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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
466416ed 23below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
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24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
fa816bf3 26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
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27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
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53=item Aliasing via reference is experimental
54
55(S experimental::refaliasing) This warning is emitted if you use
56a reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment to
57alias one variable to another. Simply suppress the warning if you
58want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
59the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be
60removed in a future Perl version:
61
62 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
63 use feature "refaliasing";
64 \$x = \$y;
65
de42a5a9 66=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 67
6df41af2 68(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 69
04f74579 70=item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
ef54e1a4 71
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72(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
73after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 74
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75=item alpha->numify() is lossy
76
77(W numeric) An alpha version can not be numified without losing
78information.
79
6df41af2 80=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 81
75b44862 82(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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83keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
84one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
85subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 86
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87To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
88before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
89Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
90imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 91
6df41af2 92To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 93on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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94to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
95L<attributes>).
43192e07 96
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97=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
98
99(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
100all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
101first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
102C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
103
6df41af2 104=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 105
7c7af292 106(S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
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107you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
108a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 109
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110=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
111
112(S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
113string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
114the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
115write C<-foo()>.
116
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117=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
118
7c7af292 119(S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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120bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
121(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
122like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
123assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
124clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
125really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 126
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127=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
128
129(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
130asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
131named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 132the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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133function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
134and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
135
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136=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
137
138=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 139
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140(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
141the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
1422 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
143might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
144foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
145that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
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146
147In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
148to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
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149C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
150by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
151want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
152unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
153that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
154off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 155
6df41af2 156=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 157
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158(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
159redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
160redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 161
6df41af2 162=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 163
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164(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
165redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
166into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
167though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
168which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 169
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170 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
171 while (<STDIN>) {
172 print;
173 print OUT;
174 }
175 close OUT;
c9f97d15 176
6df41af2 177=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 178
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179(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
180transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 181one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 182a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
183hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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184you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
185alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 186
6df41af2 187=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 188
6df41af2 189(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 190
f86702cc 191=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 192
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193(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
194that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
195will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 196
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197Note that for the C<Inf> and C<NaN> (infinity and not-a-number) the
198definition of "numeric" is somewhat unusual: the strings themselves
199(like "Inf") are considered numeric, and anything following them is
200considered non-numeric.
201
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202=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
203
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204(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
205system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
206take care of transforming data between external and internal
207representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
208point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
209didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
210result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 211
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212=item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
213
214(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
215operator which expects either a number or a string matching
216C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
217Auto-decrement> for details.
218
637494ac 219=item Array passed to stat will be coerced to a scalar%s
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220
221(W syntax) You called stat() on an array, but the array will be
222coerced to a scalar - the number of elements in the array.
223
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224=item A signature parameter must start with '$', '@' or '%'
225
226(F) Each subroutine signature parameter declaration must start with a valid
227sigil; for example:
228
229 sub foo ($a, $, $b = 1, @c) {}
230
231=item A slurpy parameter may not have a default value
232
233(F) Only scalar subroutine signature parameters may have a default value;
234for example:
235
236 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
237 sub foo (@a = (1)) {} # invalid
238 sub foo (%a = (a => b)) {} # invalid
239
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240=item assertion botched: %s
241
21b5e840 242(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
a0d0e21e 243
0eacef8e 244=item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
a0d0e21e 245
21b5e840 246(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 247
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248=item Assigned value is not a reference
249
250(F) You tried to assign something that was not a reference to an lvalue
251reference (e.g., C<\$x = $y>). If you meant to make $x an alias to $y, use
252C<\$x = \$y>.
253
254=item Assigned value is not %s reference
255
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256(F) You tried to assign a reference to a reference constructor, but the
257two references were not of the same type. You cannot alias a scalar to
258an array, or an array to a hash; the two types must match.
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259
260 \$x = \@y; # error
261 \@x = \%y; # error
262 $y = [];
263 \$x = $y; # error; did you mean \$y?
264
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265=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
266
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267(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled
268(e.g., and under C<use v5.16;>, and as of Perl 5.30)
7d345e3d 269the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 270
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271=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
272
273(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
274must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
275know which context to supply to the right side.
276
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277=item Assuming NOT a POSIX class since %s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
278
279(W regexp) You had something like these:
280
281 [[:alnum]]
282 [[:digit:xyz]
283
284They look like they might have been meant to be the POSIX classes
285C<[:alnum:]> or C<[:digit:]>. If so, they should be written:
286
287 [[:alnum:]]
288 [[:digit:]xyz]
289
290Since these aren't legal POSIX class specifications, but are legal
291bracketed character classes, Perl treats them as the latter. In the
292first example, it matches the characters C<":">, C<"[">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
293C<"m">, C<"n">, and C<"u">.
294
295If these weren't meant to be POSIX classes, this warning message is
296spurious, and can be suppressed by reordering things, such as
297
298 [[al:num]]
299
300or
301
302 [[:munla]]
303
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304=item <> at require-statement should be quotes
305
306(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
307C<require 'file'>.
308
2393f1b9 309=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 310
49293501 311(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 312the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 313
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314=item Attempt to bless into a freed package
315
316(F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
317the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
0c5a5b27 318do, so it throws up its hands in despair.
dcdfe746 319
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320=item Attempt to bless into a reference
321
322(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 323the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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324supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
325
326 bless $self, $proto;
327
328when you intended
329
330 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
331
332If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
333of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
334example by:
335
336 bless $self, "$proto";
337
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338=item Attempt to clear deleted array
339
340(S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
341Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
342can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
343callback on the array.
344
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345=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
346
347(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
348which is not in its key set.
349
350=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
351
352(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
353declared readonly from a restricted hash.
354
de42a5a9 355=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 356
f84fe999 357(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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358that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
359outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 360
12578ffb 361=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 362
f84fe999 363(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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364strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
365strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
366of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 367
7d5b40b4 368=item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 369
f84fe999 370(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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371free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
372SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
373free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
374try to free it.
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375
376=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
377
f84fe999 378(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e 379
7d5b40b4 380=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 381
8f7e4d2c 382(S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
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383see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
384earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
385This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
386that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
387mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
388corrupted.
a0d0e21e 389
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390=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
391
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392(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
393function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
394means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
395invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
396literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
397avoid this warning.
84902520 398
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399=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
400
401(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
402compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
403unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
404L<perlvar/%INC>.
405
1b20cd17
NC
406=item Attempt to set length of freed array
407
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FC
408(W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
409been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
410scalar representing the last index of an array and later
411assigning through that reference. For example
1b20cd17
NC
412
413 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
414 $$r = 503
415
b7a902f4 416=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
417
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418(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
419used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
420dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 421
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422=item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
423
424(W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
425example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
426declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
427
ccce04a4
FC
428=item av_reify called on tied array
429
430(S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
431confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
432
de42a5a9 433=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 434
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435(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
436or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 437S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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438S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
439
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440=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
441
496a33f5 442(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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443substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
444most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
445
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446=item Bad filehandle: %s
447
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448(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
449symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
450open(), or did it in another package.
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451
452=item Bad free() ignored
453
be771a83 454(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
fa816bf3 455been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 456setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 457
9ea8bc6d 458This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 459dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 460which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 461
aa689395 462=item Bad hash
463
464(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
465
6df41af2
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466=item Badly placed ()'s
467
468(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
469of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
470Perl yourself.
471
a7cb8dae 472=item Bad name after %s
a0d0e21e 473
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474(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
475didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
476of quotes, so
a0d0e21e
LW
477
478 $var = 'myvar';
479 $sym = mypack::$var;
480
481is not the same as
482
483 $var = 'myvar';
484 $sym = "mypack::$var";
485
88e1f1a2
JV
486=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
487
488(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
489plugin API.
490
4ad56ec9
IZ
491=item Bad realloc() ignored
492
6903afa2
FC
493(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
494had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
495be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 496
a0d0e21e
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497=item Bad symbol for array
498
499(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
500wasn't a symbol table entry.
501
4df3f177
SP
502=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
503
504(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
505that wasn't a symbol table entry.
506
a0d0e21e
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507=item Bad symbol for filehandle
508
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509(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
510that wasn't a symbol table entry.
a0d0e21e
LW
511
512=item Bad symbol for hash
513
514(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
515wasn't a symbol table entry.
