former, put
4435a backslash before the apostrophe (C<"In $name\'s house">).
4436
c289d2f7 4437=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
4438
4439(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
4440never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
4441call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
4442
96ebfdd7
RK
4443=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
4444
4445(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
4446that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
4447
a0d0e21e
LW
4448=item oops: oopsAV
4449
e476b1b5 4450(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
4451
4452=item oops: oopsHV
4453
e476b1b5 4454(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 4455
e0e4a6e3
FC
4456=item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4457m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 4458
675fa9ff 4459(F) You wrote something like
0d0b4b3b
KW
4460
4461 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
4462
4463There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
4464them.
4465
a0288114 4466=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 4467
be771a83
GS
4468(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
4469handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
4470of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 4471the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 4472
5ff1373f 4473=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 4474
52d1f2c9 4475(S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode rules
b5af3ad2
FC
4476on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
4477defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
4478
4479If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4480matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4481
4482If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 4483C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 4484
5ff1373f 4485=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 4486
4c2e59a0 4487(S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
52d1f2c9 4488rules on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
ad94bb39 4489of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
52d1f2c9 4490rules are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
ad94bb39
FC
4491they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
4492surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
4493
4494If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4495matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4496
4497If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 4498C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 4499
748a9306
LW
4500=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
4501
be771a83
GS
4502(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
4503was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
4504use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
4505example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
4506"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 4507
30d9c59b
Z
4508=item Optional parameter lacks default expression
4509
4510(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
4511named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
4512parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
4513have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
4514
6df41af2
GS
4515=item "our" variable %s redeclared
4516
52e3acf8 4517(W shadow) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
be771a83 4518in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 4519
a80b8354
GS
4520=item Out of memory!
4521
4522(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
4523remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
4524no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 4525
19a52907
JH
4526At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
4527process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
4528C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
4529the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
4530and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
4531
6d3b25aa
RGS
4532=item Out of memory during %s extend
4533
4534(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
4535the largest possible memory allocation.
4536
6df41af2 4537=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 4538
6df41af2 4539(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
6903afa2 4540remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
4541the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
4542possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 4543
1b979e0a 4544=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 4545
1fa582fa 4546(X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
be771a83
GS
4547insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
4548request.
eff9c6e2
CS
4549
4550The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
4551depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
4552However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
4553emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
4554is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
4555where the failed request happened.
55497cff 4556
1b979e0a
IZ
4557=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
4558
4559(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
4560is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
4561C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 4562
6df41af2
GS
4563=item Out of memory for yacc stack
4564
be771a83
GS
4565(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
4566parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
4567otherwise.
6df41af2 4568
28be1210
TH
4569=item '.' outside of string in pack
4570
4571(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
4572position to before the start of the packed string being built.
4573
49704364 4574=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 4575
49704364 4576(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
4577the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4578
f337b084
TH
4579=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
4580
4581(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6903afa2 4582the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
fa816bf3 4583UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
f337b084 4584
7778d804
FC
4585=item overload arg '%s' is invalid
4586
4587(W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
4588recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
4589
7cb0cfe6
BM
4590=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
4591
4592(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
6903afa2 4593but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
7cb0cfe6
BM
4594L<overload>.
4595
4596=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
4597
4598(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
6903afa2 4599overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
7cb0cfe6 4600
6df41af2
GS
4601=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
4602
be771a83
GS
4603(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
4604package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
4605some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
4606mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 4607
96ebfdd7
RK
4608=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
4609
4610(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
4611signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4612
a0d0e21e
LW
4613=item page overflow
4614
be771a83
GS
4615(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
4616page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 4617
6df41af2
GS
4618=item panic: %s
4619
4620(P) An internal error.
4621
c99a1475
NC
4622=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
4623
4624(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
4625an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
4626platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
4627enter this branch on this platform.
4628
d5e473ac
SH
4629=item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
4630
4631(P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
4632was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
4633able to initialize properly.
4634
5637ef5b 4635=item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4636
4637(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
4638
5637ef5b 4639=item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
a0d0e21e 4640
be771a83
GS
4641(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
4642there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 4643
810b8aa5
GS
4644=item panic: del_backref
4645
4646(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4647reference.
4648
a0d0e21e
LW
4649=item panic: do_subst
4650
be771a83
GS
4651(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4652data.
a0d0e21e 4653
2269b42e 4654=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 4655
2269b42e 4656(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 4657data.
a0d0e21e 4658
b7f7fd0b
NC
4659=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4660
10203f38 4661(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
4662failure was caught.
4663
255abbe7 4664=item panic: frexp: %f
c635e13b 4665
4666(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4667
5637ef5b 4668=item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
a0d0e21e
LW
4669
4670(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4671and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4672
b0d55c99
FC
4673=item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4674
4675(P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
6903afa2
FC
4676repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4677Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4678the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
b0d55c99 4679
5637ef5b 4680=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4681
4682(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4683
5637ef5b 4684=item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4685
4686(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4687
e446cec8
IZ
4688=item panic: kid popen errno read
4689
1f91b9f5 4690(F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
e446cec8 4691
5637ef5b 4692=item panic: last, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4693
4694(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4695it wasn't a block context.
4696
4697=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4698
be771a83
GS
4699(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4700scope.
a0d0e21e 4701
5637ef5b 4702=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
a0d0e21e
LW
4703
4704(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4705invalid enum on the top of it.
4706
810b8aa5
GS
4707=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4708
4709(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4710references to an object.
4711
5637ef5b 4712=item panic: malloc, %s
6df41af2
GS
4713
4714(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4715
27d5b266
JH
4716=item panic: memory wrap
4717
46f9c2c2
FC
4718(P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4719negative amount.
27d5b266 4720
5637ef5b 4721=item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4722
4723(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4724and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4725
5637ef5b 4726=item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4727
4728(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4729and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4730
4731=item panic: pad_free po
4732
c1bd5aaa 4733(P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. An attempt was
61a9f070 4734made to free a target that had not been allocated to begin with.
a0d0e21e 4735
5637ef5b 4736=item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4737
4738(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4739and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4740
4741=item panic: pad_sv po
4742
61a9f070
FC
4743(P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. Most likely
4744an operator needed a target but that target had not been allocated
4745for whatever reason.
a0d0e21e 4746
5637ef5b 4747=item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4748
4749(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4750and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4751
4752=item panic: pad_swipe po
4753
4754(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4755
5637ef5b 4756=item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4757
4758(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4759
96ebfdd7
RK
4760=item panic: pp_match%s
4761
4762(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4763data.
4764
5637ef5b 4765=item panic: realloc, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4766
4767(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4768
ccfb6d2e
FC
4769=item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4770
4771(P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4772reference count other than 1.
4773
5637ef5b 4774=item panic: restartop in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4775
4776(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4777didn't supply the destination.
4778
5637ef5b 4779=item panic: return, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4780
4781(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4782then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4783
5637ef5b 4784=item panic: scan_num, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4785
4786(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4787
4599db5f 4788=item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
d24ca0c5 4789
1f91b9f5 4790(P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
d24ca0c5
DM
4791blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4792seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4793
5a25739d
FC
4794=item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4795
4796(P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4797In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4798is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4799
6c65d5f9
NC
4800=item panic: sv_chop %s
4801
4802(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4803scalar's string buffer.
4804
5637ef5b 4805=item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4806
4807(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4808was string.
4809
4810=item panic: top_env
4811
6224f72b 4812(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 4813
65bca31a
NC
4814=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4815
a1efa96e
FC
4816(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4817permitted at run time.
65bca31a 4818
01bbc29f
FC
4819=item panic: unknown OA_*: %x
4820
4821(P) The internal routine that handles arguments to C<&CORE::foo()>
4822subroutine calls was unable to determine what type of arguments
4823were expected.
4824
dea0fc0b
JH
4825=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4826
4827(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 4828to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 4829
e0ea5e2d
NC
4830=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4831
4832(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4833to even) byte length.
4834
5637ef5b 4835=item panic: yylex, %s
2f7da168
RK
4836
4837(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4838
78181aa9
KW
4839=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4840
4841(W parenthesis) You said something like
4842
4843 my $foo, $bar = @_;
4844
4845when you meant
4846
4847 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4848
4849Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4850
28ac2b49
Z
4851=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4852
4853(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4854a detectable way.
4855
b9bd8d8c 4856=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
1a147d38
YO
4857
4858(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
6903afa2
FC
4859consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4860the nesting limit is exceeded.
1a147d38 4861
96ebfdd7
RK
4862=item C<-p> destination: %s
4863
4864(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4865command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4866redirected it with select().)
4867
0ae4a328
FC
4868=item Perl API version %s of %s does not match %s
4869
d792985a 4870(F) The XS module in question was compiled against a different incompatible
0ae4a328
FC
4871version of Perl than the one that has loaded the XS module.
4872
8954b91a 4873=item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
e0e4a6e3 4874utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
d50a4f90 4875
6014bd26
JK
4876(S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4877and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4878folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
8166b4e0 4879Please report this as a bug to L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
d50a4f90 4880
f51551f7
FC
4881=item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4882
4883(S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4884experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4885simply disable this warning:
4886
4887 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4888
1109a392
MHM
4889=item Perl_my_%s() not available
4890
4891(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4892so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4893conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4894'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4895
6651ba0b
FC
4896=item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4897
4898(F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4899Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4900of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4901interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4902decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4903is equivalent to v5.100.
4904
6903f24f 4905=item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
6d3b25aa
RGS
4906
4907(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4908recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4909you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4910
6df41af2
GS
4911=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4912
fa816bf3 4913(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 4914C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 4915
96ebfdd7
RK
4916=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4917
806b6d07 4918(X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
96ebfdd7 4919
6651ba0b
FC
4920=item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4921
4922(F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4923on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4924Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4925wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4926
675fa9ff
FC
4927=item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4928
ff9c1ae8 4929(S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
675fa9ff
FC
4930contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4931hash seed you think you are.
6a5b4183 4932
6df41af2
GS
4933=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4934
4935(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4936
4937 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4938 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4939 LC_ALL = "En_US",
4940 LANG = (unset)
4941 are supported and installed on your system.
4942 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4943
4944Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4945settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
4946This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4947system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4948locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4949dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4b07a369
FC
4950Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4951fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4952time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
0ea6b70f 4953L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 4954
6a5b4183
YO
4955=item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4956
ff9c1ae8 4957(S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
675fa9ff 4958but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
6a5b4183
YO
4959are as follows.
