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perldiag: rewrap an entry
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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
de42a5a9 53=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
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88(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
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92=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
93
94(W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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95bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
96(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
97like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
98assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
99clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
100really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 101
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102=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
103
104(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
105asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
106named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 107the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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108function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
109and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
110
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111=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
112
113=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 114
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115(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo
116represents the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for
117element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write
118C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to
119the function named foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it
120returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
121
122In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
123to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
124C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length>
125followed by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what
126you want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/>
127to the unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to
128something that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by
129simply turning off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 130
bdac9d71 131=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
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132
133(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
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134string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
135the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
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136write C<-foo()>.
137
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138=item Ambiguous use of 's//le...' resolved as 's// le...'; Rewrite as 's//el' if you meant 'use locale rules and evaluate rhs as an expression'. In Perl 5.16, it will be resolved the other way
139
140(W deprecated, ambiguous) You wrote a pattern match with substitution
141immediately followed by "le". In Perl 5.14 and earlier, this is
142resolved as meaning to take the result of the substitution, and see if
143it is stringwise less-than-or-equal-to what follows in the expression.
144Having the "le" immediately following a pattern is deprecated behavior,
145so in Perl 5.16, this expression will be resolved as meaning to do the
146pattern match using the rules of the current locale, and evaluate the
147rhs as an expression when doing the substitution. In 5.14, if you want
148the latter interpretation, you can simply write "el" instead.
149
6df41af2 150=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 151
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152(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
153redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
154redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 155
6df41af2 156=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 157
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158(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
159redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
160into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
161though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
162which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 163
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164 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
165 while (<STDIN>) {
166 print;
167 print OUT;
168 }
169 close OUT;
c9f97d15 170
6df41af2 171=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 172
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173(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
174transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 175one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 176a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
177hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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178you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
179alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 180
6df41af2 181=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 182
6df41af2 183(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 184
b0fdf69e 185=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 186
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187(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
188subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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189
190 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 191 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 192 &do_something
a0d0e21e 193
8ea97a1e 194=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 195
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196(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
197such as:
5f05dabc 198
199 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 200 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 201
8ea97a1e 202or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 203
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204 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
205 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 206
6df41af2 207=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 208
6df41af2 209(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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210name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
211error.
a0d0e21e 212
f86702cc 213=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 214
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215(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
216that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
217will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 218
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219=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
220
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221(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
222system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
223take care of transforming data between external and internal
224representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
225point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
226didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
227result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 228
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229=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
230
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231(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
232spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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233
234=item assertion botched: %s
235
21b5e840 236(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
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237
238=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
239
21b5e840 240(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 241
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242=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
243
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244(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
245the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 246
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247=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
248
249(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
250must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
251know which context to supply to the right side.
252
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253=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
254
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255(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily
256the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
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257Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
258created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
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259thread. See L<threads>.
260
2393f1b9 261=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 262
49293501 263(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 264the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 265
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266=item Attempt to bless into a reference
267
268(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
269the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
270supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
271
272 bless $self, $proto;
273
274when you intended
275
276 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
277
278If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
279of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
280example by:
281
282 bless $self, "$proto";
283
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284=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
285
286(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
287which is not in its key set.
288
289=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
290
291(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
292declared readonly from a restricted hash.
293
de42a5a9 294=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 295
f84fe999 296(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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297that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
298outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 299
12578ffb 300=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 301
f84fe999 302(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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303strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
304strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
305of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 306
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307=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
308
f84fe999 309(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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310free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
311SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
312free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
313try to free it.
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314
315=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
316
f84fe999 317(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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318
319=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
320
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321(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
322see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
323earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
324This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
325that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
326mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
327corrupted.
a0d0e21e 328
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329=item Attempt to join self
330
331(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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332impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
333to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 334
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335=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
336
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337(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
338function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
339means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
340invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
341literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
342avoid this warning.
84902520 343
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344=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
345
346(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
347compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
348unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
349L<perlvar/%INC>.
350
1b20cd17
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351=item Attempt to set length of freed array
352
353(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
354can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
355of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
356
357 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
358 $$r = 503
359
b7a902f4 360=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
361
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362(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
363used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
364dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 365
c32124fe
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366=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
367
111a855e 368(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the "locked"
c32124fe 369attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
a5547419 370effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in a future
c32124fe
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371release of Perl 5.
372
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373=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
374
111a855e 375(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the "unique"
b7a2910f 376attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
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377had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in a future release
378of Perl 5.
f1a3ce43 379
de42a5a9 380=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 381
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382(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
383or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 384S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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385S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
386
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387=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
388
496a33f5 389(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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390substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
391most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
392
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393=item Bad filehandle: %s
394
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395(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
396symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
397open(), or did it in another package.
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398
399=item Bad free() ignored
400
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401(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
402been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 403setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 404
9ea8bc6d 405This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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406dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
407which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 408
aa689395 409=item Bad hash
410
411(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
412
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413=item Badly placed ()'s
414
415(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
416of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
417Perl yourself.
418
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419=item Bad name after %s::
420
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421(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
422didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
423of quotes, so
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424
425 $var = 'myvar';
426 $sym = mypack::$var;
427
428is not the same as
429
430 $var = 'myvar';
431 $sym = "mypack::$var";
432
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433=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
434
435(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
436plugin API.
437
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438=item Bad realloc() ignored
439
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440(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
441never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
4dcecea4 442by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 443
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444=item Bad symbol for array
445
446(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
447wasn't a symbol table entry.
448
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449=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
450
451(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
452that wasn't a symbol table entry.
453
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454=item Bad symbol for filehandle
455
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456(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
457that wasn't a symbol table entry.
a0d0e21e
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458
459=item Bad symbol for hash
460
461(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
462wasn't a symbol table entry.
463
34d09196
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464=item Bareword found in conditional
465
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466(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
467conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
468of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
469
470 open FOO || die;
471
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472It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
473a bareword:
34d09196
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474
475 use constant TYPO => 1;
476 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
477
478The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
479
6df41af2
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480=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
481
482(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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483subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
484symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
485
486=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
487
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488(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
489compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
490you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 491
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492=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
493
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494(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
495subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
496exited.
a0d0e21e 497
68dc0745 498=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
499
500(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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501implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
502occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
503be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
504depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 505
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506=item \1 better written as $1
507
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508(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
509The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
510substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
511because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
512there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 513
252aa082
JH
514=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
515
e476b1b5 516(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
517(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
518L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 519
69282e91 520=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 521
be771a83
GS
522(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
523check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 524
c289d2f7
JH
525=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
526
527(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 528Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 529
f866a7cd
FC
530=item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
531
532=item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
533
534(W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
535C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
536itself in a future release.