516
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FC
517=item Bad symbol for scalar
518
519(P) An internal request asked to add a scalar entry to something that
520wasn't a symbol table entry.
521
34d09196
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522=item Bareword found in conditional
523
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524(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
525conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
526of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
527
528 open FOO || die;
529
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530It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
531a bareword:
34d09196
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532
533 use constant TYPO => 1;
534 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
535
536The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
537
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NC
538=item Bareword in require contains "%s"
539
a52f2cce
NC
540=item Bareword in require maps to disallowed filename "%s"
541
09eb1f39 542=item Bareword in require maps to empty filename
5bad2b39 543
a52f2cce 544(F) The bareword form of require has been invoked with a filename which could
d4e5761f 545not have been generated by a valid bareword permitted by the parser. You
a52f2cce
NC
546shouldn't be able to get this error from Perl code, but XS code may throw it
547if it passes an invalid module name to C<Perl_load_module>.
548
5bad2b39
DM
549=item Bareword in require must not start with a double-colon: "%s"
550
551(F) In C<require Bare::Word>, the bareword is not allowed to start with a
d4e5761f 552double-colon. Write C<require ::Foo::Bar> as C<require Foo::Bar> instead.
5bad2b39 553
6df41af2
GS
554=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
555
556(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
be771a83
GS
557subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
558symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
559
560=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
561
be771a83
GS
562(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
563compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
564you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 565
a0d0e21e
LW
566=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
567
be771a83
GS
568(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
569subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
570exited.
a0d0e21e 571
68dc0745 572=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
573
574(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
be771a83
GS
575implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
576occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
577be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
578depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 579
c782d7ee 580=item \%d better written as $%d
6df41af2 581
be771a83
GS
582(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
583The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
584substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
585because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
586there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 587
252aa082
JH
588=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
589
e476b1b5 590(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
591(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
592L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 593
69282e91 594=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 595
be771a83
GS
596(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
597check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 598
c289d2f7
JH
599=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
600
601(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 602Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 603
c5a0f51a
JH
604=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
605
e476b1b5 606(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 607
043c750c 608=item Bizarre copy of %s
4633a7c4 609
be771a83 610(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
ab830aa0 611copiable.
4633a7c4 612
5a25739d
FC
613=item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
614
434f489b 615(P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
5a25739d
FC
616encountered an invalid data type.
617
b927b7e9 618=item Both or neither range ends should be Unicode in regex; marked by
6e8a73f2 619S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b927b7e9
KW
620
621(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
622
623In a bracketed character class in a regular expression pattern, you
624had a range which has exactly one end of it specified using C<\N{}>, and
625the other end is specified using a non-portable mechanism. Perl treats
626the range as a Unicode range, that is, all the characters in it are
627considered to be the Unicode characters, and which may be different code
628points on some platforms Perl runs on. For example, C<[\N{U+06}-\x08]>
629is treated as if you had instead said C<[\N{U+06}-\N{U+08}]>, that is it
630matches the characters whose code points in Unicode are 6, 7, and 8.
631But that C<\x08> might indicate that you meant something different, so
632the warning gets raised.
633
f675dbe5
CB
634=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
635
be771a83
GS
636(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
637iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
638which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 639
a0d0e21e
LW
640=item Callback called exit
641
4929bf7b 642(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
643exited by calling exit.
644
6df41af2 645=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 646
be771a83
GS
647(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
648parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
649that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
650early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
651subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
652checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
653function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
654the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 655
0c7df902
JH
656=item Cannot chr %f
657
658(F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
659
1b4d0d79
TC
660=item Cannot complete in-place edit of %s: %s
661
662(F) Your perl script appears to have changed directory while
663performing an in-place edit of a file specified by a relative path,
664and your system doesn't include the directory relative POSIX functions
665needed to handle that.
666
5dee29d4 667=item Cannot compress %f in pack
0c7df902 668
5dee29d4
JH
669(F) You tried compressing an infinity or not-a-number as an unsigned
670integer with BER, which makes no sense.
0c7df902 671
49704364 672=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b 673
717feafc
JH
674(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress.
675The BER compressed integer format can only be used with positive
676integers, and you attempted to compress a very large number (> 1e308).
677See L<perlfunc/pack>.
0258719b 678
49704364 679=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
680
681(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
682format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
683
5c1f4d79
NC
684=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
685
6903afa2
FC
686(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
687in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
688The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
689no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 690
4040665a 691=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
692
693(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 694be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 695
b5d97229
RGS
696=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
697
698(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
699either with open() or binmode().
700
714f94d1
FC
701=item Cannot open %s as a dirhandle: it is already open as a filehandle
702
703(F) You tried to use opendir() to associate a dirhandle to a symbol (glob
704or scalar) that already holds a filehandle. Since this idiom might render
705your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
706is a fatal error.
707
708=item Cannot open %s as a filehandle: it is already open as a dirhandle
709
710(F) You tried to use open() to associate a filehandle to a symbol (glob
711or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle. Since this idiom might render
712your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
713is a fatal error.
714
0c7df902
JH
715=item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
716
5dee29d4 717(F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an integer,
0c7df902
JH
718which makes no sense.
719
720=item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
721
722(F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
723which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
724
7355df7e
FC
725=item Cannot set tied @DB::args
726
727(F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
728is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
729
ce65bc73
FC
730=item Cannot tie unreifiable array
731
732(P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
733keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
734do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
735Perl code, but are only used internally.
736
26b0dc0c 737=item Cannot yet reorder sv_vcatpvfn() arguments from va_list
46e58bd2 738
26b0dc0c 739(F) Some XS code tried to use C<sv_vcatpvfn()> or a related function with a
46e58bd2 740format string that specifies explicit indexes for some of the elements, and
d4e5761f
FC
741using a C-style variable-argument list (a C<va_list>). This is not currently
742supported. XS authors wanting to do this must instead construct a C array
743of C<SV*> scalars containing the arguments.
46e58bd2 744
96ebfdd7
RK
745=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
746
747(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
748integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
749to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
750
a0d0e21e
LW
751=item Can't bless non-reference value
752
753(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
754encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
755
7896dde7
Z
756=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
757
758(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
759a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
760
761=item Can't "break" outside a given block
762
763(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
764
6df41af2
GS
765=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
766
767(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
768object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
769like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
770
771 $BADREF = undef;
772 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
773 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
774
a0d0e21e
LW
775=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
776
54310121 777(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
778ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
779didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
780object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
781
782=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
783
784(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
785object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
786defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
787Something like this will reproduce the error:
788
789 $BADREF = 42;
790 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
791 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
792
dfe378f1
FC
793=item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
794
795(P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
796symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
797
2bf7e7b2
FC
798=item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
799
800(F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
801not attached to the symbol table.
802
a0d0e21e
LW
803=item Can't chdir to %s
804
f703fc96 805(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
a0d0e21e
LW
806that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
807
0545a864 808=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 809
be771a83
GS
810(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
811nosuid.
104d25b7 812
22e74366 813=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
814
815(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 816(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
817say things like:
818
819 *foo += 1;
820
821You CAN say
822
823 $foo = *foo;
824 $foo += 1;
825
826but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
827
7896dde7 828=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 829
7896dde7
Z
830(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
831or C<default> block.
0d863452 832
a0d0e21e
LW
833=item Can't create pipe mailbox
834
be771a83
GS
835(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
836quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 837
eb64745e
GS
838=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
839
30c282f6
NC
840(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
841"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 842
7896dde7
Z
843=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
844
845(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
846C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
847issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
848error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
849
1e85b658
DM
850=item Can't determine class of operator %s, assuming BASEOP
851
852(S) This warning indicates something wrong in the internals of perl.
853Perl was trying to find the class (e.g. LISTOP) of a particular OP,
854and was unable to do so. This is likely to be due to a bug in the perl
855internals, or due to a bug in XS code which manipulates perl optrees.
856
a2162cd9
FC
857=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
858
859(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
860a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
861
862=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
863
864(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
865reason.
866
a2162cd9
FC
867=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
868
869(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
870characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
871inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
872
ab0b796c
KW
873=item Can't do %s("%s") on non-UTF-8 locale; resolved to "%s".
874
875(W locale) You are 1) running under "C<use locale>"; 2) the current
876locale is not a UTF-8 one; 3) you tried to do the designated case-change
877operation on the specified Unicode character; and 4) the result of this
878operation would mix Unicode and locale rules, which likely conflict.