4960
4961 Numeric | String | Result
4962 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4963 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4964 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
555bd962
BG
4965 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4966 | | randomization
6a5b4183
YO
4967
4968Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
675fa9ff 4969case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
aac486f1 4970
bd3fa61c 4971=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 4972
be771a83
GS
4973(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4974process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4975fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 4976
49704364 4977=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
4978
4979(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4980
6e8a73f2 4981=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
96ebfdd7 4982
e0e4a6e3 4983(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 4984shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
96ebfdd7
RK
4985Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4986the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4987not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4988
4989=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4990
4991(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4992the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4993
46d34d0e 4994=item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes%s in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4995S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4996
46d34d0e
KW
4997(W regexp) Perl thinks that you intended to write a POSIX character
4998class, but didn't use enough brackets. These POSIX class constructs [:
4999:], [= =], and [. .] go I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of
5000the construct, for example: C<qr/[012[:alpha:]345]/>. What the regular
5001expression pattern compiled to is probably not what you were intending.
5002For example, C<qr/[:alpha:]/> compiles to a regular bracketed character
5003class consisting of the four characters C<":">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
5004C<"h">, and C<"p">. To specify the POSIX class, it should have been
5005written C<qr/[[:alpha:]]/>.
5006
5007Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
9e3ec65c 5008implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
e0e4a6e3 5009will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5010expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5011
46d34d0e
KW
5012If the specification of the class was not completely valid, the message
5013indicates that.
5014
6fbc9859 5015=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5016S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5017
a125938c
FC
5018(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
5019with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
5020need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
5021character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
e0e4a6e3 5022and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
a125938c 5023problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5024
6fbc9859 5025=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5026S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5027
7253e4e3
RK
5028(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
5029with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
5030need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
5031character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
e0e4a6e3 5032and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 5033problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5034
bbce6d69 5035=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
5036
e476b1b5 5037(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 5038strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
5039literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
5040parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 5041
774d564b 5042You probably wrote something like this:
5043
54310121 5044 @list = qw(
774d564b 5045 a # a comment
bbce6d69 5046 b # another comment
774d564b 5047 );
bbce6d69 5048
5049when you should have written this:
5050
774d564b 5051 @list = qw(
54310121 5052 a
5053 b
774d564b 5054 );
5055
5056If you really want comments, build your list the
5057old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
5058
5059 @list = (
5060 'a', # a comment
5061 'b', # another comment
5062 );
bbce6d69 5063
5064=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
5065
be771a83
GS
5066(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
5067commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
5068different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
5069frequently used.)
bbce6d69 5070
54310121 5071You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 5072
774d564b 5073 qw! a, b, c !;
5074
5075which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
5076commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 5077
774d564b 5078 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 5079
a0d0e21e
LW
5080=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
5081
5082(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
5083Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
5084end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
5085Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
5086
9da2d046
NT
5087=item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
5088
5089(W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
5090flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
5091C<or>. Consider:
5092
5093 sub { return $a or $b; }
5094
5095This is parsed as:
5096
5097 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
5098
5099Which is effectively just:
5100
5101 sub { return $a; }
5102
5103Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
5104
5105Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
5106
5107 sub { 1 if die; }
5108
8823cb89 5109=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %s operator
a690c7c4
FC
5110
5111(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
5112with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
5113
5114 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
5115
5116This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
5117higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
5118really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
5119parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
5120
77772344
B
5121=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
5122
5123(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
5124The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 5125record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
5126followed by the word 'bar'.
5127
5128If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
5129C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
5130
5131If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
5132followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
5133C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
5134
e5035638
FC
5135=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
5136
ccf3535a 5137(W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
6903afa2 5138but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
e5035638
FC
5139literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
5140to the array you apparently lost track of.
5141
a0d0e21e
LW
5142=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
5143
e476b1b5 5144(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 5145
a0d0e21e
LW
5146 open FOO || die;
5147
5148is now misinterpreted as
5149
5150 open(FOO || die);
5151
be771a83
GS
5152because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
5153list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
5154parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
5155of "||".
a0d0e21e 5156
3cdd684c
TP
5157=item Premature end of script headers
5158
3de20fbe 5159See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 5160
6df41af2
GS
5161=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
5162
be771a83 5163(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5164before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 5165
9a7dcd9c 5166=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5167
be771a83 5168(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5169before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5170
6df41af2 5171=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 5172
6df41af2
GS
5173(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
5174applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
5175port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
5176L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 5177in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 5178
327323c1
RGS
5179=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
5180
fa816bf3
FC
5181(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
5182useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
327323c1 5183
3fe9a6f1 5184=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 5185
9a0b3859 5186(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 5187declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 5188
ed9aa3b7
SG
5189=item Prototype not terminated
5190
2a6fd447 5191(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
5192definition.
5193
eedb00fa
PM
5194=item Prototype '%s' overridden by attribute 'prototype(%s)' in %s
5195
5196(W prototype) A prototype was declared in both the parentheses after
5197the sub name and via the prototype attribute. The prototype in
5198parentheses is useless, since it will be replaced by the prototype
5199from the attribute before it's ever used.
5200
6e8a73f2 5201=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
96ebfdd7 5202
6903afa2 5203(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
e0e4a6e3 5204you meant it literally. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5205expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 5206
6e8a73f2 5207=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9baa0206 5208
6903afa2 5209(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
e0e4a6e3 5210the {min,max} construct. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5211expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 5212
675fa9ff
FC
5213=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex
5214
e0e4a6e3
FC
5215=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex; marked by
5216S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
5217
5218(W regexp) Minima should be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
5219want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}.
5220
e1729dc6 5221=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 5222
b45f050a
JF
5223(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
5224it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
5225quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
5226"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
5227C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 5228
89ea2908
GA
5229=item Range iterator outside integer range
5230
5231(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
5232are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
5233One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
5234by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 5235
ad513756 5236=item Ranges of ASCII printables should be some subset of "0-9", "A-Z", or
6e8a73f2 5237"a-z" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ad513756
FC
5238
5239(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
5240
5241Stricter rules help to find typos and other errors. Perhaps you didn't
5242even intend a range here, if the C<"-"> was meant to be some other
5243character, or should have been escaped (like C<"\-">). If you did
5244intend a range, the one that was used is not portable between ASCII and
5245EBCDIC platforms, and doesn't have an obvious meaning to a casual
5246reader.
5247
5248 [3-7] # OK; Obvious and portable
5249 [d-g] # OK; Obvious and portable
5250 [A-Y] # OK; Obvious and portable
5251 [A-z] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5252 [a-Z] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5253 [%-.] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5254 [\x41-Z] # WRONG; Not portable; not obvious to non-geek
5255
5256(You can force portability by specifying a Unicode range, which means that
5257the endpoints are specified by
5258L<C<\N{...}>|perlrecharclass/Character Ranges>, but the meaning may
5259still not be obvious.)
5260The stricter rules require that ranges that start or stop with an ASCII
5261character that is not a control have all their endpoints be the literal
5262character, and not some escape sequence (like C<"\x41">), and the ranges
5263must be all digits, or all uppercase letters, or all lowercase letters.
5264
5265=item Ranges of digits should be from the same group in regex; marked by
6e8a73f2 5266S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ad513756
FC
5267
5268(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
5269
5270Stricter rules help to find typos and other errors. You included a
5271range, and at least one of the end points is a decimal digit. Under the
5272stricter rules, when this happens, both end points should be digits in
5273the same group of 10 consecutive digits.
5274
3b7fbd4a
SP
5275=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5276
1a147d38 5277(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
5278a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5279
96ebfdd7
RK
5280=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
5281
5282(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
5283before now. Check your control flow.
5284
b5fe5ca2
SR
5285=item read() on closed filehandle %s
5286
5287(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
5288
5289=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
5290
5291(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
5292
de42a5a9 5293=item Reallocation too large: %x
6df41af2
GS
5294
5295(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
5296
4ad56ec9
IZ
5297=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
5298
be771a83
GS
5299(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
5300already been freed.
4ad56ec9 5301
a0d0e21e
LW
5302=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
5303
19b29141 5304(S debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
be771a83 5305the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
5306which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
5307
6651ba0b
FC
5308=item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
5309
5310(P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
5311a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
5312$fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
5313loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
5314
3e0ccd42 5315=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 5316
2c7d6b9c
RGS
5317(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
5318believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
5319crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 5320
f51551f7
FC
5321=item Redundant argument in %s
5322
5323(W redundant) You called a function with more arguments than other
3617dbb6 5324arguments you supplied indicated would be needed. Currently only
f51551f7
FC
5325emitted when a printf-type format required fewer arguments than were
5326supplied, but might be used in the future for e.g. L<perlfunc/pack>.
5327
12605ff9
FC
5328=item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
5329
2e0cfa16
FC
5330=item refcnt: fd %d%s
5331
12605ff9
FC
5332=item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
5333
fa816bf3 5334(P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
2e0cfa16
FC
5335you see this message, something is very wrong.
5336
1930e939
TP
5337=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
5338
be771a83 5339(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
6903afa2
FC
5340with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
5341usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
5342to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
5343
5344 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
5345 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
5346 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
5347 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
5348
810b8aa5
GS
5349=item Reference is already weak
5350
e476b1b5 5351(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
5352Doing so has no effect.
5353
ae2cf9f6
DIM
5354=item Reference is not weak
5355
5356(W misc) You have attempted to unweaken a reference that is not weak.
5357Doing so has no effect.
5358
e0e4a6e3 5359=item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b72d83b2 5360
6903afa2
FC
5361(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
5362to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
5363(normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
5364backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
b72d83b2 5365
e0e4a6e3
FC
5366=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5367m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
5368
5369(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
6903afa2 5370not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
bbaee129
FC
5371you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
5372expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 5373
6e8a73f2 5374The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a 5375discovered.
9baa0206 5376
e0e4a6e3
FC
5377=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
5378in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
5379
5380(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
9381611c 5381expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
6903afa2 5382such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
9381611c 5383spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
1a147d38 5384
6e8a73f2 5385The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
5386discovered.
5387
e0e4a6e3
FC
5388=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by
5389S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38 5390
bcb95744
FC
5391(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
5392are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
5393expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
1a147d38 5394
6e8a73f2 5395The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
5396discovered.
5397
a0d0e21e
LW
5398=item regexp memory corruption
5399
5400(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
5401expression compiler gave it.
5402
ff3f26d2
KW
5403=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
5404
4d910168 5405=item Regexp modifier "%c" may appear a maximum of twice in regex; marked
e0e4a6e3 5406by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 5407
ce170e67 5408(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
ff3f26d2 5409of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
3955e1a9 5410
6fbc9859
MH
5411=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <--
5412HERE in m/%s/
9442e3b8 5413
f8b5bc72
FC
5414(F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
5415another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
9442e3b8
KW
5416expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
5417the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
5418
591f5ca2
FC
5419=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
5420
4d910168
FC
5421=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear twice in regex; marked by <--
5422HERE in m/%s/
5423
ce170e67 5424(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
591f5ca2
FC
5425of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
5426
3955e1a9
KW
5427=item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
5428
4d910168 5429=item Regexp modifiers "%c" and "%c" are mutually exclusive in regex;
e0e4a6e3 5430marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 5431
ce170e67 5432(F) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
3955e1a9
KW
5433mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
5434supposed to be there.