537
c5a0f51a
JH
538=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
539
e476b1b5 540(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 541
4633a7c4
LW
542=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
543
be771a83 544(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
4dcecea4 545copiable.
4633a7c4 546
f675dbe5
CB
547=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
548
be771a83
GS
549(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
550iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
551which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 552
a0d0e21e
LW
553=item Callback called exit
554
4929bf7b 555(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
556exited by calling exit.
557
6df41af2 558=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 559
be771a83
GS
560(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
561parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
562that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
563early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
564subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
565checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
566function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
567the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 568
49704364 569=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
570
571(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
572compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
573attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
574See L<perlfunc/pack>.
575
49704364 576=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
577
578(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
579format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
580
5c1f4d79
NC
581=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
582
583(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
584then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
585triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
586from that type of reference to a typeglob.
587
ba2fdce6
NC
588=item Cannot copy to %s in %s
589
590(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 591be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 592
b5d97229
RGS
593=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
594
595(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
596either with open() or binmode().
597
96ebfdd7
RK
598=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
599
600(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
601integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
602to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
603
a0d0e21e
LW
604=item Can't bless non-reference value
605
606(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
607encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
608
dc57907a
RGS
609=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
610
0d863452
RH
611(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
612a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
613
614=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 615
0d863452
RH
616(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
617
6df41af2
GS
618=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
619
620(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
621object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
622like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
623
624 $BADREF = undef;
625 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
626 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
627
a0d0e21e
LW
628=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
629
54310121 630(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
631ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
632didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
633object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
634
635=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
636
637(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
638object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
639defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
640Something like this will reproduce the error:
641
642 $BADREF = 42;
643 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
644 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
645
a0d0e21e
LW
646=item Can't chdir to %s
647
648(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
649that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
650
0545a864 651=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 652
be771a83
GS
653(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
654nosuid.
104d25b7 655
22e74366 656=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
657
658(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 659(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
660say things like:
661
662 *foo += 1;
663
664You CAN say
665
666 $foo = *foo;
667 $foo += 1;
668
669but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
670
0d863452 671=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 672
0d863452
RH
673(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
674or C<default> block.
675
a0d0e21e
LW
676=item Can't create pipe mailbox
677
be771a83
GS
678(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
679quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 680
eb64745e
GS
681=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
682
30c282f6
NC
683(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
684"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 685
fc7debfb
FC
686=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
687
688(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
689C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
690issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
691error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
692
6df41af2
GS
693=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
694
be771a83
GS
695(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
696a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 697
a0d0e21e
LW
698=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
699
be771a83
GS
700(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
701reason.
a0d0e21e 702
54310121 703=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 704
be771a83
GS
705(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
706reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
707C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 708
10f9c03d 709=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 710
e476b1b5 711(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
712characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
713inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 714
7253e4e3 715=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 716
b45f050a 717(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 718regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 719regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 720
a0d0e21e
LW
721=item Can't do waitpid with flags
722
be771a83
GS
723(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
724waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 725
a0d0e21e
LW
726=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
727
be771a83
GS
728(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
729point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
730line.
a0d0e21e 731
1109a392
MHM
732=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
733
734(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
735or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
736little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
737See L<perlfunc/pack>.
738
a0d0e21e
LW
739=item Can't exec "%s": %s
740
d1be9408 741(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
742named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
743permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
744C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
745architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
746can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
747#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
748
749=item Can't exec %s
750
be771a83
GS
751(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
752that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
753need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
754
755=item Can't execute %s
756
be771a83
GS
757(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
758found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 759
6df41af2 760=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 761
be771a83
GS
762(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
763is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 764
56ca2fc0
JH
765=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
766
767(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
e1b711da
KW
768could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
769See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
770for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 771
6df41af2
GS
772=item Can't find label %s
773
be771a83
GS
774(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
775possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
776
777=item Can't find %s on PATH
778
be771a83
GS
779(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
780found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 781
6df41af2 782=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 783
be771a83
GS
784(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
785found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
786script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
787
788=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
789
be771a83
GS
790(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
791that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
792nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 793
fb73857a 794 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
795
97b3d10f 796If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
797included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
798may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
799a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
800L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 801
660a4616
TS
802=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
803
5f8ad6b6
FC
804(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
805property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
806letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
e1b711da 807L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
5f8ad6b6
FC
808for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
809mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by C<\\p>
810(just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
811until C<\E>).
660a4616 812
b3647a36 813=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 814
be771a83
GS
815(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
816pipeline.
a0d0e21e 817
b3647a36
SR
818=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
819
c973c02e 820(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
821after five seconds.
822
748a9306
LW
823=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
824
be771a83
GS
825(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
826between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
827Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
828the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
829account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
830the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 831the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
832the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
833if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
834because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
835appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
836and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
837routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
838shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
839only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 840
a0d0e21e
LW
841=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
842
be771a83
GS
843(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
844pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
845
846=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
847
748a9306
LW
848(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
849mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 850
6df41af2 851=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 852
be771a83
GS
853(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
854loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
855
856=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
857
be771a83
GS
858(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
859a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
860you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
861See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 862
9850bf21 863=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 864
9850bf21
RH
865(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
866comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
867as the reduce() function in List::Util).
868
c74ace89 869=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 870
be771a83 871(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 872"string" or block.
b150fb22 873
6df41af2
GS
874=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
875
be771a83
GS
876(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
877subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
878cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
879routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 880
0b5b802d
GS
881=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
882
be771a83
GS
883(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
884signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
885signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
886processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
887situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
888may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 889
e2c0f81f
DG
890=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
891
892(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
893attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
894process identifier.
895
6df41af2 896=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 897
6df41af2 898(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
899except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
900block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
901block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
902usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
903inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
904L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 905
2c7d6b9c
RGS
906=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
907
908(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
909package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
910
b8170e59
JB
911=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
912
913(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
914may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
915incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
916between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
16d98ec5 917extension was built against an older version of the library that is
b8170e59
JB
918installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
919extensions.
920
748a9306
LW
921=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
922
2ba9eb46 923(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
30c282f6 924lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
748a9306
LW
925localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
926package name.
927
6df41af2 928=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 929
6df41af2
GS
930(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
931handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 932pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 933that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 934
ea071790 935=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
936
937(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
938found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
939unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
940need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
941the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
942to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
943L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 944
6df41af2
GS
945=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
946
be771a83
GS
947(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
948autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
949are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
950the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 951
b8170e59
JB
952=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
953
954(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
955for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
956unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
957
a0d0e21e
LW
958=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
959
960(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
961functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 962method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
963
964=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
965
be771a83
GS
966(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
967doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 968
2f7da168
RK
969=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
970
971(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
972e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
973
3e3baf6d
TB
974=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
975
be771a83
GS
976(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
977VMS.