879Mixing of different rule types is forbidden, so the operation was not
880done; instead the result is the indicated value, which is the best
881available that uses entirely Unicode rules. That turns out to almost
882always be the original character, unchanged.
883
884It is generally a bad idea to mix non-UTF-8 locales and Unicode, and
885this issue is one of the reasons why. This warning is raised when
886Unicode rules would normally cause the result of this operation to
887contain a character that is in the range specified by the locale,
8880..255, and hence is subject to the locale's rules, not Unicode's.
889
890If you are using locale purely for its characteristics related to things
891like its numeric and time formatting (and not C<LC_CTYPE>), consider
892using a restricted form of the locale pragma (see L<perllocale/The "use
893locale" pragma>) like "S<C<use locale ':not_characters'>>".
894
895Note that failed case-changing operations done as a result of
896case-insensitive C</i> regular expression matching will show up in this
897warning as having the C<fc> operation (as that is what the regular
898expression engine calls behind the scenes.)
899
a0d0e21e
LW
900=item Can't do waitpid with flags
901
be771a83
GS
902(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
903waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 904
a0d0e21e
LW
905=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
906
be771a83
GS
907(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
908point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
909line.
a0d0e21e 910
1109a392
MHM
911=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
912
913(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
914or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
915little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
916See L<perlfunc/pack>.
917
a0d0e21e
LW
918=item Can't exec "%s": %s
919
d1be9408 920(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
921named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
922permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
923C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
924architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
925can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
926#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
927
928=item Can't exec %s
929
be771a83
GS
930(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
931that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
932need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
933
934=item Can't execute %s
935
be771a83
GS
936(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
937found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 938
6df41af2 939=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 940
be771a83
GS
941(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
942is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2
GS
943
944=item Can't find label %s
945
be771a83
GS
946(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
947possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
948
949=item Can't find %s on PATH
950
be771a83
GS
951(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
952found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 953
6df41af2 954=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 955
be771a83
GS
956(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
957found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
958script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
959
960=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
961
be771a83
GS
962(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
963that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
964nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 965
fb73857a 966 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
967
97b3d10f 968If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
969included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
970may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
971a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
972L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 973
660a4616
TS
974=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
975
29f52644
KW
976=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
977
978(F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
979known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
e1b711da 980L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
29f52644
KW
981for a complete list of available official
982properties. If it is a
983L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
984it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
985matched.
986
987If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
988by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
5f8ad6b6 989until C<\E>).
660a4616 990
b3647a36 991=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 992
be771a83
GS
993(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
994pipeline.
a0d0e21e 995
b3647a36
SR
996=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
997
c973c02e 998(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
999after five seconds.
1000
748a9306
LW
1001=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
1002
be771a83
GS
1003(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
1004between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
1005Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
1006the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
1007account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
1008the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 1009the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
1010the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
1011if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
1012because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
1013appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
1014and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
1015routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
1016shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
1017only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 1018
a0d0e21e
LW
1019=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
1020
be771a83
GS
1021(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
1022pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
1023
1024=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
1025
748a9306
LW
1026(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
1027mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 1028
6d90e983
FC
1029=item Can't "goto" into a binary or list expression
1030
1031(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a binary
1032or list expression. You can't get there from here. The reason for this
1033restriction is that the interpreter would get confused as to how many
1034arguments there are, resulting in stack corruption or crashes. This
1035error occurs in cases such as these:
1036
1037 goto F;
1038 print do { F: }; # Can't jump into the arguments to print
1039
1040 goto G;
1041 $x + do { G: $y }; # How is + supposed to get its first operand?
1042
a01f4640
FC
1043=item Can't "goto" into a "given" block
1044
1045(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a C<given>
1046block. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1047
6df41af2 1048=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 1049
be771a83
GS
1050(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
1051loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
1052
1053=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
1054
be771a83
GS
1055(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
1056a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
1057you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
1058See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 1059
5a25739d
FC
1060=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
1061
1062(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
1063"string" or block.
1064
9850bf21 1065=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 1066
9850bf21
RH
1067(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
1068comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
1069as the reduce() function in List::Util).
1070
6df41af2
GS
1071=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
1072
be771a83
GS
1073(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
1074subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
1075cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
1076routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 1077
0b5b802d
GS
1078=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
1079
be771a83
GS
1080(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
1081signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
1082signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
1083processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
1084situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
1085may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 1086
e2c0f81f
DG
1087=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
1088
1089(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
1090attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
1091process identifier.
1092
6df41af2 1093=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 1094
6df41af2 1095(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
1096except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
1097block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
1098block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
1099usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
1100inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
1101L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 1102
2c7d6b9c
RGS
1103=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
1104
1105(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
1106package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
1107
b8170e59
JB
1108=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
1109
6903afa2
FC
1110(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
1111This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
1112that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
1113to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
1114dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
1115that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
1116dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 1117
748a9306
LW
1118=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
1119
2ba9eb46 1120(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
1121lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
1122want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
1123the package name.
748a9306 1124
6df41af2 1125=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 1126
6df41af2
GS
1127(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
1128handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 1129pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 1130that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 1131
ea071790 1132=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a 1133
fa816bf3
FC
1134(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
1135Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
1136the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
1137to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
1138extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
be771a83
GS
1139to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
1140L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 1141
6df41af2
GS
1142=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
1143
be771a83
GS
1144(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
1145autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
1146are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
1147the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 1148
b8170e59
JB
1149=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
1150
1151(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 1152for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
1153unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
1154
a0d0e21e
LW
1155=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
1156
1157(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
1158functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 1159method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 1160
8af56b9d
FC
1161=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
1162to load "%s"?)
1163
1164(F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
1165could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
1166requires a package that has not been loaded.
1167
a0d0e21e
LW
1168=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
1169
be771a83
GS
1170(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
1171doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 1172
2f7da168
RK
1173=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1174
1175(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1176e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1177
f4ad53f4 1178=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 1179
be771a83
GS
1180(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1181VMS.
3e3baf6d 1182
cd40cd58
NC
1183=item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1184
ff9c1ae8 1185(S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
cd40cd58
NC
1186that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1187process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1188the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1189from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1190functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1191
a0d0e21e
LW
1192=item Can't modify %s in %s
1193
be771a83
GS
1194(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1195to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 1196
54310121 1197=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
1198
1199(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1200a NULL.
1201
0f948285 1202=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s
6df41af2 1203
8d9d0498
FC
1204=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s in %s
1205
6df41af2 1206(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 1207such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 1208
cf6e1fa1
FC
1209=item Can't modify reference to %s in %s assignment
1210
1211(F) Only a limited number of constructs can be used as the argument to a
1212reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment, and what
1213you used was not one of them. See L<perlref/Assigning to References>.
1214
1215=item Can't modify reference to localized parenthesized array in list
1216assignment
1217
1218(F) Assigning to C<\local(@array)> or C<\(local @array)> is not supported, as
1219it is not clear exactly what it should do. If you meant to make @array
1220refer to some other array, use C<\@array = \@other_array>. If you want to
1221make the elements of @array aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1222right-hand side, use C<\(@array) = @scalar_refs>.
1223
1224=item Can't modify reference to parenthesized hash in list assignment
1225
1226(F) Assigning to C<\(%hash)> is not supported. If you meant to make %hash
1227refer to some other hash, use C<\%hash = \%other_hash>. If you want to
1228make the elements of %hash into aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1229right-hand side, use a hash slice: C<\@hash{@keys} = @those_scalar_refs>.
1230
5f05dabc 1231=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 1232
5f05dabc 1233(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1234buffer.
1235
6df41af2
GS
1236=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1237
1238(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1239there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1240count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1241grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1242though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1243once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1244
a0d0e21e
LW
1245=item Can't open %s: %s
1246
c47ff5f1 1247(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e 1248filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
46fa9b26
FC
1249switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1250this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1251you named on the command line.
1252
1253(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1254your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
a0d0e21e 1255
9a869a14
RGS
1256=item Can't open a reference
1257
1258(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1259using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1260
1261 open FH, '>', $ref;
1262
1263but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1264open is not supported.