5435
aec0ef10 5436=item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5437
be771a83
GS
5438(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
5439earlier.
a0d0e21e 5440
a7f533cb 5441=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @#)
a1b95068 5442
d7f8936a 5443(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068 5444numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
6903afa2 5445terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
a1b95068 5446
b08e453b
RB
5447=item Replacement list is longer than search list
5448
5449(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
fa816bf3 5450search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
b08e453b
RB
5451are meaningless.
5452
d9790612
KW
5453=item '(*%s' requires a terminating ':' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5454
5455(F) You used a construct that needs a colon and pattern argument.
5456Supply these or check that you are using the right construct.
5457
5e0a247b
KW
5458=item '%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'
5459
fcc04d73
KW
5460As of Perl 5.32, this message is no longer generated. Instead, see
5461L</Non-octal character '%c' terminates \o early. Resolved as "%s">.
5e0a247b
KW
5462(W misc, regexp) You wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179> in a
5463double-quotish string. All but the last digit is treated as a single
5464character, specified in octal. The last digit is the next character in
5465the string. To tell Perl that this is indeed what you want, you can use
5466the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use exactly three digits to specify the octal
5467for the character.
5468
a0d0e21e
LW
5469=item Reversed %s= operator
5470
be771a83 5471(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
964742a1 5472always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 5473
abc7ecad
SP
5474=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5475
1b303a7d
FC
5476(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed
5477or not really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
abc7ecad 5478
96ebfdd7
RK
5479=item Scalars leaked: %d
5480
7bd1381d 5481(S internal) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping
4f5966a5
FC
5482of scalars: not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time
5483Perl exited. What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which
5484is of course bad, especially if the Perl program is intended to be
5485long-running.
96ebfdd7 5486
a0d0e21e
LW
5487=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
5488
be771a83
GS
5489(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
5490single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
5491value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
5492behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
5493argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
5494and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
5495if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 5496
748a9306 5497On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 5498element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
5499Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
5500L<perlref>.
5501
a6006777 5502=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
5503
75b44862 5504(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
5505element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
5506(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
5507like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
5508argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
5509and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
5510if you're expecting only one subscript.
5511
5512On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
5513as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
5514not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 5515L<perlref>.
5516
a0d0e21e
LW
5517=item Search pattern not terminated
5518
5519(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
5520construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5521Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 5522
ea9d9ebc 5523Note that since Perl 5.10.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd 5524construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
ea9d9ebc
FC
5525in Perl 5.10.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
5526misparsed by pre-5.10.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
5d9c98cd 5527
abc7ecad
SP
5528=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5529
5530(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
5531really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5532
3257ea4f
FC
5533=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
5534
5535(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
5536filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
5537
a0d0e21e
LW
5538=item select not implemented
5539
5540(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
5541
ae21d580 5542=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 5543
ae21d580
JH
5544(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
5545the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 5546
6df41af2 5547=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 5548
75b44862
GS
5549(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
5550semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
5551
5552=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
5553
be771a83
GS
5554(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
5555scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 5556
6df41af2 5557=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 5558
6df41af2 5559(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 5560
69282e91 5561=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5562
be771a83 5563(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5564before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5565
0ae4a328
FC
5566=item Sequence "\c{" invalid
5567
5568(F) These three characters may not appear in sequence in a
5569double-quotish context. This message is raised only on non-ASCII
5570platforms (a different error message is output on ASCII ones). If you
5571were intending to specify a control character with this sequence, you'll
5572have to use a different way to specify it.
5573
e0e4a6e3 5574=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7b8d334a 5575
6903afa2 5576(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
e0e4a6e3 5577S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6903afa2 5578discovered. See L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 5579
e0e4a6e3
FC
5580=item Sequence (?%c...) not implemented in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5581m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5582
6903afa2 5583(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
e0e4a6e3 5584but has not yet been written. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 5585regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5586
e0e4a6e3
FC
5587=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5588m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5589
d921c7bf 5590(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
e0e4a6e3 5591The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
d921c7bf 5592discovered. This may happen when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
fb85c044 5593Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9442e3b8 5594redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
9de15fec 5595causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 5596
aec0ef10 5597=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
5598
5599(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
aec0ef10 5600parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See
7253e4e3 5601L<perlre>.
6df41af2 5602
07ea66ee
FC
5603=item Sequence (?&... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5604m/%s/
5605
5606(F) A named reference of the form C<(?&...)> was missing the final
5607closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
5608in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5609
e0e4a6e3 5610=item Sequence (?%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
5611in m/%s/
5612
5613(F) A named group of the form C<(?'...')> or C<< (?<...>) >> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 5614closing quote or angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
4599db5f
FC
5615regular expression the problem was discovered.
5616
e0e4a6e3 5617=item Sequence (?(%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
5618in m/%s/
5619
5620(F) A named reference of the form C<(?('...')...)> or C<< (?(<...>)...) >> was
5621missing the final closing quote or angle bracket after the name. The
e0e4a6e3 5622S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4599db5f
FC
5623discovered.
5624
5b9ce456
KW
5625=item Sequence (?... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5626m/%s/
5627
5628(F) There was no matching closing parenthesis for the '('. The
5629S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
5630discovered.
5631
e0e4a6e3
FC
5632=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5633m/%s/
5a25739d
FC
5634
5635(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
5636sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
5637
9da1dd8f
DM
5638=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
5639
be149b43
DM
5640(F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
5641followed immediately by a ')'.
9da1dd8f 5642
74d1b2e4 5643=item Sequence (?PE<gt>... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4599db5f 5644
74d1b2e4 5645(F) A named reference of the form C<(?PE<gt>...)> was missing the final
cfbef7dc
KW
5646closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
5647in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5648
5649=item Sequence (?PE<lt>... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5650
5651(F) A named group of the form C<(?PE<lt>...E<gt>')> was missing the final
5652closing angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
5653regular expression the problem was discovered.
5654
74d1b2e4
FC
5655=item Sequence ?P=... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5656m/%s/
cfbef7dc 5657
74d1b2e4 5658(F) A named reference of the form C<(?P=...)> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 5659closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
4599db5f
FC
5660in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5661
5662=item Sequence (?R) not terminated in regex m/%s/
5663
5664(F) An C<(?R)> or C<(?0)> sequence in a regular expression was missing the
5665final parenthesis.
5666
3de20fbe 5667=item Z<>500 Server error
a5f75d66 5668
6903afa2
FC
5669(A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
5670when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
5671actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
5672frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
5673not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
5674headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 5675
5676B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
5677
6903afa2
FC
5678You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
5679the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
5680user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
5681variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
5682in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
5683less. Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 5684
71c89d21 5685 https://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
06a5f41f
JH
5686 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
5687 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 5688
be94a901
GS
5689You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
5690
a0d0e21e
LW
5691=item setegid() not implemented
5692
be771a83
GS
5693(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
5694support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5695didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5696
5697=item seteuid() not implemented
5698
be771a83
GS
5699(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
5700support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5701didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5702
81777298
GS
5703=item setpgrp can't take arguments
5704
be771a83
GS
5705(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
5706arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
5707group ID.
81777298 5708
a0d0e21e
LW
5709=item setrgid() not implemented
5710
be771a83
GS
5711(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
5712support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5713didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5714
5715=item setruid() not implemented
5716
be771a83
GS
5717(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
5718support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5719didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5720
6df41af2
GS
5721=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
5722
be771a83
GS
5723(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
5724forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
5725L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
5726
520b6fb6 5727=item Setting $/ to a reference to %s is forbidden
6da34ecb 5728
3f673807
FC
5729(F) You assigned a reference to a scalar to C<$/> where the referenced item is
5730not a positive integer. In older perls this B<appeared> to work the same as
5731setting it to C<undef> but was in fact internally different, less efficient
5732and with very bad luck could have resulted in your file being split by a
5733stringified form of the reference.
6da34ecb 5734
ea9d9ebc 5735In Perl 5.20.0 this was changed so that it would be B<exactly> the same as
3f673807 5736setting C<$/> to undef, with the exception that this warning would be thrown.
6da34ecb 5737
3f673807
FC
5738You are recommended to change your code to set C<$/> to C<undef> explicitly if
5739you wish to slurp the file. As of Perl 5.28 assigning C<$/> to a reference
5740to an integer which isn't positive is a fatal error.
6da34ecb 5741
ee0ba734 5742=item Setting $/ to %s reference is forbidden
a48e4205
FC
5743
5744(F) You tried to assign a reference to a non integer to C<$/>. In older
5745Perls this would have behaved similarly to setting it to a reference to
5746a positive integer, where the integer was the address of the reference.
5747As of Perl 5.20.0 this is a fatal error, to allow future versions of Perl
5748to use non-integer refs for more interesting purposes.
5749
a0d0e21e
LW
5750=item shm%s not implemented
5751
5752(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
5753
984200d0
YST
5754=item !=~ should be !~
5755
5756(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
5757interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
5758operators: probably not what you intended.
5759
6df41af2
GS
5760=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
5761
5762(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
5763as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
5764result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
5765probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 5766
69282e91 5767=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5768
75b44862
GS
5769(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
5770superfluous.
a0d0e21e 5771
f86702cc 5772=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 5773
be771a83
GS
5774(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
5775Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 5776
efc859fb
FC
5777=item Slab leaked from cv %p
5778
5779(S) If you see this message, then something is seriously wrong with the
5780internal bookkeeping of op trees. An op tree needed to be freed after
5781a compilation error, but could not be found, so it was leaked instead.
5782
3b9aea04
SH
5783=item sleep(%u) too large
5784
5785(W overflow) You called C<sleep> with a number that was larger than
5786it can reliably handle and C<sleep> probably slept for less time than
5787requested.
5788
30d9c59b
Z
5789=item Slurpy parameter not last
5790
5791(F) In a subroutine signature, you put something after a slurpy (array or
5792hash) parameter. The slurpy parameter takes all the available arguments,
5793so there can't be any left to fill later parameters.
5794
7896dde7
Z
5795=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
5796
5797(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
5798overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure
5799for the smart match.
5800
0f539b13
BF
5801=item Smartmatch is experimental
5802
5803(S experimental::smartmatch) This warning is emitted if you
5804use the smartmatch (C<~~>) operator. This is currently an experimental
5805feature, and its details are subject to change in future releases of
7896dde7
Z
5806Perl. Particularly, its current behavior is noticed for being
5807unnecessarily complex and unintuitive, and is very likely to be
5808overhauled.
0f539b13 5809
b02f3645
AC
5810=item Sorry, hash keys must be smaller than 2**31 bytes
5811
5812(F) You tried to create a hash containing a very large key, where "very
5813large" means that it needs at least 2 gigabytes to store. Unfortunately,
5814Perl doesn't yet handle such large hash keys. You should
5815reconsider your design to avoid hashing such a long string directly.