3e3baf6d 978
a0d0e21e
LW
979=item Can't modify %s in %s
980
be771a83
GS
981(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
982to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 983
54310121 984=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
985
986(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
987a NULL.
988
6df41af2
GS
989=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
990
991(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 992such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 993
5f05dabc 994=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 995
5f05dabc 996(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
997buffer.
998
6df41af2
GS
999=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1000
1001(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1002there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1003count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1004grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1005though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1006once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1007
a0d0e21e
LW
1008=item Can't open %s: %s
1009
c47ff5f1 1010(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
1011filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1012switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
1013is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1014the command line.
a0d0e21e 1015
9a869a14
RGS
1016=item Can't open a reference
1017
1018(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1019using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1020
1021 open FH, '>', $ref;
1022
1023but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1024open is not supported.
1025
a0d0e21e
LW
1026=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1027
be771a83
GS
1028(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1029You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1030as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1031">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1032
748a9306
LW
1033=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1034
be771a83
GS
1035(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1036redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1037the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1038
1039=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1040
be771a83
GS
1041(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1042redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1043command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1044
1045=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1046
be771a83
GS
1047(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1048redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1049the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1050
1051=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1052
be771a83
GS
1053(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1054redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1055for stdout.
748a9306 1056
2b8ca739 1057=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1058
1059(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1060
fa3aa65a
JC
1061If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1062shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1063you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1064
6df41af2
GS
1065=item Can't read CRTL environ
1066
1067(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1068from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1069missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1070or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1071searched.
6df41af2 1072
6df41af2
GS
1073=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1074
1075(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1076there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1077count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1078or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1079though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1080loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1081
64977eb6 1082=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1083
be771a83
GS
1084(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1085file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1086the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1087
a0d0e21e
LW
1088=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1089
e476b1b5 1090(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1091probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1092
748a9306
LW
1093=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1094
be771a83
GS
1095(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1096to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1097
fe13d51d 1098=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1099
1fa582fa
FC
1100(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1101opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1102package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1103
cd06dffe
GS
1104=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1105
be771a83
GS
1106(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1107temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1108is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1109
96ebfdd7
RK
1110=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1111
1112(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1113there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1114
78f9721b
SM
1115=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1116
1117(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1118but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1119to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1120the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1121list context.
1122
a0d0e21e
LW
1123=item Can't stat script "%s"
1124
be771a83
GS
1125(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1126open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1127
a0d0e21e
LW
1128=item Can't take log of %g
1129
fb73857a 1130(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1131negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1132standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1133negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1134
1135=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1136
1137(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1138negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1139with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1140
1141=item Can't undef active subroutine
1142
1143(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1144however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1145redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1146
c81225bc 1147=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1148
be771a83
GS
1149(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1150into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1151specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1152indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1153
1db89ea5
BS
1154=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1155
e27ad1f2 1156(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1157table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1158for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1159
96ebfdd7
RK
1160=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1161
1162(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1163be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1164
6df41af2
GS
1165=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1166
be771a83
GS
1167(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1168references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1169
90b75b61 1170=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1171
1172(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1173Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1174provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1175
1109a392
MHM
1176=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1177
1178(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1179byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1180allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1181
6df41af2
GS
1182=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1183
be771a83
GS
1184(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1185foreach.
6df41af2 1186
aab6a793 1187=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1188
be771a83
GS
1189(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1190is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1191(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1192have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1193weren't.
1194
6d3b25aa
RGS
1195=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1196
1197(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1198that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1199For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1200is inside a big-endian group.
1201
c07a80fd 1202=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1203
1204(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1205You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1206and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1207Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1208lexical variable.
1209
a0d0e21e
LW
1210=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1211
1212(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1213reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1214test the type of the reference, if need be.
1215
748a9306 1216=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1217
be771a83
GS
1218(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1219references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1220
748a9306
LW
1221=item Can't use subscript on %s
1222
1223(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1224subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1225didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1226
6df41af2
GS
1227=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1228
75b44862
GS
1229(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1230creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1231backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1232expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1233value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1234instead.
6df41af2 1235
810b8aa5
GS
1236=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1237
1238(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1239references can be weakened.
1240
fc7debfb
FC
1241=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1242
1243(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1244loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1245from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1246or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1247
5f05dabc 1248=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1249
be771a83
GS
1250(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1251with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1252Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1253
4a68bf9d 1254=item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
f9d13529 1255
1fa582fa 1256(F)(W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
17a3df4c
KW
1257It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.16. In the
1258cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1259derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1260
1261Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
f9d13529 1262
f337b084 1263=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1264
1265(W pack) You said
1266
1267 pack("C", $x)
1268
1269where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1270only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1271and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1272
1273 pack("C", $x & 255)
1274
1275If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1276instead.
1277
f337b084
TH
1278=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1279
1280(W pack) You said
1281
1282 pack("U0W", $x)
1283
1284where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1285all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1286meant:
1287
1288 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1289
1290=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1291
1292(W pack) You said
1293
1294 pack("c", $x)
1295
1296where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1297is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1298and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1299
1300 pack("c", $x & 255);
1301
1302If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1303instead.
1304
f337b084
TH
1305=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1306
1307(W unpack) You tried something like
1308
1309 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1310
1a147d38 1311where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
f337b084
TH
1312below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1313modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1314
1315 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1316
1317=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1318
1319(W pack) You tried something like
1320
1321 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1322
1a147d38
YO
1323where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1324value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1325uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1326
1327 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1328
1329=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1330
1331(W unpack) You tried something like
1332
1333 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1334
1a147d38
YO
1335where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1336value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1337uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1338
1339 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1340
f866a7cd
FC
1341=item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1342
1343(D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1344to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1345evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
1346ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.16. Just use a
1347semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1348
1349=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1350
1351(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1352non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1353written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1354characters.
1355
96ebfdd7
RK
1356=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1357
1358(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1359
abc7ecad
SP
1360=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1361
1362(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1363a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1364
541ed3a9
FC
1365=item Closure prototype called
1366
1367(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1368handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1369This subroutine cannot be called.
1370
49704364
WL
1371=item Code missing after '/'
1372
1373(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1374template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1375
0876b9a0
KW
1376=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1377
c634fdd3 1378=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed
9ae3ac1a 1379
8457b38f 1380(W utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum of U+10FFFF.
0876b9a0
KW
1381
1382Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code
1383points, up to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on
1384your system, but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems.