1265
a0d0e21e
LW
1266=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1267
be771a83
GS
1268(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1269You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1270as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1271">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1272
748a9306
LW
1273=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1274
be771a83
GS
1275(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1276redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1277the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1278
1279=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1280
be771a83
GS
1281(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1282redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1283command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1284
1285=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1286
be771a83
GS
1287(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1288redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1289the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1290
1291=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1292
be771a83
GS
1293(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1294redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1295for stdout.
748a9306 1296
3b1cf97d 1297=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1298
1299(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1300
fa3aa65a
JC
1301If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1302shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1303you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1304
6df41af2
GS
1305=item Can't read CRTL environ
1306
1307(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1308from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1309missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1310or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1311searched.
6df41af2 1312
f3106bc8
LM
1313=item Can't redeclare "%s" in "%s"
1314
1315(F) A "my", "our" or "state" declaration was found within another declaration,
1316such as C<my ($x, my($y), $z)> or C<our (my $x)>.
1317
6df41af2
GS
1318=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1319
1320(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1321there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1322count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1323or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1324though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1325loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1326
64977eb6 1327=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1328
be771a83
GS
1329(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1330file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1331the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1332
e0d4aead
TC
1333=item Can't rename in-place work file '%s' to '%s': %s
1334
1335(F) When closed implicitly, the temporary file for in-place editing
1336couldn't be renamed to the original filename.
1337
ecc6274e
FC
1338=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1339
1340(F) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1341probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1342
748a9306
LW
1343=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1344
be771a83
GS
1345(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1346to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1347
9415f659
KW
1348=item Can't represent character for Ox%X on this platform
1349
1350(F) There is a hard limit to how big a character code point can be due
1351to the fundamental properties of UTF-8, especially on EBCDIC
1352platforms. The given code point exceeds that. The only work-around is
1353to not use such a large code point.
1354
4f12ec0e
FC
1355=item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1356
1357(F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1358all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1359the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1360supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1361
fe13d51d 1362=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1363
1fa582fa
FC
1364(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1365opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1366package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1367
cd06dffe
GS
1368=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1369
be771a83
GS
1370(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1371temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1372is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1373
96ebfdd7
RK
1374=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1375
1376(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1377there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1378
78f9721b
SM
1379=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1380
6903afa2
FC
1381(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1382subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1383think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1384write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1385Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1386
a0d0e21e
LW
1387=item Can't stat script "%s"
1388
be771a83
GS
1389(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1390open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1391
a0d0e21e
LW
1392=item Can't take log of %g
1393
fb73857a 1394(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1395negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1396standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1397negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1398
1399=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1400
1401(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1402negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1403with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1404
1405=item Can't undef active subroutine
1406
1407(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1408however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1409redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1410
ecc6274e
FC
1411=item Can't unweaken a nonreference
1412
1413(F) You attempted to unweaken something that was not a reference. Only
1414references can be unweakened.
1415
c81225bc 1416=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1417
be771a83
GS
1418(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1419into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1420specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1421indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1422
6651ba0b
FC
1423=item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1424
1425(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1426other than "=" after the module name.
1427
1f1ec7b5
KW
1428=item Can't use a hash as a reference
1429
1430(F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1431C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1432<= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1433have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5
KW
1434
1435=item Can't use an array as a reference
1436
1437(F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1438C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1439used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1440was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5 1441
1db89ea5
BS
1442=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1443
e27ad1f2 1444(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1445table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1446for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1447
96ebfdd7
RK
1448=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1449
1450(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1451be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1452
6df41af2
GS
1453=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1454
be771a83
GS
1455(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1456references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1457
90b75b61 1458=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1459
20561843 1460(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1461Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1462provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1463
1109a392
MHM
1464=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1465
1466(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1467byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1468allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1469
e35475de
KW
1470=item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1471
1472(F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1473checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1474array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1475
1476=item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1477
1478(F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1479
1480Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1481becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1482weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1483These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1484generates a fatal error.
1485
1486If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1487context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1488
1489 if (%hash) {
1490 # not empty
1491 }
1492
1493If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1494variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1495a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1496it's loaded, etc.
1497
6df41af2
GS
1498=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1499
c1f06047 1500(P) The parser got confused when trying to parse a C<foreach> loop.
6df41af2 1501
aab6a793 1502=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1503
be771a83
GS
1504(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1505is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1506(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1507have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1508weren't.
1509
6d3b25aa
RGS
1510=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1511
1512(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1513that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1514For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1515is inside a big-endian group.
1516
c07a80fd 1517=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1518
1519(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1520You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1521and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1522Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1523lexical variable.
1524
a0d0e21e
LW
1525=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1526
1527(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1528reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1529test the type of the reference, if need be.
1530
748a9306 1531=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1532
5e634d20
FC
1533=item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1534
b41bf23f
FC
1535(F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1536C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1537L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1538in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1539for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1540of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1541symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
a0d0e21e 1542
748a9306
LW
1543=item Can't use subscript on %s
1544
1545(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1546subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1547didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1548
6df41af2
GS
1549=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1550
75b44862
GS
1551(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1552creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1553backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1554expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1555value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1556instead.
6df41af2 1557
810b8aa5
GS
1558=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1559
1560(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1561references can be weakened.
1562
7896dde7
Z
1563=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1564
1565(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1566loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1567from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1568or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1569
5f05dabc 1570=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1571
be771a83
GS
1572(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1573with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1574Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1575
a04e6aad 1576=item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
f9d13529 1577
7357bd17 1578(F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
17a3df4c 1579
727b6379 1580Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
7357bd17 1581discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
d4360efa 1582L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
f9d13529 1583
163a633c
KW
1584=item Character following \%c must be '{' or a single-character Unicode property name in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1585
1586(F) (In the above the C<%c> is replaced by either C<p> or C<P>.) You
1587specified something that isn't a legal Unicode property name. Most
1588Unicode properties are specified by C<\p{...}>. But if the name is a
1589single character one, the braces may be omitted.
1590
f337b084 1591=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1592
1593(W pack) You said
1594
1595 pack("C", $x)
1596
1597where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1598only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1599and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1600
1601 pack("C", $x & 255)
1602
1603If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1604instead.
1605
f337b084 1606=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1607
1608(W pack) You said
1609
1610 pack("c", $x)
1611
1612where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1613is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1614and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1615
1616 pack("c", $x & 255);
1617
1618If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1619instead.
1620
f337b084
TH
1621=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1622
1623(W unpack) You tried something like
1624
1625 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1626
1a147d38 1627where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1628below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1629value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1630
1631 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1632
5a25739d
FC
1633=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1634
1635(W pack) You said
1636
1637 pack("U0W", $x)
1638
1639where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1640expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1641as if you meant:
1642
1643 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1644
f337b084
TH
1645=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1646
1647(W pack) You tried something like
1648
1649 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1650
1a147d38 1651where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1652value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1653uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1654
1655 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1656
1657=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1658
1659(W unpack) You tried something like
1660
1661 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1662
1a147d38 1663where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1664value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1665uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1666
1667 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1668
8d9d0498
FC
1669=item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple
1670spaces; marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
f51551f7
FC
1671
1672(F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1673in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1674defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1675could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1676L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1677
8d9d0498
FC
1678=item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space;
1679marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
f51551f7
FC
1680
1681(F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1682character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1683defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1684could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1685See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1686
60121127
TC
1687=item chdir() on unopened filehandle %s
1688
1689(W unopened) You tried chdir() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1690
d4360efa 1691=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
f866a7cd 1692
d4360efa
S
1693(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1694non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1695is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1696for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1697between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
f866a7cd 1698
6651ba0b
FC
1699=item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1700
1701(F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1702
abc7ecad
SP
1703=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1704
1705(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1706a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1707
5a25739d
FC
1708=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1709
1710(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1711
541ed3a9
FC
1712=item Closure prototype called
1713
1714(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1715handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1716This subroutine cannot be called.
1717
74d1b2e4
FC
1718=item \C no longer supported in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1719
1720(F) The \C character class used to allow a match of single byte
1721within a multi-byte utf-8 character, but was removed in v5.24 as
1722it broke encapsulation and its implementation was extremely buggy.