5816
714f94d1
FC
5817=item sort is now a reserved word
5818
5819(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
5820But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
5821
f1c31c52
FC
5822=item Source filters apply only to byte streams
5823
5824(F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
5825source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
5826not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
5827C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
5828
8cbc2e3b
JH
5829=item splice() offset past end of array
5830
5831(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
fa816bf3
FC
5832the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
5833end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
5834try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
5835See L<perlfunc/splice>.
8cbc2e3b 5836
a0d0e21e
LW
5837=item Split loop
5838
be771a83
GS
5839(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
5840iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
6903afa2 5841happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 5842
a0d0e21e
LW
5843=item Statement unlikely to be reached
5844
be771a83
GS
5845(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
5846die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
5847unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
5848instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
5849a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 5850
a21eb52b
FC
5851=item "state" subroutine %s can't be in a package
5852
5853(F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5854sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
5855
a2e39214
FC
5856=item "state %s" used in sort comparison
5857
5858(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
5859You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
5860sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
5861lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
5862name, or rename the lexical variable.
5863
5a25739d
FC
5864=item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
5865
5866(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5867sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
5868local() if you want to localize a package variable.
5869
9ddeeac9 5870=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 5871
355b1299
JH
5872(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
5873was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 5874
5a25739d
FC
5875=item Strings with code points over 0xFF may not be mapped into in-memory file handles
5876
5877(W utf8) You tried to open a reference to a scalar for read or append
5878where the scalar contained code points over 0xFF. In-memory files
5879model on-disk files and can only contain bytes.
5880
fe13d51d 5881=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 5882
be771a83
GS
5883(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
5884stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
5885C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 5886
a8c56356
DM
5887=item Subroutine attributes must come before the signature
5888
5889(F) When subroutine signatures are enabled, any subroutine attributes must
5890come before the signature. Note that this order was the opposite in
3b980406 5891versions 5.22..5.26. So:
a8c56356 5892
3b980406
Z
5893 sub foo :lvalue ($a, $b) { ... } # 5.20 and 5.28 +
5894 sub foo ($a, $b) :lvalue { ... } # 5.22 .. 5.26
a8c56356 5895
4e85e1b4
FC
5896=item Subroutine "&%s" is not available
5897
5898(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5899attempting to capture an outer lexical subroutine that is not currently
5900available. This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the lexical
c387a7d0
FC
5901subroutine may be declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has
5902not yet been created. (Remember that named subs are created at compile
5903time, while anonymous subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5904
5905 sub { my sub a {...} sub f { \&a } }
5906
c387a7d0 5907At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current "a" sub,
4e85e1b4
FC
5908since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely, the
5909following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by now
5910been created and is live:
5911
5912 sub { my sub a {...} eval 'sub f { \&a }' }->();
5913
c387a7d0
FC
5914The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a lexical subroutine
5915that has gone out of scope, for example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5916
5917 sub f {
5918 my sub a {...}
5919 sub { eval '\&a' }
5920 }
5921 f()->();
5922
5923Here, when the '\&a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
5924being executed, so its &a is not available for capture.
5925
4eb94d7c
FC
5926=item "%s" subroutine &%s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5927
52e3acf8 5928(W shadow) A "my" or "state" subroutine has been redeclared in the
4eb94d7c
FC
5929current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to
5930the previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error.
5931Note that the earlier subroutine will still exist until the end of
20d33786 5932the scope or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
4eb94d7c 5933
9d92fedb
FC
5934=item Subroutine %s redefined
5935
5936(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
5937
5938 {
5939 no warnings 'redefine';
5940 eval "sub name { ... }";
5941 }
5942
2a9203e9
FC
5943=item Subroutine "%s" will not stay shared
5944
5945(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a "my"
5946subroutine defined in an outer named subroutine.
5947
5948When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of the outer
5949subroutine's lexical subroutine as it was before and during the *first*
5950call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5951outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5952longer share a common value for the lexical subroutine. In other words,
5953it will no longer be shared. This will especially make a difference
5954if the lexical subroutines accesses lexical variables declared in its
5955surrounding scope.
5956
5957This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5958anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5959reference lexical subroutines in outer subroutines are created, they
5960are automatically rebound to the current values of such lexical subs.
5961
a0d0e21e
LW
5962=item Substitution loop
5963
be771a83
GS
5964(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
5965shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
5966is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 5967L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
5968
5969=item Substitution pattern not terminated
5970
d1be9408 5971(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5972construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5973Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5974
5975=item Substitution replacement not terminated
5976
d1be9408 5977(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5978construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5979Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5980
5981=item substr outside of string
5982
8a9eb13d 5983(W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
be771a83
GS
5984a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
5985length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
5986substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
5987assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 5988
bf1320bf
RGS
5989=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
5990
9d277376 5991(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
bf1320bf
RGS
5992inferior to its current type.
5993
6fbc9859 5994=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5995S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5996
fa816bf3
FC
5997(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
5998two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
5999both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
6000it in clustering parentheses:
b45f050a
JF
6001
6002 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
6003
e0e4a6e3 6004The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem
fa816bf3 6005was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 6006
e0e4a6e3
FC
6007=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6008m/%s/
b45f050a 6009
9f57786a
FC
6010(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6011is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
6012
6013 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
6014 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
6015 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
6016 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
6017 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
6018 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
6019 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
6020 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
6021 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
6022
6e8a73f2 6023The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9f57786a 6024discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 6025
a1244175
FC
6026=item Switch (?(condition)... not terminated in regex; marked by
6027S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6028
99775d13
FC
6029(F) You omitted to close a (?(condition)...) block somewhere
6030in the pattern. Add a closing parenthesis in the appropriate
6031position. See L<perlre>.
a1244175 6032
85ab1d1d
JH
6033=item switching effective %s is not implemented
6034
be771a83
GS
6035(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
6036and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 6037
a0d0e21e
LW
6038=item syntax error
6039
6040(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
6041
6042 A keyword is misspelled.
6043 A semicolon is missing.
6044 A comma is missing.
6045 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
6046 An opening or closing brace is missing.
6047 A closing quote is missing.
6048
6049Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
6050error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
6051The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
6052it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 6053before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
6054Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
6055the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
6056C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
524e9188 6057if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
a0d0e21e 6058
ccf3535a 6059=item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
cb1a09d0 6060
be771a83
GS
6061(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
6062of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
6063yourself.
cb1a09d0 6064
25f58aea
PN
6065=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
6066
6067(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
6068a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
6069or "my $var" or "our $var".
6070
19a498a4 6071=item Syntax error in (?[...]) in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6072
6073(F) Perl could not figure out what you meant inside this construct; this
6074notifies you that it is giving up trying.
6075
591f5ca2
FC
6076=item %s syntax OK
6077
6078(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
6079
b5fe5ca2
SR
6080=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
6081
6082(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
6083
6084=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
6085
6086(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
6087
6087ac44 6088=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 6089
6087ac44
JH
6090(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
6091"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
6092machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
6093unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 6094
69282e91 6095=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 6096
be771a83 6097(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 6098before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 6099
96ebfdd7
RK
6100=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
6101
6102(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
6103know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
6104
fc36a67e 6105=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
6106
be771a83
GS
6107(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
6108for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 6109
abc7ecad
SP
6110=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
6111
6112(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
6113a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
6114
c2771421
FC
6115=item tell() on unopened filehandle
6116
6117(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
6118was either never opened or has since been closed.
6119
67b16946 6120=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
a0d0e21e
LW
6121
6122(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
6123probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 6124think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
6125will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
6126will deny it.
6127
3f645a4e
FC
6128=item The experimental declared_refs feature is not enabled
6129
6130(F) To declare references to variables, as in C<my \%x>, you must first enable
6131the feature:
6132
6133 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
6134 use feature "declared_refs";
6135
675fa9ff
FC
6136=item The %s function is unimplemented
6137
6138(F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture,
6139according to the probings of Configure.
6140
21c34e97
KW
6141=item The private_use feature is experimental
6142
6143(S experimental::private_use) This feature is actually a hook for future
6144use.
6145
0d0b4b3b
KW
6146=item The regex_sets feature is experimental
6147
6148(S experimental::regex_sets) This warning is emitted if you
6149use the syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression.
6150The details of this feature are subject to change.
27169d38 6151If you want to use it, but know that in doing so you
0d0b4b3b
KW
6152are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which may
6153change in a future Perl version, you can do this to silence the
6154warning:
6155
6156 no warnings "experimental::regex_sets";
6157
30d9c59b
Z
6158=item The signatures feature is experimental
6159
6160(S experimental::signatures) This warning is emitted if you unwrap a
6161subroutine's arguments using a signature. Simply suppress the warning
6162if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
6163the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be removed
6164in a future Perl version:
6165
6166 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
6167 use feature "signatures";
6168 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
6169
5e1c7ca2 6170=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 6171
be771a83
GS
6172(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
6173linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
6174past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
6175instead.
a0d0e21e 6176
1532347b
KW
6177=item The Unicode property wildcards feature is experimental
6178
6179(S experimental::uniprop_wildcards) This feature is experimental
6180and its behavior may in any future release of perl. See
6181L<perlunicode/Wildcards in Property Values>.
6182
371fce9b
DM
6183=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
6184
1108974d 6185(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 6186
437784d6 6187=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
6188
6189=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
6190
75b44862 6191(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
6192element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
6193wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
6194need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
6195F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
6196target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
6197%ENV which produced the warning.
6198
6a5b4183
YO
6199=item This Perl has not been built with support for randomized hash key traversal but something called Perl_hv_rand_set().
6200
6201(F) Something has attempted to use an internal API call which
6202depends on Perl being compiled with the default support for randomized hash
f26c79ba 6203key traversal, but this Perl has been compiled without it. You should
6a5b4183
YO
6204report this warning to the relevant upstream party, or recompile perl
6205with default options.
6206
1f692f6a
JK
6207=item This use of my() in false conditional is no longer allowed
6208
6209(F) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
6210has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6211not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6212conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
6213static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6214relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6215declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
6216
6217 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
6218
6219becomes
6220
6221 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
6222
6223Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
6224lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
6225
6226 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
6227
6228This use of C<my()> in a false conditional was deprecated beginning in
6229Perl 5.10 and became a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
6230
a0d0e21e
LW
6231=item times not implemented
6232
be771a83
GS
6233(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
6234suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 6235
6d3b25aa
RGS
6236=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
6237
b7e4ecc1
FC
6238(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
6239the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
6240B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
6241Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
6242everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
6d3b25aa
RGS
6243
6244If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
b7e4ecc1
FC
6245mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
6246fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
6247Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
6248
6249If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 6250B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 6251
3a2263fe
RGS
6252=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
6253
6254(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
6255uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
6256specified an illegal mapping.
6257See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
6258
49704364
WL
6259=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
6260
1a147d38 6261(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 6262
a0d0e21e
LW
6263=item Too few args to syscall
6264
6265(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
6266system call to call, silly dilly.