1385At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
13860x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require
1387larger than a 32 bit word.
1388
9ae3ac1a
KW
1389None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1390code point. For example,
1391
1392 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1393
1394will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1395
1396 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1397
1398will match.
1399
94b42e47
KW
1400This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1401
1402 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Fails.
1403 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also fails!
1404
1405and both these succeed:
1406
1407 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Succeeds.
1408 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also succeeds!
1409
6df41af2
GS
1410=item %s: Command not found
1411
be771a83
GS
1412(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1413Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1414
7a2e2cd6 1415=item Compilation failed in require
1416
1417(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1418Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1419encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1420
c3464db5
DD
1421=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1422
be771a83
GS
1423(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1424situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1425to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1426arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1427recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1428under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1429in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1430that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1431on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1432
38875929
DM
1433=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1434
1435(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1436cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
a568ca76 1437function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
38875929 1438cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
a568ca76
FC
1439has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread
1440first to wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
38875929
DM
1441after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1442lock.
1443
38875929
DM
1444=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1445
1446(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1447cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
a568ca76 1448function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
38875929 1449cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
a568ca76
FC
1450has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread
1451first to wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
38875929
DM
1452after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1453lock.
1454
69282e91 1455=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1456
be771a83
GS
1457(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1458to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1459L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1460
41ab332f 1461=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1462
be771a83
GS
1463(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1464an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1465specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1466corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1467L<overload>.
6df41af2 1468
fc8cd66c
YO
1469=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1470
1a147d38
YO
1471(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1472the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1473forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1474See L<charnames>.
1475
779c5bc9
GS
1476=item Constant is not %s reference
1477
1478(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1479is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1480The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1481usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1482See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1483
4cee8e80
CS
1484=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1485
aeb94125
FC
1486(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1487been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1488for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1489
9607fc9c 1490=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1491
be771a83
GS
1492(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1493for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1494workarounds.
9607fc9c 1495
e7ea3e70
IZ
1496=item Copy method did not return a reference
1497
64977eb6 1498(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1499L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1500
4aaa4757
FC
1501=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1502
1503(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
7530120a 1504with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Most subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1505in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1506called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1507
1508 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1509 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1510
6798c92b
GS
1511=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1512
1513(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1514
a0d0e21e
LW
1515=item corrupted regexp pointers
1516
1517(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1518expression compiler gave it.
1519
1520=item corrupted regexp program
1521
be771a83
GS
1522(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1523valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1524
de42a5a9 1525=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1526
1527(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1528
49704364
WL
1529=item Count after length/code in unpack
1530
1531(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1532you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1533L<perlfunc/pack>.
1534
a0d0e21e
LW
1535=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1536
be771a83
GS
1537(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1538100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1539infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1540which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1541
aad1d01f
NC
1542This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1543setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1544
f10b0346 1545=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1546
be771a83
GS
1547(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1548checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1549array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1550
f10b0346 1551=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1552
f0ec9725
KR
1553(D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1554discouraged since 5.004.
1555
1556Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1557becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1558weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1559These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1560
1561If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1562context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
16546e45
KR
1563
1564 if (%hash) {
1565 # not empty
1566 }
1567
f0ec9725
KR
1568If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1569variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1570a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1571it's loaded, etc.
1572
69794302 1573
bcb95744
FC
1574=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1575
1576(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1577most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1578of the C<....> part.
1579
1580The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1581discovered.
1582
62658f4d
PM
1583=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1584
1585(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1586there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1587
fc36a67e 1588=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1589
be771a83
GS
1590(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1591long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1592that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1593
4a68bf9d 1594=item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1595
1596(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
5fca8acb
FC
1597But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1598are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1599and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1600parentheses or colons.
cb233ae3 1601
6d3b25aa
RGS
1602=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1603
1604(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1605There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1606not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1607conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1608static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1609relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1610declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1611
6d3b25aa
RGS
1612 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1613
1614becomes
1615
1616 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1617
36fb85f3
RGS
1618Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1619have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1620
1621 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1622
500ab966
RGS
1623=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1624
1625(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1626just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1627to create a dangling reference.
1628
3cdd684c
TP
1629=item Did not produce a valid header
1630
1631See Server error.
1632
6df41af2
GS
1633=item %s did not return a true value
1634
1635(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1636it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1637traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1638do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1639
cc507455 1640=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1641
413ff9f6
FC
1642(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1643some such.
4633a7c4 1644
cc507455 1645=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1646
be771a83
GS
1647(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1648variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1649seems superfluous.
33633739 1650
cc507455 1651=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1652
be771a83
GS
1653(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1654@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1655carried away.
748a9306 1656
7e1af8bc 1657=item Died
5f05dabc 1658
1659(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 1660you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 1661
3cdd684c
TP
1662=item Document contains no data
1663
1664See Server error.
1665
62658f4d
PM
1666=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1667
1668(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1669define a C<$VERSION.>
1670
49704364
WL
1671=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1672
1673(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1674See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1675
a0d0e21e
LW
1676=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1677
1678(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1679
1680=item do_study: out of memory
1681
1682(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1683
6df41af2
GS
1684=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1685
56da5a46
RGS
1686(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1687"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1688name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1689because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1690"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1691something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1692subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1693"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1694
ac206dc8
RGS
1695=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1696
1697(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1698qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1699
84d78eb7
YO
1700=item dump is not supported
1701
1702(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1703
a0d0e21e
LW
1704=item Duplicate free() ignored
1705
be771a83
GS
1706(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1707already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1708
1109a392
MHM
1709=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1710
1711(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1712in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1713
4633a7c4
LW
1714=item elseif should be elsif
1715
56da5a46
RGS
1716(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1717ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1718"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1719unlikely to be what you want.
1720
ab13f0c7
JH
1721=item Empty %s
1722
af6f566e
HS
1723(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1724described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1725a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1726
85ab1d1d 1727=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1728
85ab1d1d 1729(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1730effective uids or gids failed.
1731
c038024b
RGS
1732=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1733
1734(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1735aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1736program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1737
748a9306
LW
1738=item Error converting file specification %s
1739
5f05dabc 1740(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1741specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1742single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1743an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1744conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1745
e4d48cc9
GS
1746=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1747
be771a83
GS
1748(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1749expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1750is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1751
fc8f615e 1752=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
e4d48cc9 1753
be771a83
GS
1754(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1755C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
1756pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1757it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1758C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1759interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1760L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1761
6df41af2
GS
1762=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1763
be771a83
GS
1764(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1765assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1766pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1767
1a147d38
YO
1768=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1769
1770(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1771any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1772
1773The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1774discovered.