1723If you really need to process the individual bytes, you probably
1724want to convert your string to one where each underlying byte is
1725stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1726
49704364
WL
1727=item Code missing after '/'
1728
6903afa2
FC
1729(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1730another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1731
c0236afe
KW
1732=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, and not portable
1733
1734(S non_unicode) You had a code point that has never been in any
1735standard, so it is likely that languages other than Perl will NOT
1736understand it. At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code
1737points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher, and this code point is higher.
1738
1739Acceptance of these code points is a Perl extension, and you should
1740expect that nothing other than Perl can handle them; Perl itself on
1741EBCDIC platforms before v5.24 does not handle them.
1742
1743Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a 32 bit word.
1744
1745Perl also makes no guarantees that the representation of these code
1746points won't change at some point in the future, say when machines
1747become available that have larger than a 64-bit word. At that time,
1748files written by an older Perl would require conversion before being
1749readable by a newer Perl.
1750
5a25739d
FC
1751=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1752
2d88a86a 1753(S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1b64326b
FC
1754of U+10FFFF.
1755
c0236afe
KW
1756Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, but
1757these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. Further, even if
1758these languages/systems accept these large code points, they may have
1759chosen a different representation for them than the UTF-8-like one that
1760Perl has, which would mean files are not exchangeable between them and
1761Perl.
1762
1763On EBCDIC platforms, code points above 0x3FFF_FFFF have a different
1764representation in Perl v5.24 than before, so any file containing these
1765that was written before that version will require conversion before
1766being readable by a later Perl.
0876b9a0 1767
6df41af2
GS
1768=item %s: Command not found
1769
a892b81a 1770(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
66a1f5ec
FC
1771instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1772Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
8f721816 1773
3bcfc7b3
LM
1774 #!/usr/bin/perl
1775
1776=item %s: command not found
1777
1778(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<bash> or another shell
1779instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1780Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1781
1782 #!/usr/bin/perl
1783
1784=item %s: command not found: %s
1785
1786(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<zsh> or another shell
1787instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1788Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1789
1790 #!/usr/bin/perl
6df41af2 1791
7a2e2cd6 1792=item Compilation failed in require
1793
1794(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1795Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1796encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1797
c3464db5
DD
1798=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1799
be771a83
GS
1800(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1801situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1802to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1803arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1804recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1805under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1806in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1807that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1808on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1809
69282e91 1810=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1811
be771a83
GS
1812(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1813to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1814L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1815
e21e7c6a
FC
1816=item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1817
1818(F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1819(see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1820L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1821
1822=item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1823
1824(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1825overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
f738a371 1826L<overload> pragma?
e21e7c6a 1827
779c5bc9
GS
1828=item Constant is not %s reference
1829
1830(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1831is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1832The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1833usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1834See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1835
0ac016fc 1836=item Constants from lexical variables potentially modified elsewhere are
9840d1d6 1837deprecated. This will not be allowed in Perl 5.32
0ac016fc
FC
1838
1839(D deprecated) You wrote something like
1840
1841 my $var;
1842 $sub = sub () { $var };
1843
1844but $var is referenced elsewhere and could be modified after the C<sub>
1845expression is evaluated. Either it is explicitly modified elsewhere
1846(C<$var = 3>) or it is passed to a subroutine or to an operator like
1847C<printf> or C<map>, which may or may not modify the variable.
1848
1849Traditionally, Perl has captured the value of the variable at that
1850point and turned the subroutine into a constant eligible for inlining.
1851In those cases where the variable can be modified elsewhere, this
1852breaks the behavior of closures, in which the subroutine captures
1853the variable itself, rather than its value, so future changes to the
1854variable are reflected in the subroutine's return value.
1855
9840d1d6
A
1856This usage is deprecated, and will no longer be allowed in Perl 5.32,
1857making it possible to change the behavior in the future.
0ac016fc
FC
1858
1859If you intended for the subroutine to be eligible for inlining, then
1860make sure the variable is not referenced elsewhere, possibly by
1861copying it:
1862
1863 my $var2 = $var;
1864 $sub = sub () { $var2 };
1865
1866If you do want this subroutine to be a closure that reflects future
1867changes to the variable that it closes over, add an explicit C<return>:
1868
1869 my $var;
1870 $sub = sub () { return $var };
1871
4cee8e80
CS
1872=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1873
aeb94125
FC
1874(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1875been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1876for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1877
9607fc9c 1878=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1879
be771a83
GS
1880(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1881for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1882workarounds.
9607fc9c 1883
5a25739d
FC
1884=item Constant(%s) unknown
1885
1886(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1887to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1888character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
3ee1a09c 1889forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?
5a25739d 1890
4a873d7a
FC
1891=item :const is experimental
1892
1893(S experimental::const_attr) The "const" attribute is experimental.
1894If you want to use the feature, disable the warning with C<no warnings
1895'experimental::const_attr'>, but know that in doing so you are taking
1896the risk that your code may break in a future Perl version.
1897
b77472f9
FC
1898=item :const is not permitted on named subroutines
1899
1900(F) The "const" attribute causes an anonymous subroutine to be run and
465068b9 1901its value captured at the time that it is cloned. Named subroutines are
b77472f9
FC
1902not cloned like this, so the attribute does not make sense on them.
1903
e7ea3e70
IZ
1904=item Copy method did not return a reference
1905
6903afa2 1906(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1907L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1908
4aaa4757
FC
1909=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1910
1911(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1912with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1913in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1914called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1915
1916 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1917 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1918
6798c92b
GS
1919=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1920
1921(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1922
675fa9ff
FC
1923=item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1924
1925(P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1926one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1927latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1928
a0d0e21e
LW
1929=item corrupted regexp pointers
1930
1931(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1932expression compiler gave it.
1933
1934=item corrupted regexp program
1935
be771a83
GS
1936(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1937valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1938
de42a5a9 1939=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1940
1941(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1942
49704364
WL
1943=item Count after length/code in unpack
1944
1945(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1946you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1947L<perlfunc/pack>.
1948
3f645a4e
FC
1949=item Declaring references is experimental
1950
1951(S experimental::declared_refs) This warning is emitted if you use
1952a reference constructor on the right-hand side of C<my>, C<state>, C<our>, or
1953C<local>. Simply suppress the warning if you want to use the feature, but
1954know that in doing so you are taking the risk of using an experimental
1955feature which may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
1956
1957 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
1958 use feature "declared_refs";
1959 $fooref = my \$foo;
1960
f2cccb4c
KW
1961=for comment
1962The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1963share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1964
6651ba0b
FC
1965=item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1966
a0d0e21e
LW
1967=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1968
be771a83
GS
1969(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1970100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1971infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1972which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1973
aad1d01f
NC
1974This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1975setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1976
e0e4a6e3
FC
1977=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1978S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
bcb95744 1979
6903afa2 1980(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1981most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1982of the C<....> part.
1983
6e8a73f2 1984The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
bcb95744
FC
1985discovered.
1986
62658f4d
PM
1987=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1988
1989(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1990there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1991
0ffcbc25
FC
1992=item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1993
4a0af295 1994(F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
0ffcbc25
FC
1995such as:
1996
1997 $foo{$bar}
1998 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
1999
2000or a hash or array slice, such as:
2001
2002 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
2003 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2004
cc0776d6
DIM
2005or a hash key/value or array index/value slice, such as:
2006
2007 %foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
2008 %{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2009
fc36a67e 2010=item Delimiter for here document is too long
2011
be771a83
GS
2012(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
2013long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
2014that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 2015
c437f7ac 2016=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30
6d3b25aa 2017
fa816bf3
FC
2018(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
2019has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6d3b25aa 2020not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 2021conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
fa816bf3 2022static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 2023relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 2024declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 2025
6d3b25aa
RGS
2026 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
2027
2028becomes
2029
2030 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
2031
ea9d9ebc 2032Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
fa816bf3 2033lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
36fb85f3
RGS
2034
2035 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
2036
c437f7ac
A
2037This use of C<my()> in a false conditional has been deprecated since
2038Perl 5.10, and it will become a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
2039
500ab966
RGS
2040=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
2041
2042(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
2043just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
2044than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 2045
3cdd684c
TP
2046=item Did not produce a valid header
2047
3de20fbe 2048See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 2049
6df41af2
GS
2050=item %s did not return a true value
2051
2052(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
2053it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
2054traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
2055do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
2056
cc507455 2057=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 2058
413ff9f6
FC
2059(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
2060some such.