6267
ac7609e4 6268=item Too few arguments for subroutine '%s'
bb6b75cd 6269
3f673807
FC
6270(F) A subroutine using a signature fewer arguments than required by the
6271signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
bb6b75cd 6272
3f673807
FC
6273The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If
6274the subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be
6275shown, regardless of what name the caller used.
ac7609e4 6276
96ebfdd7
RK
6277=item Too late for "-%s" option
6278
6279(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
6280B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
6281
6903afa2
FC
6282In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
6283are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4ba71d51 6284
6903afa2
FC
6285The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
6286well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
6287specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
6288it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
6289it to perl.
96ebfdd7 6290
ddda08b7
GS
6291=item Too late to run %s block
6292
6293(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
6294when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
6295loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
6296instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
6297BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 6298
a0d0e21e
LW
6299=item Too many args to syscall
6300
5f05dabc 6301(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
6302
6303=item Too many arguments for %s
6304
6305(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
6306
ac7609e4 6307=item Too many arguments for subroutine '%s'
bb6b75cd 6308
3f673807
FC
6309(F) A subroutine using a signature received more arguments than permitted
6310by the signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
bb6b75cd 6311
ac7609e4
AC
6312The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
6313subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
6314regardless of what name the caller used.
bb6b75cd 6315
6ef7fe53
KW
6316=item Too many nested open parens in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6317
6318(F) You have exceeded the number of open C<"("> parentheses that haven't
6319been matched by corresponding closing ones. This limit prevents eating
6320up too much memory. It is initially set to 1000, but may be changed by
6321setting C<${^RE_COMPILE_RECURSION_LIMIT}> to some other value. This may
6322need to be done in a BEGIN block before the regular expression pattern
6323is compiled.
6324
6df41af2
GS
6325=item Too many )'s
6326
49704364
WL
6327(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6328Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6329
8c40cb74
NC
6330=item Too many ('s
6331
be771a83
GS
6332(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6333Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 6334
7253e4e3 6335=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 6336
be771a83
GS
6337(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
6338Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 6339
2c268ad5 6340=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
6341
6342(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 6343or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
6344C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 6345
2c268ad5 6346=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 6347
6a36df5d
YST
6348(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
6349y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 6350
96ebfdd7
RK
6351=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
6352
6353(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
6903afa2 6354disallowed. See L<Safe>.
96ebfdd7 6355
a0d0e21e
LW
6356=item truncate not implemented
6357
6358(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
6359Configure knows about.
6360
19c481f4
FC
6361=item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
6362
6363(F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
6364to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
6365ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
6366nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
6367
a0d0e21e
LW
6368=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
6369
6370(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 6371certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
6372%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
6373{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
6374
eec2d3df
GS
6375=item umask not implemented
6376
be771a83
GS
6377(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
6378use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e
LW
6379
6380=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
6381
c632e777 6382(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6383many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
6384
6385=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
6386
4a983e45 6387(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6388many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
6389
6390=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
6391
090cebb2 6392(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6393many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e 6394
6651ba0b
FC
6395=item Unbalanced string table refcount: (%d) for "%s"
6396
31ff3bd2 6397(S internal) On exit, Perl found some strings remaining in the shared
6651ba0b
FC
6398string table used for copy on write and for hash keys. The entries
6399should have been freed, so this indicates a bug somewhere.
6400
a0d0e21e
LW
6401=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
6402
2092d7c1 6403(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6404many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
6405
6406=item Undefined format "%s" called
6407
6408(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
6409another package? See L<perlform>.
6410
6411=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
6412
be771a83
GS
6413(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
6414Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6415
6416=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
6417
be771a83
GS
6418(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
6419since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
6420
6421=item Undefined subroutine called
6422
6423(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
6424or if it was, it has since been undefined.
6425
6426=item Undefined subroutine in sort
6427
be771a83
GS
6428(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
6429to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 6430
4633a7c4
LW
6431=item Undefined top format "%s" called
6432
6433(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
6434another package? See L<perlform>.
6435
20408e3c
GS
6436=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
6437
be771a83
GS
6438(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
6439C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
6440C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 6441
6df41af2
GS
6442=item %s: Undefined variable
6443
be771a83
GS
6444(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6445Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 6446
76416d1a
KW
6447=item Unescaped left brace in regex is passed through in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6448
6449(W regexp) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
6450match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
6451regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6452some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
6453C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6454delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
6455also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6456
6457 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6458
6459Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
6460language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6461needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6462contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
6463conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6464not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6465non-deprecation warning.
6466
6467In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
6468still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
6469literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
6470v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6471now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
6472The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
6473
6474The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6475
6476=over 4
6477
6478=item *
6479
6480as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
6481anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6482
6483=item *
6484
6485as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
6486
6487=item *
6488
6489as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6490
6491 /foo({bar)/
6492 /foo(?:{bar)/
6493
6494=item *
6495
6496as the first character following a quantifier
6497
6498 /\s*{/
6499
6500=back
6501
6502=for comment
6503The text of the message above is duplicated below to allow splain (and
6504'use diagnostics') to work. Since one is deprecated, and one not, khw
6505thinks they can't be combined as one message.
8e84dec2 6506
0367231c
KW
6507=item Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated here (and will be fatal in Perl 5.32), passed through in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6508
8e84dec2 6509(D deprecated, regexp) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
21792e61 6510match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
8e84dec2
KW
6511regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6512some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
21792e61
KW
6513C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6514delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
8e84dec2
KW
6515also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6516
6517 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6518
21792e61 6519Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
8e84dec2
KW
6520language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6521needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6522contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
76416d1a
KW
6523conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6524not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6525non-deprecation warning.
8e84dec2 6526
21792e61 6527In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
8e84dec2 6528still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
21792e61 6529literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
8e84dec2
KW
6530v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6531now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
76416d1a 6532The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
8e84dec2
KW
6533
6534The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6535
6536=over 4
6537
6538=item *
6539
21792e61 6540as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
8e84dec2
KW
6541anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6542
6543=item *
6544
21792e61 6545as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
8e84dec2
KW
6546
6547=item *
6548
6549as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6550
6551 /foo({bar)/
6552 /foo(?:{bar)/
6553
6554=item *
6555
6556as the first character following a quantifier
6557
6558 /\s*{/
6559
6560=back
6561
6562=for comment
6563The text of the message above is duplicated below to allow splain (and
6564'use diagnostics') to work. Since one is fatal, and one not, they can't
76416d1a
KW
6565be combined as one message. Perhaps perldiag could be enhanced to
6566handle this case.
8e84dec2
KW
6567
6568=item Unescaped left brace in regex is illegal here in regex;
6e8a73f2 6569marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
412f55bb 6570
8e84dec2
KW
6571(F) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
6572match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
6573regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6574some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
6575C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6576delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
6577also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6578
6579 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6580
6581Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
6582language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6583needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6584contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
76416d1a
KW
6585conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6586not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6587non-deprecation warning.
8e84dec2
KW
6588
6589In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
6590still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
6591literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
6592v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6593now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
76416d1a 6594The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
8e84dec2
KW
6595
6596The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6597
6598=over 4
6599
6600=item *
6601
6602as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
6603anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6604
6605=item *
6606
6607as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
6608
6609=item *
6610
6611as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6612
6613 /foo({bar)/
6614 /foo(?:{bar)/
6615
6616=item *
6617
6618as the first character following a quantifier
412f55bb 6619
8e84dec2 6620 /\s*{/
412f55bb 6621
8e84dec2 6622=back
1656665e 6623
a4368cc3
KW
6624=item Unescaped literal '%c' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6625
6626(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>>)
6627
6628Within the scope of C<S<use re 'strict'>> in a regular expression
6629pattern, you included an unescaped C<}> or C<]> which was interpreted
6630literally. These two characters are sometimes metacharacters, and
6631sometimes literals, depending on what precedes them in the
6632pattern. This is unlike the similar C<)> which is always a
6633metacharacter unless escaped.
6634
6635This action at a distance, perhaps a large distance, can lead to Perl
6636silently misinterpreting what you meant, so when you specify that you
6637want extra checking by C<S<use re 'strict'>>, this warning is generated.
6638If you meant the character as a literal, simply confirm that to Perl by
6639preceding the character with a backslash, or make it into a bracketed
6640character class (like C<[}]>). If you meant it as closing a
6641corresponding C<[> or C<{>, you'll need to look back through the pattern
6642to find out why that isn't happening.
6643
a0d0e21e
LW
6644=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
6645
6646(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
6647representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
6648
e0e4a6e3
FC
6649=item Unexpected binary operator '%c' with no preceding operand in regex;
6650marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6651
675fa9ff 6652(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
6653
6654 (?[ | \p{Digit} ])
6655
6656where the C<"|"> is a binary operator with an operand on the right, but
6657no operand on the left.
6658
e0e4a6e3 6659=item Unexpected character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6660
675fa9ff 6661(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
6662
6663 (?[ z ])
6664
6665Within C<(?[ ])>, no literal characters are allowed unless they are
6666within an inner pair of square brackets, like
6667
6668 (?[ [ z ] ])
6669
6670Another possibility is that you forgot a backslash. Perl isn't smart
6671enough to figure out what you really meant.
6672
6651ba0b
FC
6673=item Unexpected constant lvalue entersub entry via type/targ %d:%d
6674
6675(P) When compiling a subroutine call in lvalue context, Perl failed an
6676internal consistency check. It encountered a malformed op tree.
6677
6c341f67
TC
6678=item Unexpected exit %u
6679
6680(S) exit() was called or the script otherwise finished gracefully when
6681C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in C<PL_exit_flags>.
6682
878ce265 6683=item Unexpected exit failure %d
6c341f67
TC
6684
6685(S) An uncaught die() was called when C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in
6686C<PL_exit_flags>.
6687
e0e4a6e3 6688=item Unexpected ')' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6689
6690(F) You had something like this:
6691
6692 (?[ ( \p{Digit} + ) ])
6693
6694The C<")"> is out-of-place. Something apparently was supposed to
6695be combined with the digits, or the C<"+"> shouldn't be there, or
6696something like that. Perl can't figure out what was intended.
6697
c9ffefcc
FC
6698=item Unexpected ']' with no following ')' in (?[... in regex; marked by
6699<-- HERE in m/%s/
6700
6701(F) While parsing an extended character class a ']' character was
6702encountered at a point in the definition where the only legal use of
6703']' is to close the character class definition as part of a '])', you
6704may have forgotten the close paren, or otherwise confused the parser.
6705
e0e4a6e3
FC
6706=item Unexpected '(' with no preceding operator in regex; marked by
6707S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6708
6709(F) You had something like this:
6710
6711 (?[ \p{Digit} ( \p{Lao} + \p{Thai} ) ])
6712
6713There should be an operator before the C<"(">, as there's
6714no indication as to how the digits are to be combined
6715with the characters in the Lao and Thai scripts.