1775
fc36a67e 1776=item Excessively long <> operator
1777
1778(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1779Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1780filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1781variable and glob that.
1782
ed9aa3b7
SG
1783=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1784
af8bb25a
FC
1785(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
1786OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 1787
fe13d51d 1788=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1789
1790(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1791
1792=item Exiting eval via %s
1793
be771a83
GS
1794(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1795goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1796
1797=item Exiting format via %s
1798
9a2ff54b 1799(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1800goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1801
0a753a76 1802=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1803
be771a83
GS
1804(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1805sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1806loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1807
a0d0e21e
LW
1808=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1809
be771a83
GS
1810(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1811as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1812
1813=item Exiting substitution via %s
1814
be771a83
GS
1815(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1816as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1817
7b8d334a
GS
1818=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1819
be771a83
GS
1820(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1821the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1822usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1823e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1824
6df41af2
GS
1825=item %s: Expression syntax
1826
be771a83
GS
1827(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1828Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1829
1830=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1831
3c10abe3
AG
1832(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1833CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1834queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1835
7253e4e3 1836=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1837
be771a83 1838(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1839character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1840in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1841"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1842problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1843
1b1ee2ef 1844=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1845
be771a83
GS
1846(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1847system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1848details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1849you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1850
1851=item fcntl is not implemented
1852
1853(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1854PDP-11 or something?
1855
22846ab4
AB
1856=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1857
1858(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1859is not possible.
1860
f337b084
TH
1861=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1862
1863(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1864which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1865a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 1866C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 1867
af8c498a 1868=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1869
6c8d78fb
HS
1870(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1871it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1872"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1873write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1874
af8c498a 1875=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1876
6c8d78fb
HS
1877(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1878you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
1879with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1880read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1881is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1882output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1883
1884=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1885
1886(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1887as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1888previously.
1889
1890=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1891
1892(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1893as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1894
1895=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1896
1897(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1898a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1899happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1900name.
a0d0e21e 1901
56e90b21
GS
1902=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1903
be771a83 1904(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1905some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1906filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1907same name?
56e90b21 1908
6df41af2
GS
1909=item Format not terminated
1910
1911(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1912to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1913
a0d0e21e
LW
1914=item Format %s redefined
1915
e476b1b5 1916(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1917
1918 {
271595cc 1919 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1920 eval "format NAME =...";
1921 }
1922
a0d0e21e
LW
1923=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1924
e476b1b5 1925(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1926
1927 if ($foo = 123)
1928
1929when you meant
1930
1931 if ($foo == 123)
1932
1933(or something like that).
1934
6df41af2
GS
1935=item %s found where operator expected
1936
56da5a46
RGS
1937(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1938If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1939operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1940operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1941
a0d0e21e
LW
1942=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1943
1944(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1945
1946=item gethostent not implemented
1947
1948(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1949because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1950on the Internet.
1951
69282e91 1952=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1953
be771a83
GS
1954(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1955socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1956
748a9306
LW
1957=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1958
1959(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1960C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1961
6df41af2
GS
1962=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1963
be771a83
GS
1964(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1965forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1966L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1967
1968=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1969
a4edf47d 1970(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1971that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1972declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1973which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1974
e476b1b5
GS
1975=item glob failed (%s)
1976
be771a83
GS
1977(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1978C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1979C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1980nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1981resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1982broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1983config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1984were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1985empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1986think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1987C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1988
a0d0e21e
LW
1989=item Glob not terminated
1990
1991(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1992a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1993not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1994earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1995
bcd05b94 1996=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 1997
e9200be3 1998(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 1999it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
b539c2c9 2000date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2001not-a-number value).
2002
bcd05b94 2003=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2004
e9200be3 2005(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
fc003d4b 2006it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
b539c2c9 2007date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b 2008not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 2009
6df41af2 2010=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2011
6df41af2
GS
2012(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2013version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2014
2015=item goto must have label
2016
2017(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2018unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2019
49704364 2020=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 2021
bca4a986
FC
2022(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2023something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 2024
fe13d51d 2025=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2026
2027(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2028
a0d0e21e
LW
2029=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2030
be771a83
GS
2031(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2032to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2033created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
2034
2035=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2036
be771a83
GS
2037(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2038spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 2039
6df41af2
GS
2040=item %s has too many errors
2041
2042(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2043Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2044
e6897b1a
KW
2045=item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
2046
2047(D syntax)
2048
bd0e971a 2049You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following a
b6fa137b
FC
2050pattern without an intervening space. If you are trying to use the C</le>
2051flags on a substitution, use C</el> instead. Otherwise, add white space
2052between the pattern and following word to eliminate the warning. As an
2053example of the latter, the two constructs:
e6897b1a
KW
2054
2055 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
2056 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
2057
21356872
FC
2058both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow the first
2059form in Perl 5.16. And,
e6897b1a
KW
2060
2061 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
2062
2063will be disallowed too.
2064
252aa082
JH
2065=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2066
e476b1b5 2067(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2068(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2069L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2070
8903cb82 2071=item Identifier too long
2072
2073(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2074about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2075names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2076of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2077
c3c41406 2078=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 2079
ff3f963a
KW
2080(W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
2081zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1a147d38 2082its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
2083been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2084
6df41af2 2085=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 2086
6df41af2 2087(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2088
6df41af2 2089=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2090
be771a83
GS
2091(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2092binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2093offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2094
6597eb22
FC
2095=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2096
2097(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2098Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2099
78d0fecf 2100=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
4fdae800 2101
d5898338 2102(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2103would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2104when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2105version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2106to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2107
d37a9538
ST
2108=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2109
197afce1 2110(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2111Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
d37a9538 2112
904d85c5
RGS
2113=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2114
2115(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2116you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2117
8e742a20
MHM
2118=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2119
2120(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2121
a0d0e21e
LW
2122=item Illegal division by zero
2123
be771a83
GS
2124(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2125your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2126meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2127
6df41af2
GS
2128=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2129
be771a83
GS
2130(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2131A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2132number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2133
a0d0e21e
LW
2134=item Illegal modulus zero
2135
be771a83
GS
2136(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2137numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2138
6df41af2 2139=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2140
6df41af2
GS
2141(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2142two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2143
2144=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2145
d1be9408 2146(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2147
399388f4 2148=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2149
d1be9408 2150(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2151Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2152
fe13d51d 2153=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2154
6df41af2 2155(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2156following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2157
6df41af2 2158=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2159
75b44862 2160(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2161internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2162delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2163
6df41af2 2164=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2165
be771a83
GS
2166(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2167name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2168didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2169ignored.