4633a7c4 2061
cc507455 2062=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 2063
52e3acf8 2064(W shadow) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
be771a83
GS
2065variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
2066seems superfluous.
33633739 2067
cc507455 2068=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 2069
be771a83
GS
2070(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
2071@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
2072carried away.
748a9306 2073
7e1af8bc 2074=item Died
5f05dabc 2075
2076(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 2077you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 2078
3cdd684c
TP
2079=item Document contains no data
2080
3de20fbe 2081See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 2082
62658f4d
PM
2083=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
2084
2085(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
943fc58e 2086define a C<$VERSION>.
62658f4d 2087
49704364
WL
2088=item '/' does not take a repeat count
2089
2090(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
2091See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2092
1c99110e 2093=item do "%s" failed, '.' is no longer in @INC; did you mean do "./%s"?
2a0461a3 2094
b28683c9 2095(D deprecated) Previously C< do "somefile"; > would search the current
1c99110e
DM
2096directory for the specified file. Since perl v5.26.0, F<.> has been
2097removed from C<@INC> by default, so this is no longer true. To search the
2098current directory (and only the current directory) you can write
2099C< do "./somefile"; >.
2a0461a3 2100
95cb0d72
FC
2101=item Don't know how to get file name
2102
2103(P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
2104somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
2105
4021c788 2106=item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
a0d0e21e
LW
2107
2108(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
2109
2110=item do_study: out of memory
2111
2112(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
2113
6df41af2
GS
2114=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
2115
56da5a46
RGS
2116(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2117"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
2118name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
2119because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
2120"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
2121something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
2122subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
2123"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 2124
d8ff3e95 2125=item dump() must be written as CORE::dump() as of Perl 5.30
ac206dc8 2126
d8ff3e95
JK
2127(F) You used the obsolete C<dump()> built-in function. That was deprecated in
2128Perl 5.8.0. As of Perl 5.30 it must be written in fully qualified format:
2129C<CORE::dump()>.
30b17cc1
A
2130
2131See L<perlfunc/dump>.
ac206dc8 2132
84d78eb7
YO
2133=item dump is not supported
2134
2135(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
2136
a0d0e21e
LW
2137=item Duplicate free() ignored
2138
be771a83
GS
2139(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
2140already been freed.
a0d0e21e 2141
1109a392
MHM
2142=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
2143
35f0cd76
FC
2144(W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
2145type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1109a392 2146
4633a7c4
LW
2147=item elseif should be elsif
2148
fa816bf3
FC
2149(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
2150it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
2151named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
2152unlikely to be what you want.
2153
c30c479a
KW
2154=item Empty \%c in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2155
ccad8842
KW
2156=item Empty \%c{}
2157
e0e4a6e3 2158=item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 2159
e750debb
KW
2160(F) You used something like C<\b{}>, C<\B{}>, C<\o{}>, C<\p>, C<\P>, or
2161C<\x> without specifying anything for it to operate on.
2162
2163Unfortunately, for backwards compatibility reasons, an empty C<\x> is
2164legal outside S<C<use re 'strict'>> and expands to a NUL character.
ab13f0c7 2165
d9a91485
KW
2166=item Empty (?) without any modifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2167
2168(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>>)
2169C<(?)> does nothing, so perhaps this is a typo.
2170
fd503f5c 2171=item ${^ENCODING} is no longer supported
a15a3d9b 2172
fd503f5c 2173(F) The special variable C<${^ENCODING}>, formerly used to implement
a15a3d9b
FC
2174the C<encoding> pragma, is no longer supported as of Perl 5.26.0.
2175
fd503f5c
DIM
2176Setting it to anything other than C<undef> is a fatal error as of Perl
21775.28.
ac641426 2178
85ab1d1d 2179=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2180
85ab1d1d 2181(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2182effective uids or gids failed.
2183
c038024b
RGS
2184=item %ENV is aliased to %s
2185
2186(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
2187aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 2188program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 2189
748a9306
LW
2190=item Error converting file specification %s
2191
5f05dabc 2192(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 2193specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
2194single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
2195an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
2196conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 2197
ad19ef22 2198=item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
e4d48cc9 2199
be771a83
GS
2200(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2201expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
2202is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 2203
ad19ef22 2204=item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
e4d48cc9 2205
be771a83
GS
2206(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
2207C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
2208pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
2209it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
2210C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
2211interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
2212L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 2213
ad19ef22 2214=item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 2215
be771a83
GS
2216(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
2217assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
2218pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 2219
e0e4a6e3
FC
2220=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
2221S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
2222
2223(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 2224any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38 2225
6e8a73f2 2226The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
2227discovered.
2228
fc36a67e 2229=item Excessively long <> operator
2230
2231(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
2232Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
2233filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
2234variable and glob that.
2235
ed9aa3b7
SG
2236=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
2237
af8bb25a 2238(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 2239OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 2240
c77da5ff 2241=item %sExecution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
2242
2243(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
2244
0ffcbc25
FC
2245=item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
2246
4a0af295 2247(F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
0ffcbc25
FC
2248subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
2249
2250 $foo{$bar}
2251 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
2252 &do_something
2253
2254=item exists argument is not a subroutine name
2255
ccfc2567
FC
2256(F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
2257and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
0ffcbc25 2258
a0d0e21e
LW
2259=item Exiting eval via %s
2260
be771a83
GS
2261(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
2262goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
2263
2264=item Exiting format via %s
2265
9a2ff54b 2266(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 2267goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 2268
0a753a76 2269=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
2270
be771a83
GS
2271(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
2272sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
2273loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 2274
a0d0e21e
LW
2275=item Exiting subroutine via %s
2276
be771a83
GS
2277(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
2278as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2279
2280=item Exiting substitution via %s
2281
be771a83
GS
2282(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
2283as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 2284
e0e4a6e3 2285=item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2286
675fa9ff 2287(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2288
2289 (?13
2290
2291to denote a capturing group of the form
2292L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
2293but omitted the C<")">.
2294
c9ffefcc
FC
2295=item Expecting close paren for nested extended charclass in regex; marked
2296by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2297
2298(F) While parsing a nested extended character class like:
2299
2300 (?[ ... (?flags:(?[ ... ])) ... ])
2301 ^
2302
2303we expected to see a close paren ')' (marked by ^) but did not.
2304
2305=item Expecting close paren for wrapper for nested extended charclass in
2306regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2307
2308(F) While parsing a nested extended character class like:
2309
2310 (?[ ... (?flags:(?[ ... ])) ... ])
2311 ^
2312
2313we expected to see a close paren ')' (marked by ^) but did not.
2314
e0e4a6e3 2315=item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
27350048 2316
8b6fbf55
FC
2317(F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
2318only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
2319C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
2320containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
27350048
FC
2321This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
2322interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
2323have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
2324L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
2325
baabe3fb 2326=item Experimental aliasing via reference not enabled
1f8155a2 2327
baabe3fb 2328(F) To do aliasing via references, you must first enable the feature:
1f8155a2 2329
baabe3fb
FC
2330 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
2331 use feature "refaliasing";
1f8155a2
FC
2332 \$x = \$y;
2333
74d1b2e4
FC
2334=item Experimental %s on scalar is now forbidden
2335
2336(F) An experimental feature added in Perl 5.14 allowed C<each>, C<keys>,
2337C<push>, C<pop>, C<shift>, C<splice>, C<unshift>, and C<values> to be called with a
2338scalar argument. This experiment is considered unsuccessful, and
2339has been removed. The C<postderef> feature may meet your needs better.
2340
30d9c59b
Z
2341=item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
2342
2343(F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
2344
caa35032 2345 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
30d9c59b
Z
2346 use feature "signatures";
2347 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
2348
7b8d334a
GS
2349=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
2350
be771a83
GS
2351(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
2352the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
2353usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
2354e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 2355
6df41af2
GS
2356=item %s: Expression syntax
2357
be771a83
GS
2358(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
2359Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2360
2361=item %s failed--call queue aborted
2362
3c10abe3
AG
2363(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
2364CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
2365queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 2366
e0d4aead 2367=item Failed to close in-place work file %s: %s
502aca56
TC
2368
2369(F) Closing an output file from in-place editing, as with the C<-i>
2370command-line switch, failed.