6716
ba707cdc 6717=item Unicode non-character U+%X is not recommended for open interchange
0876b9a0 6718
4c2e59a0 6719(S nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
66a1f5ec
FC
6720defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those
6721are legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so,
6722applications shouldn't attempt to exchange them. An application
6723may not be expecting any of these characters at all, and receiving
6724them may lead to bugs. If you know what you are doing you can
6725turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
6726
6727This is not really a "severe" error, but it is supposed to be
6728raised by default even if warnings are not enabled, and currently
6729the only way to do that in Perl is to mark it as serious.
6a807e21 6730
1532347b
KW
6731=item Unicode property wildcard not terminated
6732
6733(F) A Unicode property wildcard looks like a delimited regular
6734expression pattern (all within the braces of the enclosing C<\p{...}>.
6735The closing delimtter to match the opening one was not found. If the
6736opening one is escaped by preceding it with a backslash, the closing one
6737must also be so escaped.
6738
c794c51b
FC
6739=item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
6740
4c2e59a0 6741(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
c794c51b
FC
6742not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
6743U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
6744internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
6745available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
6746problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
6747came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 6748off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
c794c51b 6749
dcfe9e74
KW
6750=item Unknown charname '%s'
6751
6752(F) The name you used inside C<\N{}> is unknown to Perl. Check the
6753spelling. You can say C<use charnames ":loose"> to not have to be
6754so precise about spaces, hyphens, and capitalization on standard Unicode
6755names. (Any custom aliases that have been created must be specified
6756exactly, regardless of whether C<:loose> is used or not.) This error may
6757also happen if the C<\N{}> is not in the scope of the corresponding
6758C<S<use charnames>>.
6759
d9790612
KW
6760=item Unknown '(*...)' construct '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6761
6762(F) The C<(*> was followed by something that the regular expression
6763compiler does not recognize. Check your spelling.
6764
04177465
FC
6765=item Unknown error
6766
6767(P) Perl was about to print an error message in C<$@>, but the C<$@> variable
6768did not exist, even after an attempt to create it.
6769
7bb2ffc8
KW
6770=item Unknown locale category %d; can't set it to %s
6771
6772(W locale) You used a locale category that perl doesn't recognize, so it
6773cannot carry out your request. Check that you are using a valid
6774category. If so, see L<perllocale/Multi-threaded> for advice on
6775reporting this as a bug, and for modifying perl locally to accommodate
6776your needs.
6777
6170680b
IZ
6778=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
6779
437784d6 6780(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 6781of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 6782C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 6783
b4581f09
JH
6784=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
6785
6786(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
6787system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
6788internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
6789are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
6790explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
6791value of the environment variable PERLIO.
6792
f675dbe5
CB
6793=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
6794
6795(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
6796iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
6797data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
6798subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 6799
283151b7 6800=item Unknown regexp modifier "/%s"
0da72d5e
KW
6801
6802(F) Alphanumerics immediately following the closing delimiter
6803of a regular expression pattern are interpreted by Perl as modifier
6804flags for the regex. One of the ones you specified is invalid. One way
6805this can happen is if you didn't put in white space between the end of
6806the regex and a following alphanumeric operator:
6807
6808 if ($a =~ /foo/and $bar == 3) { ... }
6809
6810The C<"a"> is a valid modifier flag, but the C<"n"> is not, and raises
6811this error. Likely what was meant instead was:
6812
6813 if ($a =~ /foo/ and $bar == 3) { ... }
6814
5a25739d
FC
6815=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
6816
6817(W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
6818
e0e4a6e3
FC
6819=item Unknown switch condition (?(...)) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6820m/%s/
96ebfdd7
RK
6821
6822(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6903afa2 6823is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5fecf430 6824
e7206367
KW
6825 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
6826 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
6827 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
6828 (*pla:...) (*plb:...) true if subpattern matches; also
6829 (*positive_lookahead:...)
6830 (*positive_lookbehind:...)
6831 (*nla:...) (*nlb:...) true if subpattern fails to match; also
6832 (*negative_lookahead:...)
6833 (*negative_lookbehind:...)
6834 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
6835 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
6836 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2,
6837 etc.
6838 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
6839 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
96ebfdd7 6840
6e8a73f2 6841The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
96ebfdd7
RK
6842discovered. See L<perlre>.
6843
a05d7ebb
JH
6844=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
6845
028611fa
DB
6846(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See
6847L<perlrun|perlrun/-C [numberE<sol>list]> documentation of the C<-C> switch
6848for the list of known options.
a05d7ebb 6849
64187737 6850=item Unknown Unicode option value %d
a05d7ebb 6851
028611fa
DB
6852(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See
6853L<perlrun|perlrun/-C [numberE<sol>list]> documentation of the C<-C> switch
6854for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 6855
e0e4a6e3 6856=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1
YO
6857
6858(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
6859after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
6860L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
6861
c2771421
FC
6862=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
6863
6903afa2 6864(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
c2771421
FC
6865category that is unknown to perl at this point.
6866
14ef4c80
FC
6867Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
6868module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
6869module first.
c2771421 6870
e0e4a6e3 6871=item Unmatched [ in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6872
6903afa2 6873(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 6874include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
e0e4a6e3 6875first. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
6903afa2 6876problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 6877
e0e4a6e3 6878=item Unmatched ( in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 6879
e0e4a6e3 6880=item Unmatched ) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
6881
6882(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
6903afa2 6883expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
e0e4a6e3 6884the matching parenthesis. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 6885regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 6886
d98d5fff 6887=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 6888
be771a83
GS
6889(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
6890ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
6891general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
6892you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 6893
a0d0e21e
LW
6894=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
6895
be771a83
GS
6896(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
6897reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
6898somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
6899subroutine.
a0d0e21e 6900
e0e4a6e3
FC
6901=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by S<<-- HERE> after %s near column
6902%d
a0d0e21e 6903
54310121 6904(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
1b303a7d
FC
6905in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you
6906tried to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as
6907a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 6908
e0e4a6e3
FC
6909=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class in regex; marked by
6910S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6911
675fa9ff
FC
6912(F) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6913recognized by Perl inside character classes. This is a fatal
6914error when the character class is used within C<(?[ ])>.
0d0b4b3b 6915
6fbc9859 6916=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex;
e0e4a6e3 6917marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6918
be771a83
GS
6919(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6920recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 6921understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
e0e4a6e3 6922The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2628b4e0 6923escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6924
4a68bf9d 6925=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 6926
2628b4e0 6927(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
6928recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
6929change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 6930
e0e4a6e3
FC
6931=item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by
6932S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6933
be771a83 6934(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b7e4ecc1 6935recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
e0e4a6e3 6936this may change in a future version of Perl. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 6937whereabouts in the regular expression the escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6938
a0d0e21e
LW
6939=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
6940
be771a83
GS
6941(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
6942recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
6943on your system.
a0d0e21e 6944
90248788 6945=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 6946
be771a83
GS
6947(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
6948think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
6949bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
6950
6951=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
6952
be771a83
GS
6953(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
6954operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 6955PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6956
6957=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
6958
6959(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
6960
6df41af2
GS
6961=item Unsupported function %s
6962
6963(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
6964At least, Configure doesn't think so.
6965
54310121 6966=item Unsupported function fork
6967
6968(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
6969
be771a83 6970Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6903afa2 6971of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
be771a83 6972changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 6973
7aa207d6 6974=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
6975
6976(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 6977declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 6978
a0d0e21e
LW
6979=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
6980
6981(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
6982least that's what Configure thought.
6983
d9790612
KW
6984=item Unterminated '(*...' argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6985
6986(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*...:...)> but did not terminate
6987the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
6988
6df41af2 6989=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 6990
be771a83
GS
6991(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
6992start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
6993block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
6994attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 6995
09bef843
SB
6996=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
6997
be771a83
GS
6998(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
6999an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
7000character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
7001character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
7002
f1991046
GS
7003=item Unterminated compressed integer
7004
7005(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
7006compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
7007See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7008
d9790612
KW
7009=item Unterminated '(*...' construct in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7010
7011(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*...)> but did not terminate
7012the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
7013
6f2d7fc9
FC
7014=item Unterminated delimiter for here document
7015
7016(F) This message occurs when a here document label has an initial
7017quotation mark but the final quotation mark is missing. Perhaps
7018you wrote:
7019
7020 <<"foo
7021
7022instead of:
7023
7024 <<"foo"
7025
e0e4a6e3 7026=item Unterminated \g... pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
779fedd7 7027
e0e4a6e3 7028=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2bf803e2 7029
5364049c
KW
7030(F) In a regular expression, you had a C<\g> that wasn't followed by a
7031proper group reference. In the case of C<\g{>, the closing brace is
7032missing; otherwise the C<\g> must be followed by an integer. Fix the
7033pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 7034
6df41af2 7035=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 7036
6df41af2 7037(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
7038a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
7039not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
7040earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 7041
e0e4a6e3
FC
7042=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
7043m/%s/
905fe053
FC
7044
7045(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 7046the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 7047
e0e4a6e3 7048=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
905fe053
FC
7049
7050(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 7051the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 7052
6df41af2 7053=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 7054
be771a83
GS
7055(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
7056still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 7057
8e11cd2b
JC
7058=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
7059
7060(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
7061See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
7062
7063=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
7064
7065(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
7066See L<Win32> for more information.
7067
89474f50
FC
7068=item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
7069
7070(W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
7071
7072 if ($[ > 5.006) {
7073 ...
7074 }
7075
7076You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
7077arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
7078
6da34ecb
FC
7079=item Use "%s" instead of "%s"
7080
7081(F) The second listed construct is no longer legal. Use the first one
7082instead.
7083
8fe85e3f
FC
7084=item Useless assignment to a temporary
7085
7086(W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
7087the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
7088be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
7089
e0e4a6e3
FC
7090=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by
7091S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 7092
96ebfdd7
RK
7093(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
7094meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 7095
96ebfdd7 7096 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
7097
7098must be written as
7099
96ebfdd7 7100 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5 7101
6e8a73f2 7102The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9e3ec65c 7103discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 7104
b4581f09
JH
7105=item Useless localization of %s
7106
6903afa2
FC
7107(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
7108but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
b4581f09
JH
7109some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
7110
e0e4a6e3
FC
7111=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
7112m/%s/
9d1d55b5 7113
96ebfdd7
RK
7114(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
7115meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 7116
96ebfdd7 7117 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
7118
7119must be written as
7120
96ebfdd7 7121 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5 7122
6e8a73f2 7123The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9e3ec65c 7124discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 7125
3108f4df
FC
7126=item Useless use of attribute "const"
7127
796b6530 7128(W misc) The C<const> attribute has no effect except
3108f4df
FC
7129on anonymous closure prototypes. You applied it to
7130a subroutine via L<attributes.pm|attributes>. This is only useful
7131inside an attribute handler for an anonymous subroutine.
7132
b08e453b
RB
7133=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
7134
7135(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6903afa2 7136same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
b08e453b
RB
7137about the /d modifier.