54310121 2170
6df41af2 2171=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2172
be771a83
GS
2173(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2174the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2175system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2176times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2177would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2178
be771a83
GS
2179Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2180also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2181
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2182=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2183
2184(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2185C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2186documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2187
979699d9
JH
2188=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2189
2190(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2191Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2192encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2193
1a147d38
YO
2194=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2195
2196(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2197text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2198either consume text or fail.
2199
2200The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2201discovered.
2202
6dbe9451
NC
2203=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2204
2205(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2206of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2207C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2208as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2209
a0d0e21e
LW
2210=item Insecure dependency in %s
2211
8b1a09fc 2212(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2213The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2214setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2215tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2216from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2217such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2218L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2219
2220=item Insecure directory in %s
2221
be771a83
GS
2222(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2223setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2224the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2225See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2226
62f468fc 2227=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2228
2229(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2230setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2231C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2232supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2233the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2234
0e9be77f
DM
2235=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2236
2237(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2238expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2239function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2240See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2241
b9ef414d
FC
2242=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2243
2244(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2245or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2246integers for your architecture.
2247
a7ae9550
GS
2248=item Integer overflow in %s number
2249
75b44862 2250(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2251either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2252your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2253On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2254representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
22550b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2256transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2257internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2258operations.
bbce6d69 2259
46314c13
JP
2260=item Integer overflow in version
2261
2262(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2263size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2264because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2265element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2266trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2267100/9.
2268
7253e4e3 2269=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2270
2271(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2272The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2273discovered.
2274
748a9306
LW
2275=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2276
be771a83
GS
2277(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2278you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2279to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2280L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2281Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2282terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2283
7253e4e3 2284=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2285
7253e4e3
RK
2286(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2287<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2288discovered.
a0d0e21e 2289
6df41af2
GS
2290=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2291
75b44862 2292(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2293followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2294operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2295L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2296
09bef843
SB
2297=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2298
a4a4c9e2 2299(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
2300by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2301
2302=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2303
a4a4c9e2 2304(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 2305recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2306
c635e13b 2307=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2308
be771a83
GS
2309(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2310L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2311
9e08bc66
TS
2312=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2313
2314(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2315didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2316from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2317The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2318The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2319escape was discovered.
2320
8149aa9f
FC
2321=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2322
2323(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
2324number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
23250 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 2326
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2327=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2328
162a3e34
FC
2329(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2330where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2331the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2332a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 2333
7253e4e3 2334=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2335
2336(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2337greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2338C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2339up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2340problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2341
d1573ac7 2342=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2343
2344(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2345character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2346
09bef843
SB
2347=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2348
0120eecf 2349(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2350elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2351parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2352See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2353
b4581f09
JH
2354=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2355
2bfc5f71
FC
2356(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2357than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
2358If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2359list was terminated too soon.
2360
2c86d456
DG
2361=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2362
2363(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2364A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2365decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2366v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2367The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2368See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2369
49704364 2370=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2371
49704364
WL
2372(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2373See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2374(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2375silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2376
2c86d456
DG
2377=item Invalid version format (%s)
2378
2379(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2380A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2381decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
9da2b86b
FC
2382v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it must
2383have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional.
2384Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2c86d456
DG
2385component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2386dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
a6485a24 2387criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2c86d456 2388allowed version formats.
46314c13 2389
798ae1b7
DG
2390=item Invalid version object
2391
2392(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2393the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2394was blessed into the "version" class.
2395
a0d0e21e
LW
2396=item ioctl is not implemented
2397
2398(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2399strange for a machine that supports C.
2400
c289d2f7
JH
2401=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2402
2403(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 2404Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 2405
fe13d51d 2406=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2407
2408(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 2409you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
2410with 'useperlio'.
2411
80cbd5ad
JH
2412=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2413
2414(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 2415neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 2416
b4581f09
JH
2417=item $* is no longer supported
2418
a58ac25e
FC
2419(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2420perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
2421previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2422matching within a string.
4fd19576
B
2423
2424Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
570dedd4
FC
2425modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2426with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2427then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2428
8ae1fe26
RGS
2429=item $# is no longer supported
2430
a58ac25e
FC
2431(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2432perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
2433should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
8ae1fe26 2434
ccf3535a 2435=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 2436
04a80ee0
RGS
2437(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2438needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
2439to a subroutine.
2440
ccf3535a 2441=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 2442
04a80ee0
RGS
2443(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2444unaware of.
6ad11d81 2445
a0d0e21e
LW
2446=item junk on end of regexp
2447
2448(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2449
2450=item Label not found for "last %s"
2451
be771a83
GS
2452(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2453of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2454L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2455
2456=item Label not found for "next %s"
2457
2458(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2459that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2460L<perlfunc/last>.
2461
2462=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2463
2464(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2465that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2466L<perlfunc/last>.
2467
85ab1d1d 2468=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2469
85ab1d1d 2470(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2471effective uids or gids failed.
2472
49704364
WL
2473=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2474
d7f8936a 2475(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
49704364
WL
2476length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2477an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2478
e508c8a4
MH
2479=item length() used on %s
2480
0d46a4e7
FC
2481(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2482probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
2483
2484Array size can be obtained by doing:
2485
2486 scalar(@array);
2487
2488The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2489
2490 scalar(keys %hash);
2491
f0e67a1d
Z
2492=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2493
2494(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
96090e4f 2495(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character
d35a2c71
FC
2496that couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2497of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where it
2498is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
2499
2500=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2501
2502(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2503detectable way.
2504
69282e91 2505=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2506
be771a83
GS
2507(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2508to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2509L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2510
bcd05b94 2511=item localtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2512
e9200be3 2513(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
fc003d4b 2514than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
b539c2c9 2515wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2516not-a-number value).
2517
bcd05b94 2518=item localtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2519
e9200be3 2520(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
fc003d4b 2521than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
b539c2c9 2522wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b 2523not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 2524
58e23c8d 2525=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2526
2527(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
58e23c8d 2528handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2529
b88df990
NC
2530=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2531
2532(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2533for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2534hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2535because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2536are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2537You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2538
2f7da168
RK
2539=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2540
2541(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2542by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2543instead on the filehandle.)
2544
bb3abb05
FC
2545=item lvalue attribute cannot be removed after the subroutine has been defined
2546
2547(W misc) The lvalue attribute on a Perl subroutine cannot be turned off
2548once the subroutine is defined.
2549
885ef6f5
GG
2550=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2551
bb3abb05
FC
2552(W misc) Making a Perl subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been
2553defined, whether by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute
2554or by using L<attributes.pm|attributes>, is not possible. To make the subroutine an
2555lvalue subroutine, add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put
2556the declaration before the definition.