2371
e0e4a6e3 2372=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
73b437c8 2373
98d31c73 2374(W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3 2375character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
3c6ca74a
FC
2376in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
2377construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
e0e4a6e3 2378the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
3c6ca74a 2379the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 2380
1b1ee2ef 2381=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 2382
be771a83
GS
2383(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
2384system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
2385details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
2386you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
2387
2388=item fcntl is not implemented
2389
2390(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2391PDP-11 or something?
2392
22846ab4
AB
2393=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2394
2395(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2396is not possible.
2397
f337b084
TH
2398=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2399
d8b5cc61 2400(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
2401which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2402a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 2403C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 2404
a0e213fc
A
2405=item File::Glob::glob() will disappear in perl 5.30. Use File::Glob::bsd_glob() instead.
2406
2407(D deprecated) C<< File::Glob >> has a function called C<< glob >>, which
2408just calls C<< bsd_glob >>. However, its prototype is different from the
2409prototype of C<< CORE::glob >>, and hence, C<< File::Glob::glob >> should
2410not be used.
2411
2412C<< File::Glob::glob() >> was deprecated in perl 5.8.0. A deprecation
2413message was issued from perl 5.26.0 onwards, and the function will
2414disappear in perl 5.30.0.
2415
2416Code using C<< File::Glob::glob() >> should call
2417C<< File::Glob::bsd_glob() >> instead.
2418
af8c498a 2419=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 2420
6c8d78fb
HS
2421(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2422it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2423"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2424write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 2425
af8c498a 2426=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 2427
6c8d78fb
HS
2428(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2429you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
2430with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2431read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2432is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2433output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
2434
2435=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2436
2437(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 2438as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
2439previously.
2440
2441=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2442
2443(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
fa816bf3 2444as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
2445
2446=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2447
2448(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
2449a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2450happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2451name.
a0d0e21e 2452
56e90b21
GS
2453=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2454
be771a83 2455(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 2456some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
2457filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2458same name?
56e90b21 2459
6df41af2
GS
2460=item Format not terminated
2461
2462(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2463to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2464
a0d0e21e
LW
2465=item Format %s redefined
2466
e476b1b5 2467(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
2468
2469 {
271595cc 2470 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
2471 eval "format NAME =...";
2472 }
2473
a0d0e21e
LW
2474=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2475
e476b1b5 2476(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
2477
2478 if ($foo = 123)
2479
2480when you meant
2481
2482 if ($foo == 123)
2483
2484(or something like that).
2485
6df41af2
GS
2486=item %s found where operator expected
2487
56da5a46
RGS
2488(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2489If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
2490operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2491operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 2492
a0d0e21e
LW
2493=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2494
2495(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2496
2497=item gethostent not implemented
2498
2499(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2500because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2501on the Internet.
2502
69282e91 2503=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2504
be771a83
GS
2505(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2506socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 2507
748a9306
LW
2508=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2509
2510(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2511C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2512
6df41af2
GS
2513=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2514
be771a83
GS
2515(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2516forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2517L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2518
0f539b13
BF
2519=item given is experimental
2520
7896dde7
Z
2521(S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2522is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2523in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2524L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 2525
68567d27
FC
2526=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2527declare "my %s"?)
6df41af2 2528
a4edf47d 2529(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 2530that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
2531declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2532which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 2533
e476b1b5
GS
2534=item glob failed (%s)
2535
5ead438e 2536(S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
73c4e9dc
FC
2537for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2538pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 2539nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
2540resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2541is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2542in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2543if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2544all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 2545think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 2546C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 2547
a0d0e21e
LW
2548=item Glob not terminated
2549
2550(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
2551a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2552not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2553earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 2554
b35b96b6
JH
2555=item gmtime(%f) failed
2556
2557(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2558too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2559
bcd05b94 2560=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2561
e9200be3 2562(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2563it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2564date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2565not-a-number value).
2566
bcd05b94 2567=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2568
e9200be3 2569(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2570it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2571
6df41af2 2572=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2573
6df41af2
GS
2574(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2575version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2576
2577=item goto must have label
2578
2579(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2580unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2581
6651ba0b
FC
2582=item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2583
2584(F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2585the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2586has since been undefined.
2587
6fbc9859 2588=item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 2589S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1f4f6bf1
YO
2590
2591(F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
f26c79ba
FC
2592they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2593this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
1f4f6bf1 2594
5a25739d
FC
2595=item ()-group starts with a count
2596
2597(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2598something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2599
fe13d51d 2600=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2601
2602(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2603
a0d0e21e
LW
2604=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2605
be771a83
GS
2606(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2607to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2608created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e 2609
6df41af2
GS
2610=item %s has too many errors
2611
2612(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2613Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2614
61e61fbc
JH
2615=item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2616
d8f2b442 2617(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
61e61fbc
JH
2618than the floating point supports.
2619
2620=item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2621
d8f2b442 2622(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
b6d9b423
JH
2623than the floating point supports. With the IEEE 754 floating point,
2624this may also mean that the subnormals (formerly known as denormals)
2625are being used, which may or may not be an error.
61e61fbc 2626
5488d373 2627=item Hexadecimal float: internal error (%s)
cf4f6003
JH
2628
2629(F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2630
61e61fbc
JH
2631=item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2632
2633(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2634the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2635the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2636
40bca5ae
JH
2637=item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2638
2639(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2640digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2641long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2642(needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2643
2644=item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2645
2646(F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
d8f2b442 2647the internals of the long double format are unknown;
40bca5ae
JH
2648therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2649
252aa082
JH
2650=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2651
e476b1b5 2652(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2653(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2654L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2655
8903cb82 2656=item Identifier too long
2657
2658(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2659about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2660names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2661of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2662
e0e4a6e3
FC
2663=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2664S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
fc8cd66c 2665
f3ba6905 2666(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
0f44b2a5
FC
2667zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character
2668class its behavior is not well defined. Check that the correct
2669escape has been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
fc8cd66c 2670
283151b7 2671=item Illegal binary digit '%c'
f675dbe5 2672
6df41af2 2673(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2674
6df41af2 2675=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2676
be771a83
GS
2677(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2678binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2679offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2680
6597eb22
FC
2681=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2682
e4d150f1
FC
2683(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2684declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2685indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2686or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
6597eb22 2687
b913d0b8
FC
2688=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2689
2690(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as
2691it would any other whitespace, which means you should never see
2692this error when Perl was built using standard options. For some
2693reason, your version of Perl appears to have been built without
2694this support. Talk to your Perl administrator.
2695
bb6b75cd 2696=item Illegal character following sigil in a subroutine signature
d3d9da4a
DM
2697
2698(F) A parameter in a subroutine signature contained an unexpected character
d4e5761f
FC
2699following the C<$>, C<@> or C<%> sigil character. Normally the sigil
2700should be followed by the variable name or C<=> etc. Perhaps you are
d3d9da4a
DM
2701trying use a prototype while in the scope of C<use feature 'signatures'>?
2702For example:
2703
2704 sub foo ($$) {} # legal - a prototype
2705
2706 use feature 'signatures;
2707 sub foo ($$) {} # illegal - was expecting a signature
2708 sub foo ($a, $b)
2709 :prototype($$) {} # legal
2710
2711
d37a9538
ST
2712=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2713
197afce1 2714(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2715Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
30d9c59b
Z
2716Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2717that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2718instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
d37a9538 2719
904d85c5
RGS
2720=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2721
2722(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2723you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2724
8e742a20
MHM
2725=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2726
6903afa2 2727(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2728
a0d0e21e
LW
2729=item Illegal division by zero
2730
be771a83
GS
2731(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2732your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2733meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2734
6df41af2
GS
2735=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2736
be771a83
GS
2737(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2738A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2739number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2740
a0d0e21e
LW
2741=item Illegal modulus zero
2742
be771a83
GS
2743(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2744numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2745
6df41af2 2746=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2747
6df41af2
GS
2748(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2749two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4 2750
283151b7 2751=item Illegal octal digit '%c'
a0d0e21e 2752
d1be9408 2753(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2754
399388f4 2755=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2756
d1be9408 2757(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2758Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2759
ecc6274e
FC
2760=item Illegal operator following parameter in a subroutine signature
2761
2762(F) A parameter in a subroutine signature, was followed by something
2763other than C<=> introducing a default, C<,> or C<)>.