7138
820438b1
FC
7139=item Useless use of \E
7140
7141(W misc) You have a \E in a double-quotish string without a C<\U>,
7142C<\L> or C<\Q> preceding it.
7143
4fa6dd16
KW
7144=item Useless use of greediness modifier '%c' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7145
7146(W regexp) You specified something like these:
7147
7148 qr/a{3}?/
7149 qr/b{1,1}+/
7150
7151The C<"?"> and C<"+"> don't have any effect, as they modify whether to
7152match more or fewer when there is a choice, and by specifying to match
7153exactly a given numer, there is no room left for a choice.
7154
6df41af2 7155=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 7156
75b44862 7157(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
7158nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
7159value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
7160often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
7161to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
7162get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
7163said
a0d0e21e 7164
6df41af2 7165 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 7166
6df41af2
GS
7167when you meant to say
7168
7169 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
7170
7171Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
7172reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
7173example, if you say
7174
7175 $array = (1,2);
7176
7177when you should have said
7178
7179 $array = [1,2];
7180
7181The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
7182while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
7183a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
7184throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
7185L<perlref> for more on this.
7186
65191a1e
BS
7187This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
7188since they are often used in statements like
7189
4358a253 7190 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
7191
7192String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
7193about.
7194
e0e4a6e3 7195=item Useless use of (?-p) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
7196
7197(W regexp) The C<p> modifier cannot be turned off once set. Trying to do
7198so is futile.
7199
6df41af2
GS
7200=item Useless use of "re" pragma
7201
6903afa2 7202(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6df41af2 7203
a801c63c
RGS
7204=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
7205
7206(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
7207
7208 my $x = sort @y;
7209
7210This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
7211
de4864e4
JH
7212=item Useless use of %s with no values
7213
f87c3213 7214(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6903afa2
FC
7215apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
7216usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
de4864e4 7217possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6903afa2 7218if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
de4864e4
JH
7219you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
7220
6df41af2
GS
7221=item "use" not allowed in expression
7222
be771a83
GS
7223(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
7224returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 7225
c6e25b09 7226=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is forbidden
4633a7c4 7227
3f673807
FC
7228(F) You are now required to use the explicitly quoted form if you wish
7229to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
83ce3e12 7230
3f673807
FC
7231Use of a bare terminator was deprecated in Perl 5.000, and is a fatal
7232error as of Perl 5.28.
e5aa3f0b 7233
64e578a2
MJD
7234=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
7235
7236(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
7237modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
7238
4ac733c9
MJD
7239=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
7240
7241(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
7242use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
7243used. (This may change in the future.)
7244
5b5e2c03 7245=item Use of code point 0x%s is not allowed; the permissible max is 0x%X
fb7e7255 7246
5b5e2c03 7247=item Use of code point 0x%s is not allowed; the permissible max is 0x%X
fb7e7255 7248in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
113b8661
A
7249
7250(F) You used a code point that is not allowed, because it is too large.
7251Unicode only allows code points up to 0x10FFFF, but Perl allows much
7252larger ones. Earlier versions of Perl allowed code points above IV_MAX
7253(0x7FFFFFF on 32-bit platforms, 0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF on 64-bit platforms),
7254however, this could possibly break the perl interpreter in some constructs,
7255including causing it to hang in a few cases.
2d212e86
KW
7256
7257If your code is to run on various platforms, keep in mind that the upper
7258limit depends on the platform. It is much larger on 64-bit word sizes
7259than 32-bit ones.
7260
fcdb3ac1 7261The use of out of range code points was deprecated in Perl 5.24, and
113b8661 7262became a fatal error in Perl 5.28.
fcdb3ac1 7263
675fa9ff
FC
7264=item Use of each() on hash after insertion without resetting hash iterator results in undefined behavior
7265
f26c79ba
FC
7266(S internal) The behavior of C<each()> after insertion is undefined;
7267it may skip items, or visit items more than once. Consider using
7268C<keys()> instead of C<each()>.
675fa9ff 7269
2dc78664 7270=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
036e1e65 7271
2dc78664
NC
7272(F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
7273C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
7274This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
7275error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
7276
7277If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
7278a space before the C<=>.
036e1e65 7279
fafdadbd
KW
7280=item Use of %s for non-UTF-8 locale is wrong. Assuming a UTF-8 locale
7281
7282(W locale) You are matching a regular expression using locale rules,
7283and the specified construct was encountered. This construct is only
7284valid for UTF-8 locales, which the current locale isn't. This doesn't
7285make sense. Perl will continue, assuming a Unicode (UTF-8) locale, but
7286the results are likely to be wrong.
7287
b6c83531 7288=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 7289
b6c83531
JH
7290(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
7291This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
7292
7293 @a = (3,4);
7294 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
7295
7296You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
7297For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
7298reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
7299middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
7300
96ebfdd7 7301=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 7302
96ebfdd7
RK
7303(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
7304operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
7305repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 7306
dc6e8de0 7307=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
0b98bec9
RGS
7308
7309(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
7310scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
7311
dc6e8de0 7312This was deprecated in Perl 5.12.
9fc8eee0 7313
600c10ce
KW
7314=item Use of '%s' in \p{} or \P{} is deprecated because: %s
7315
7316(D deprecated) Certain properties are deprecated by Unicode, and may
7317eventually be removed from the Standard, at which time Perl will follow
7318along. In the meantime, this message is raised to notify you.
7319
64278e8c
A
7320=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s::%s() is no longer allowed
7321
7322(F) As an accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines were looked up as
7323methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy), even when the subroutines to be
7324autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as
7325methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<< $obj->bar() >>).
7326
7327This was deprecated in Perl 5.004, and was made fatal in Perl 5.28.
d9d53e86 7328
6df41af2
GS
7329=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
7330
7331(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
7332only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
7333
5840701a 7334=item Use of -l on filehandle%s
5a7abfcc
FC
7335
7336(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
7337it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
7338The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
7339
1f1cc344 7340=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 7341
77b96956 7342(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
7343isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
7344to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 7345
64977eb6 7346If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344 7347C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
54e0f05c 7348however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
c69ca1d4 7349operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 7350
87e05d1a 7351=item Use of strings with code points over 0xFF as arguments to %s
5d09ee1c 7352operator is not allowed
87e05d1a 7353
3f673807
FC
7354(F) You tried to use one of the string bitwise operators (C<&> or C<|> or C<^> or
7355C<~>) on a string containing a code point over 0xFF. The string bitwise
7356operators treat their operands as strings of bytes, and values beyond
73570xFF are nonsensical in this context.
87e05d1a 7358
c8b94fe0 7359Certain instances became fatal in Perl 5.28; others in perl 5.32.
ecbcbef0 7360
da5a0da2 7361=item Use of strings with code points over 0xFF as arguments to vec is forbidden
315f3fc1 7362
da5a0da2 7363(F) You tried to use L<C<vec>|perlfunc/vec EXPR,OFFSET,BITS>
315f3fc1
KW
7364on a string containing a code point over 0xFF, which is nonsensical here.
7365
da5a0da2 7366This became fatal in Perl 5.32.
315f3fc1 7367
bbd7eb8a
RD
7368=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
7369
159f47d9 7370(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
7371arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
7372but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
7373arguments. See L<perlsec>.
7374
94749a5e 7375=item Use of unassigned code point or non-standalone grapheme for a
823c3b2d 7376delimiter is not allowed
94749a5e 7377
823c3b2d 7378(F)
94749a5e
KW
7379A grapheme is what appears to a native-speaker of a language to be a
7380character. In Unicode (and hence Perl) a grapheme may actually be
7381several adjacent characters that together form a complete grapheme. For
7382example, there can be a base character, like "R" and an accent, like a
7383circumflex "^", that appear when displayed to be a single character with
7384the circumflex hovering over the "R". Perl currently allows things like
7385that circumflex to be delimiters of strings, patterns, I<etc>. When
7386displayed, the circumflex would look like it belongs to the character
7387just to the left of it. In order to move the language to be able to
823c3b2d 7388accept graphemes as delimiters, we cannot allow the use of
94749a5e
KW
7389delimiters which aren't graphemes by themselves. Also, a delimiter must
7390already be assigned (or known to be never going to be assigned) to try
7391to future-proof code, for otherwise code that works today would fail to
7392compile if the currently unassigned delimiter ends up being something
7393that isn't a stand-alone grapheme. Because Unicode is never going to
7394assign
7395L<non-character code points|perlunicode/Noncharacter code points>, nor
7396L<code points that are above the legal Unicode maximum|
7397perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points>, those can be delimiters, and
823c3b2d 7398their use is legal.
94749a5e 7399
cc95b072 7400=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 7401
be771a83
GS
7402(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
7403defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
7404To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 7405
6903afa2
FC
7406To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
7407the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
7408it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
7409undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
50a39ba4 7410and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
6903afa2
FC
7411literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
7412optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
7413C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
7414your program.
e5be4a53 7415
67cdf558
KW
7416=item "use re 'strict'" is experimental
7417
7418(S experimental::re_strict) The things that are different when a regular
7419expression pattern is compiled under C<'strict'> are subject to change
7420in future Perl releases in incompatible ways. This means that a pattern
7421that compiles today may not in a future Perl release. This warning is
7422to alert you to that risk.
7423
e0e4a6e3
FC
7424=item Use \x{...} for more than two hex characters in regex; marked by
7425S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
7426
7427(F) In a regular expression, you said something like
7428
7429 (?[ [ \xBEEF ] ])
7430
7431Perl isn't sure if you meant this
7432
7433 (?[ [ \x{BEEF} ] ])
7434
7435or if you meant this
7436
7437 (?[ [ \x{BE} E F ] ])
7438
7439You need to add either braces or blanks to disambiguate.
7440
6fbc9859 7441=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class in
e0e4a6e3 7442regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ff3f963a 7443
f3ba6905
FC
7444(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return
7445a multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
7446supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match
7447the whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted
7448(C<[^...]>), or the escape is the beginning or final end point of
7449a range. For these, what should happen isn't clear at all. In
7450these circumstances, Perl discards all but the first character
7451of the returned sequence, which is not likely what you want.
ff3f963a 7452
6e8a73f2 7453=item Using /u for '%s' instead of /%s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
64935bc6
KW
7454
7455(W regexp) You used a Unicode boundary (C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}>) in a
7456portion of a regular expression where the character set modifiers C</a>
7457or C</aa> are in effect. These two modifiers indicate an ASCII
33f0d962 7458interpretation, and this doesn't make sense for a Unicode definition.
64935bc6
KW
7459The generated regular expression will compile so that the boundary uses
7460all of Unicode. No other portion of the regular expression is affected.