885ef6f5 2557
2db62bbc 2558=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 2559
2db62bbc 2560(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2561are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2562
2563=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2564
2db62bbc 2565(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2566are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2567
6df41af2
GS
2568=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2569
2570(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2571
2572 prefix1;prefix2
2573
2574or
6df41af2
GS
2575 prefix1 prefix2
2576
be771a83
GS
2577with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2578a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2579appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2580"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2581
2f758a16
ST
2582=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2583
d37a9538
ST
2584(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2585syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2586obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2587when the function is called.
2f758a16 2588
ba210ebe
JH
2589=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2590
2575c402
JW
2591(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2592encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2593
2575c402
JW
2594One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2595you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
25968-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2597
2598If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2599sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2600set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2601message.
2602
2603See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2604
ff3f963a
KW
2605=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2606
2607(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2608
4a5d3a93
FC
2609=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2610
2611(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2612rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2613
f337b084
TH
2614=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2615
2616(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2617rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2618
2619=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2620
2621(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2622rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2623
4a5d3a93 2624=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 2625
4a5d3a93
FC
2626(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2627doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2628
2629=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2630
2631(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2632regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2633shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2634See L<perlre>.
f337b084 2635
de42a5a9 2636=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 2637
2db62bbc 2638(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2639usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2640too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2641resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2642safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2643
25f58aea
PN
2644=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2645
2646(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2647interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2648"use" or "my".
2649
49704364 2650=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2651
2652(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2653checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2654See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2655
a0d0e21e
LW
2656=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2657
2658(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2659doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2660
3cdd684c
TP
2661=item Method %s not permitted
2662
2663See Server error.
2664
a0d0e21e
LW
2665=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2666
2667(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2668by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2669ended earlier on the current line.
2670
2671=item Misplaced _ in number
2672
d4ced10d
JH
2673(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2674separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2675
7baa4690
HS
2676=item Missing argument in %s
2677
2678(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2679supplied.
2680
9e81e6a1
RGS
2681=item Missing argument to -%c
2682
2683(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2684immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2685
ff3f963a 2686=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2687
4a2d328f 2688(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
2689double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2690(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2691This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2692follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 2693
f0a2b745
KW
2694=item Missing braces on \o{}
2695
2696(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2697
a0d0e21e
LW
2698=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2699
2700(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2701"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2702
06eaf0bc
GS
2703=item Missing command in piped open
2704
be771a83
GS
2705(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2706C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2707blank.
06eaf0bc 2708
961ce445
RGS
2709=item Missing control char name in \c
2710
2711(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2712character name.
2713
6df41af2
GS
2714=item Missing name in "my sub"
2715
be771a83
GS
2716(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2717they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2718
2719=item Missing $ on loop variable
2720
be771a83
GS
2721(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2722are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2723can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2724
cc507455 2725=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2726
56da5a46
RGS
2727(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2728"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2729
ab13f0c7
JH
2730=item Missing right brace on %s
2731
ff3f963a
KW
2732(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2733
4a68bf9d 2734=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 2735
d32207c9
FC
2736(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2737
2738The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2739meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
2740name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2741double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2742it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2743
2744Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2745in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2746for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2747
2748This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2749by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2750form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2751means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
27523; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2753C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2754
2755However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2756mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2757If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2758escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2759
d98d5fff 2760=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2761
be771a83
GS
2762(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2763ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2764were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2765
6df41af2
GS
2766=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2767
56da5a46
RGS
2768(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2769"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2770the previous line just because you saw this message.
2771
a0d0e21e
LW
2772=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2773
2774(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2775constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2776catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2777
2778 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2779 mod(2);
2780
2781Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2782
c5674021
PDF
2783Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2784is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2785
2786 $x = 1;
2787 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2788 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2789 }
c5674021 2790
7a4340ed 2791=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2792
2793(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2794subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2795backwards.
2796
7a4340ed 2797=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2798
be771a83
GS
2799(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2800couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2801
2802=item Module name must be constant
2803
2804(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2805
be98fb35 2806=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2807
be98fb35
GS
2808(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2809you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2810about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2811
fe13d51d 2812=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7
SG
2813
2814(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2815can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2816list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2817See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2818
a0d0e21e
LW
2819=item msg%s not implemented
2820
2821(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2822
2823=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2824
75b44862
GS
2825(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2826They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2827
49704364 2828=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2829
49704364
WL
2830(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2831follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2832See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2833
2834=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2835
be771a83
GS
2836(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2837that yet.
6df41af2 2838
fd1b7234 2839=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2840
be771a83
GS
2841(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2842sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2843local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2844
8149aa9f
FC
2845=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2846
2847(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2848If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2849again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2850provided for this purpose.
2851
2852NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2853%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2854the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2855will not trigger this warning.
2856
4a68bf9d 2857=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
ff3f963a 2858
c3c41406 2859(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
f4e361c7
FC
2860character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses
2861its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not
2862what you want.
c3c41406 2863
4a68bf9d 2864=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
c3c41406 2865
f4e361c7
FC
2866(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
2867sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
2868bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
7fae04b9 2869backslash in double-quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2870
2871 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2872 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2873 /$re/;
2874
b09c05e6 2875Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2876
2877 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2878 /$re/;
2879
2880The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2881components:
2882
2883 $re = '\N';
2884 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2885
2886It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2887doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2888
2889Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2890C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2891
2892 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2893 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2894
49704364
WL
2895=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2896
2897(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2898negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2899
a0d0e21e
LW
2900=item Negative length
2901
be771a83
GS
2902(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2903length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2904
ed9aa3b7
SG
2905=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2906
2907(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2908greater than or equal to zero.
2909
7253e4e3 2910=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2911
b45f050a 2912(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2913things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2914expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2915
7253e4e3 2916Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2917C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2918
6df41af2 2919=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2920
be771a83
GS
2921(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2922scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2923
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2924=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2925
2926(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2927real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2928See L<mro>.
2929
a0d0e21e
LW
2930=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2931
be771a83
GS
2932(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2933setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2934will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2935securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2936
a0d0e21e
LW
2937=item No comma allowed after %s
2938
2939(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2940allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2941Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2942
0a753a76 2943One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2944constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2945importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2946does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
f7af5ce1 2947explicit import list for the constants you expect to see; please see
0a753a76 2948L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2949would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2950remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2951constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2952list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2953this error was triggered?