7461
c794c51b
FC
7462=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
7463
7464(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
0f44b2a5 7465currently reserved for future use, as the exact behavior has not
6903afa2 7466been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
c794c51b 7467modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
0876b9a0 7468
949cf498
KW
7469=item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
7470
4c2e59a0 7471(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
949cf498
KW
7472not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
7473U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
7474internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
7475available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
7476problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
7477came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 7478off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9466bab6 7479
68dc0745 7480=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 7481
75b44862 7482(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
7483C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
7484can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
7485false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
7486constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
7487C<defined> operator.
a6006777 7488
f675dbe5
CB
7489=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
7490
be771a83
GS
7491(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
7492%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
7493longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
74941024 characters.
f675dbe5 7495
b5c19bd7 7496=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 7497
b5c19bd7
DM
7498(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
7499attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6903afa2 7500This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
7501declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
7502(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6903afa2 7503subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 7504
b5c19bd7 7505 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 7506
b5c19bd7 7507At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6903afa2 7508since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
b5c19bd7
DM
7509the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
7510now been created and is live:
be771a83 7511
b5c19bd7
DM
7512 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
7513
7514The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
7515gone out of scope, for example,
7516
7517 sub f {
7518 my $a;
7519 sub { eval '$a' }
7520 }
7521 f()->();
7522
1b303a7d
FC
7523Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
7524being executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 7525
b4581f09
JH
7526=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
7527
120b0f81 7528(S misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
413ff9f6 7529that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
7530something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
7531that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
7532front of your variable.
7533
aec0ef10 7534=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex m/%s/
b4581f09 7535
2abbd513
KW
7536(F) B<This message no longer should be raised as of Perl 5.30.> It is
7537retained in this document as a convenience for people using an earlier
7538Perl version.
7539
7540In Perl 5.30 and earlier, lookbehind is allowed
7541only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
d0a29c36
KW
7542known at compile time. For positive lookbehind, you can use the C<\K>
7543regex construct as a way to get the equivalent functionality. See
a8f2f5fa 7544L<(?<=pattern) and \K in perlre|perlre/\K>.
d0a29c36 7545
754dd754
KW
7546Starting in Perl 5.18, there are non-obvious Unicode rules under C</i>
7547that can match variably, but which you might not think could. For
7548example, the substring C<"ss"> can match the single character LATIN
7549SMALL LETTER SHARP S. Here's a complete list of the current ones
7550affecting ASCII characters:
7551
7552 ASCII
7553 sequence Matches single letter under /i
7554 FF U+FB00 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF
7555 FFI U+FB03 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFI
7556 FFL U+FB04 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFL
7557 FI U+FB01 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FI
7558 FL U+FB02 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FL
7559 SS U+00DF LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S
7560 U+1E9E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S
7561 ST U+FB06 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE ST
7562 U+FB05 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE LONG S T
7563
7564This list is subject to change, but is quite unlikely to.
7565Each ASCII sequence can be any combination of upper- and lowercase.
7566
7567You can avoid this by using a bracketed character class in the
7568lookbehind assertion, like
7569
7570 (?<![sS]t)
7571 (?<![fF]f[iI])
7572
7573This fools Perl into not matching the ligatures.
7574
7575Another option for Perls starting with 5.16, if you only care about
7576ASCII matches, is to add the C</aa> modifier to the regex. This will
7577exclude all these non-obvious matches, thus getting rid of this message.
7578You can also say
7579
7580 use if $] ge 5.016, re => '/aa';
7581
d0a29c36
KW
7582to apply C</aa> to all regular expressions compiled within its scope.
7583See L<re>.
b4581f09
JH
7584
7585=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
7586
52e3acf8 7587(W shadow) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
b9cc85ad
FC
7588current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
7589previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
7590that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
20d33786 7591or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
b4581f09 7592
6df41af2
GS
7593=item Variable syntax
7594
7595(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
7596of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
7597Perl yourself.
7598
44a8e56a 7599=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
7600
be771a83 7601(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 7602lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 7603
b5c19bd7 7604When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
7605the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
7606call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
7607outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
7608longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
7609variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 7610
44a8e56a 7611This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
7612anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 7613reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 7614are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 7615
6651ba0b
FC
7616=item vector argument not supported with alpha versions
7617
8b6051f1 7618(S printf) The %vd (s)printf format does not support version objects
6651ba0b
FC
7619with alpha parts.
7620
e0e4a6e3
FC
7621=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by
7622S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 7623
6903afa2
FC
7624(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
7625argument or check that you are using the right verb.
e2e6a0f1 7626
e0e4a6e3
FC
7627=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by
7628S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 7629
6903afa2 7630(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
e2e6a0f1
YO
7631argument or check that you are using the right verb.
7632
9c88bb56 7633=item Version control conflict marker
397c43d8
LM
7634
7635(F) The parser found a line starting with C<E<lt><<<<<<>,
d4e5761f 7636C<E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>>, or C<=======>. These may be left by a
397c43d8
LM
7637version control system to mark conflicts after a failed merge operation.
7638
084610c0
GS
7639=item Version number must be a constant number
7640
7641(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
7642its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
7643the version number.
7644
808ee47e
SP
7645=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
7646
32e998fd
RGS
7647(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
7648are being ignored.
808ee47e 7649
7e1af8bc 7650=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 7651
7652(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 7653you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 7654
f86702cc 7655=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 7656
be771a83
GS
7657(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
7658the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
7659space.
a0d0e21e 7660
96d7c888
FC
7661=item Warning: unable to close filehandle properly: %s
7662
7663=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly: %s
7664
ab7ca7ed
AP
7665(S io) There were errors during the implicit close() done on a filehandle
7666when its reference count reached zero while it was still open, e.g.:
cc4d3128
DM
7667
7668 {
7669 open my $fh, '>', $file or die "open: '$file': $!\n";
7670 print $fh $data or die "print: $!";
7671 } # implicit close here
7672
95032a5b
AP
7673Because various errors may only be detected by close() (e.g. buffering could
7674allow the C<print> in this example to return true even when the disk is full),
d4e5761f
FC
7675it is dangerous to ignore its result. So when it happens implicitly, perl
7676will signal errors by warning.
cc4d3128 7677
ab7ca7ed
AP
7678B<Prior to version 5.22.0, perl ignored such errors>, so the common idiom shown
7679above was liable to cause B<silent data loss>.
96d7c888 7680
5f05dabc 7681=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 7682
be771a83
GS
7683(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
7684looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
7685term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
7686function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
7687
7688 rand + 5;
7689
7690you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
7691
7692 rand() + 5;
7693
7694but in actual fact, you got
7695
7696 rand(+5);
7697
5f05dabc 7698So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 7699
7896dde7 7700=item when is experimental
0f539b13 7701
7896dde7
Z
7702(S experimental::smartmatch) C<when> depends on smartmatch, which is
7703experimental. Additionally, it has several special cases that may
7704not be immediately obvious, and their behavior may change or
7705even be removed in any future release of perl. See the explanation
7706under L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 7707
4b3603a4
JH
7708=item Wide character in %s
7709
479b791b
KW
7710(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (ordinal >255) when it wasn't
7711expecting one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print).
7712
7713If this warning does come from I/O, the easiest
7714way to quiet it is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer, I<e.g.>,
7715S<C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>>. Another way to turn off the warning is
7716to add S<C<no warnings 'utf8';>> but that is often closer to
cd28123a
JH
7717cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
7718filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 7719
479b791b
KW
7720If the warning comes from other than I/O, this diagnostic probably
7721indicates that incorrect results are being obtained. You should examine
7722your code to determine how a wide character is getting to an operation
7723that doesn't handle them.
7724
613abc6d
KW
7725=item Wide character (U+%X) in %s
7726
7727(W locale) While in a single-byte locale (I<i.e.>, a non-UTF-8
7728one), a multi-byte character was encountered. Perl considers this
50ea4745 7729character to be the specified Unicode code point. Combining non-UTF-8
613abc6d
KW
7730locales and Unicode is dangerous. Almost certainly some characters
7731will have two different representations. For example, in the ISO 8859-7
7732(Greek) locale, the code point 0xC3 represents a Capital Gamma. But so
7733also does 0x393. This will make string comparisons unreliable.
7734
7735You likely need to figure out how this multi-byte character got mixed up
7736with your single-byte locale (or perhaps you thought you had a UTF-8
7737locale, but Perl disagrees).
7738
49704364
WL
7739=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
7740
fa816bf3
FC
7741(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]>
7742only if C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that
7743can be determined from the template alone. This is not possible if
7744it contains any of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign
7745the template.
49704364 7746
448aac91
MM
7747=item While trying to resolve method call %s->%s() can not locate package "%s" yet it is mentioned in @%s::ISA (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
7748
ece464a3 7749(W syntax) It is possible that the C<@ISA> contains a misspelled or never loaded
448aac91 7750package name, which can result in perl choosing an unexpected parent
ece464a3 7751class's method to resolve the method call. If this is deliberate you
448aac91
MM
7752can do something like
7753
7754 @Missing::Package::ISA = ();
7755
7756to silence the warnings, otherwise you should correct the package name, or
7757ensure that the package is loaded prior to the method call.
7758
74d1b2e4
FC
7759=item %s() with negative argument
7760
7761(S misc) Certain operations make no sense with negative arguments.
7762Warning is given and the operation is not done.
7763
9a7dcd9c 7764=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 7765
be771a83 7766(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 7767before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 7768
9ae3ac1a 7769=item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
b4581f09 7770
27f95370
FC
7771(S utf8) When reading in different encodings, Perl tries to
7772map everything into Unicode characters. The bytes you read
7773in are not legal in this encoding. For example
b4581f09
JH
7774
7775 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
7776
7777if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
7778
49704364 7779=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 7780
49704364
WL
7781(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
7782the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 7783
49704364 7784=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
7785
7786(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
7787the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7788
a0d0e21e
LW
7789=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
7790
5f05dabc 7791(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 7792sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
b5145c7d
Z
7793about what you want. There is a vulnerability anywhere that you have a
7794set-id script, and to close it you need to remove the set-id bit from
7795the script that you're attempting to run. To actually run the script
7796set-id, your best bet is to put a set-id C wrapper around your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
7797
7798=item You need to quote "%s"
7799
be771a83
GS
7800(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
7801Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
7802which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
7803assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
7804what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 7805
6cfd5ea7
JH
7806=item Your random numbers are not that random
7807
50a39ba4 7808(F) When trying to initialize the random seed for hashes, Perl could
6cfd5ea7
JH
7809not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
7810Something Very Wrong.
7811
e0e4a6e3 7812=item Zero length \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
8a5a438d 7813
f3ba6905 7814(F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a zero-length
8a5a438d 7815sequence. Such an escape was used in an extended character class, i.e.
fe0a3646
KW
7816C<(?[...])>, or under C<use re 'strict'>, which is not permitted. Check
7817that the correct escape has been used, and the correct charnames handler
7818is in scope. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
7819expression the problem was discovered.
8a5a438d 7820
a0d0e21e
LW
7821=back
7822
00eb3f2b
RGS
7823=head1 SEE ALSO
7824
44ecbbd8 7825L<warnings>, L<diagnostics>.
00eb3f2b 7826
56e90b21 7827=cut