2954
748a9306
LW
2955=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2956
be771a83
GS
2957(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2958redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2959doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2960
a0d0e21e
LW
2961=item No DB::DB routine defined
2962
be771a83 2963(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 2964for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
2965module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2966statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2967
2968=item No dbm on this machine
2969
2970(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2971supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2972
ccafdc96 2973=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2974
ccafdc96
RGS
2975(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2976for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2977module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2978of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2979
c47ff5f1 2980=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2981
be771a83
GS
2982(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2983redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2984find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2985
49704364
WL
2986=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2987
2988(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2989matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2990
c47ff5f1 2991=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2992
be771a83
GS
2993(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2994redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2995name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2996
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2997=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2998
2999(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3000in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3001it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3002or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3003
6df41af2
GS
3004=item "no" not allowed in expression
3005
be771a83
GS
3006(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3007returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 3008
c47ff5f1 3009=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 3010
be771a83
GS
3011(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3012redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3013doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 3014
c47ff5f1 3015=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 3016
be771a83
GS
3017(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3018redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3019find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 3020
1ec3e8de
GS
3021=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3022
be771a83
GS
3023(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3024declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3025semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 3026
a0d0e21e
LW
3027=item No Perl script found in input
3028
3029(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3030with #! and containing the word "perl".
3031
3032=item No setregid available
3033
3034(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3035your system.
3036
3037=item No setreuid available
3038
3039(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3040your system.
3041
6df41af2
GS
3042=item No %s specified for -%c
3043
3044(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
3045you haven't specified one.
f7af5ce1 3046
e75d1f10
RD
3047=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3048
3049(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
3050but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
3051package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
3052
2c692339
RGS
3053=item No such class %s
3054
dc7e5945
FC
3055(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3056declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2c692339 3057
3c20a832
SP
3058=item No such hook: %s
3059
dc7e5945
FC
3060(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3061Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 3062
6df41af2
GS
3063=item No such pipe open
3064
3065(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
3066close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3067earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 3068
a0d0e21e
LW
3069=item No such signal: SIG%s
3070
be771a83
GS
3071(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3072not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3073names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
3074
3075=item Not a CODE reference
3076
3077(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3078subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3079use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3080also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3081
3082=item Not a format reference
3083
3084(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
3085format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
3086
3087=item Not a GLOB reference
3088
be771a83
GS
3089(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3090symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3091something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3092kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3093
3094=item Not a HASH reference
3095
be771a83
GS
3096(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3097reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3098find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3099
6df41af2
GS
3100=item Not an ARRAY reference
3101
be771a83
GS
3102(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3103a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3104to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 3105
d4fc4415
FC
3106=item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3107
3108(F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3109another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3110or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3111
a0d0e21e
LW
3112=item Not a SCALAR reference
3113
be771a83
GS
3114(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3115a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3116to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3117
3118=item Not a subroutine reference
3119
3120(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3121subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3122use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3123also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3124
e7ea3e70 3125=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3126
3127(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3128doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3129
a0d0e21e
LW
3130=item Not enough arguments for %s
3131
3132(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3133
6df41af2
GS
3134=item Not enough format arguments
3135
be771a83
GS
3136(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3137supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3138
3139=item %s: not found
3140
be771a83
GS
3141(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3142of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3143yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3144
3145=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3146
6df41af2
GS
3147(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3148timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3149to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3150F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3151need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3152
f0a2b745
KW
3153=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3154
5493e060
FC
3155(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3156unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as
3157indicated.
f0a2b745 3158
4ef2275c
GA
3159=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3160
3161(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3162Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
bc4b151d 3163select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4ef2275c 3164
a0d0e21e
LW
3165=item Null filename used
3166
be771a83
GS
3167(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3168machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 3169
6df41af2
GS
3170=item NULL OP IN RUN
3171
f84fe999 3172(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 3173pointer.
6df41af2 3174
55497cff 3175=item Null picture in formline
3176
3177(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3178specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3179supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3180
a0d0e21e
LW
3181=item Null realloc
3182
3183(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3184
3185=item NULL regexp argument
3186
5f05dabc 3187(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3188
3189=item NULL regexp parameter
3190
3191(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3192
fc36a67e 3193=item Number too long
3194
be771a83 3195(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3196about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3197versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3198the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3199"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3200
f0a2b745
KW
3201=item Number with no digits
3202
1043934d
FC
3203(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
3204a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
3205the braces.
f0a2b745 3206
6df41af2
GS
3207=item Octal number in vector unsupported
3208
be771a83
GS
3209(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3210The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3211future version.
6df41af2 3212
252aa082
JH
3213=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3214
75b44862 3215(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3216(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3217L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 3218
6ad11d81
JH
3219=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3220
04a80ee0
RGS
3221(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3222arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3223
b21befc1
MG
3224=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3225
3226(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3227which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3228
1930e939 3229=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3230
be771a83
GS
3231(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3232which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3233
bbce6d69 3234=item Offset outside string
3235
1fa582fa 3236(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 3237with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3238imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3239take place when going past the end of the string when either
3240C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3241for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3242with real files).
bbce6d69 3243
c289d2f7 3244=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3245
3246(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3247never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3248call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3249
96ebfdd7
RK
3250=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3251
3252(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3253that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3254
a0d0e21e
LW
3255=item oops: oopsAV
3256
e476b1b5 3257(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3258
3259=item oops: oopsHV
3260
e476b1b5 3261(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3262
abc718f2
RGS
3263=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3264
a4a4c9e2 3265(W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3266a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3267Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3268and is deprecated.
3269
3270=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3271
a4a4c9e2 3272(W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3273a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3274Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3275and is deprecated.
3276
a0288114 3277=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3278
be771a83
GS
3279(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3280handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3281of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 3282the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3283
5ff1373f 3284=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 3285
8457b38f
KW
3286(W utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3287semantics on a code
5ff1373f
FC
3288point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not defined. Perl
3289has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3290
3291If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3292matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3293
3294If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3295C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 3296
5ff1373f 3297=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 3298
8457b38f
KW
3299(W utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3300semantics on a Unicode
5ff1373f
FC
3301surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of surrogates for anything but
3302storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics are (reluctantly) defined for
3303the surrogates, and they are to do nothing for this operation. Because
3304the use of surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3305
3306If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3307matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3308
3309If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3310C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 3311
748a9306
LW
3312=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3313
be771a83
GS
3314(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3315was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3316use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3317example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3318"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3319
6df41af2
GS
3320=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3321
be771a83
GS
3322(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3323in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3324
a80b8354
GS
3325=item Out of memory!
3326
3327(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3328remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3329no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3330
19a52907
JH
3331At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3332process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3333C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3334the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3335and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3336
6d3b25aa
RGS
3337=item Out of memory during %s extend
3338
3339(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3340the largest possible memory allocation.
3341
6df41af2 3342=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 3343
6df41af2
GS
3344(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3345remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
3