2764
2765 use feature 'signatures';
2766 sub foo ($=1) {} # legal
2767 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
2768 sub foo ($a += 1) {} # illegal
2769 sub foo ($a == 1) {} # illegal
2770
e0e4a6e3 2771=item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2772
675fa9ff 2773(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2774
2775 (?+foo)
2776
2777The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2778capturing group. See
2779L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2780
375ed12a
JH
2781=item Illegal suidscript
2782
2783(F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2784
fe13d51d 2785=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2786
6df41af2 2787(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2788following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2789
4003ea29
KW
2790=item Illegal user-defined property name
2791
2792(F) You specified a Unicode-like property name in a regular expression
2793pattern (using C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>) that Perl knows isn't an official
2794Unicode property, and was likely meant to be a user-defined property
2795name, but it can't be one of those, as they must begin with either C<In>
2796or C<Is>. Check the spelling. See also
2797L</Can't find Unicode property definition "%s">.
2798
6df41af2 2799=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2800
75b44862 2801(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2802internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2803delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2804
6df41af2 2805=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2806
be771a83
GS
2807(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2808name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2809didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2810ignored.
54310121 2811
6df41af2 2812=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2813
be771a83
GS
2814(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2815the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2816system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2817times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2818would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2819
be771a83
GS
2820Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2821also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2822
e0e4a6e3
FC
2823=item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2824in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 2825
675fa9ff 2826(F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
0d0b4b3b
KW
2827expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2828too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2829enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2830
6fbc9859
MH
2831=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2832parent '%s'
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2833
2834(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2835C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2836documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2837
cdd6375d
MH
2838=item Indentation on line %d of here-doc doesn't match delimiter
2839
2840(F) You have an indented here-document where one or more of its lines
2841have whitespace at the beginning that does not match the closing
2842delimiter.
2843
2844For example, line 2 below is wrong because it does not have at least
28452 spaces, but lines 1 and 3 are fine because they have at least 2:
2846
2847 if ($something) {
2848 print <<~EOF;
2849 Line 1
2850 Line 2 not
2851 Line 3
2852 EOF
2853 }
2854
2855Note that tabs and spaces are compared strictly, meaning 1 tab will
2856not match 8 spaces.
2857
6a2ed79a 2858=item Infinite recursion in regex
1a147d38
YO
2859
2860(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2861text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2862either consume text or fail.
2863
714f94d1
FC
2864=item Infinite recursion via empty pattern
2865
2866(F) You tried to use the empty pattern inside of a regex code block,
2867for instance C</(?{ s!!! })/>, which resulted in re-executing
2868the same pattern, which is an infinite loop which is broken by
2869throwing an exception.
2870
f99042c8 2871=item Initialization of state variables in list currently forbidden
6dbe9451 2872
f99042c8
Z
2873(F) C<state> only permits initializing a single variable, specified
2874without parentheses. So C<state $a = 42> and C<state @a = qw(a b c)> are
2875allowed, but not C<state ($a) = 42> or C<(state $a) = 42>. To initialize
2876more than one C<state> variable, initialize them one at a time.
6dbe9451 2877
2186f873
FC
2878=item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2879
2880(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2881(indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2882it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2883is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2884returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2885a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2886expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2887returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2888
2889=item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2890
2891(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2892(indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2893better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2894is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2895it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2896provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2897if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2898it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2899
a0d0e21e
LW
2900=item Insecure dependency in %s
2901
8b1a09fc 2902(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2903The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2904setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2905tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2906from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2907such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2908L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2909
2910=item Insecure directory in %s
2911
be771a83
GS
2912(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2913setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2914the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2915See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2916
62f468fc 2917=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2918
2919(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2920setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2921C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2922supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2923the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2924
0e9be77f
DM
2925=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2926
2927(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2928expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2929function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2930See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2931
b9ef414d
FC
2932=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2933
2934(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2935or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2936integers for your architecture.
2937
a7ae9550
GS
2938=item Integer overflow in %s number
2939
35928bc5 2940(S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2941either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2942your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2943On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2944representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
29450b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2946transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2947internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2948operations.
bbce6d69 2949
fc89ca81
FC
2950=item Integer overflow in srand
2951
2952(S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2953in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2954replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2955architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2956you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2957return the same sequence of random numbers.
2958
46314c13
JP
2959=item Integer overflow in version
2960
18da5252
FC
2961=item Integer overflow in version %d
2962
784d71ed
FC
2963(W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2964the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
f084e84f 2965because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
784d71ed
FC
2966element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2967to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
46314c13 2968
e0e4a6e3 2969=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2970
2971(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
e0e4a6e3 2972The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2973discovered.
2974
748a9306
LW
2975=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2976
be771a83
GS
2977(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2978you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2979to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2980L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2981Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2982terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2983
870978ae
FC
2984=item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2985
2986(S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2987formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2988C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2989by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2990message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2991reserved format.
2992
e0e4a6e3 2993=item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 2994
fa816bf3 2995(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
e0e4a6e3 2996S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
7253e4e3 2997discovered.
a0d0e21e 2998
6df41af2
GS
2999=item %s (...) interpreted as function
3000
75b44862 3001(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 3002followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 3003operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 3004L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 3005
f51551f7
FC
3006=item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
3007marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3008
3009(F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
3010expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
3011intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
3012with whitespace.
3013
d9790612 3014=item In '(*...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
edf23316
FC
3015marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3016
d9790612 3017(F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in this context in a regular
edf23316 3018expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
d9790612
KW
3019intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
3020Fix the pattern and retry.
edf23316 3021
09bef843
SB
3022=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
3023
a4a4c9e2 3024(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
3025by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
3026
3027=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
3028
a4a4c9e2 3029(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 3030recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 3031
e0e4a6e3
FC
3032=item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
3033S<<-- HERE> in '%s
225fb84f
KW
3034
3035(F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
3036the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
3037the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3038
c8028aa6
TC
3039=item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
3040
fa3234e3
FC
3041(W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
3042arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
3043formerly ignored by system calls.
c8028aa6 3044
e0e4a6e3 3045=item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
a690c7c4
FC
3046
3047(F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
3048indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3049
c635e13b 3050=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
3051
be771a83
GS
3052(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
3053L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 3054
e0e4a6e3
FC
3055=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
3056S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9e08bc66 3057
98d31c73 3058(W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
9e08bc66
TS
3059didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
3060from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
98d31c73
FC
3061The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
3062instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
e0e4a6e3 3063The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
9e08bc66
TS
3064escape was discovered.
3065
8149aa9f
FC
3066=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
3067
e0e4a6e3
FC
3068=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
3069S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3070
8149aa9f 3071(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
3072number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
30730 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 3074
6651ba0b
FC
3075=item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
3076
3077(F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
3078cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
3079arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
3080B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
3081
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3082=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
3083
162a3e34
FC
3084(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
3085where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
3086the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
3087a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 3088
40e4140b
FC
3089=item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
3090
3091(W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
abc0aa9d 3092not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
40e4140b
FC
3093character (U+FFFD).
3094
74d1b2e4
FC
3095=item Invalid number '%s' for -C option.
3096
3097(F) You supplied a number to the -C option that either has extra leading
3098zeroes or overflows perl's unsigned integer representation.
3099
6651ba0b
FC
3100=item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
3101
8ff21bfe
FC
3102(S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
3103with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
982c4ecb 3104See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
6651ba0b 3105
6e8a73f2 3106=item Invalid quantifier in {,} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
35cd12d1
HS
3107
3108(F) The pattern looks like a {min,max} quantifier, but the min or max
3109could not be parsed as a valid number - either it has leading zeroes,
3110or it represents too big a number to cope with. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3111where in the regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3112
e0e4a6e3 3113=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3114
3115(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
3116greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
3117C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
e0e4a6e3 3118up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 3119problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 3120
d1573ac7 3121=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
3122
3123(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
3124character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
3125
09bef843
SB
3126=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
3127
0120eecf 3128(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
3129elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
3130parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
3131See L<attributes>.
09bef843 3132
b4581f09
JH
3133=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
3134
2bfc5f71
FC
3135(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
3136than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
3137If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
3138list was terminated too soon.
3139
2c86d456
DG
3140=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
3141
fa816bf3 3142(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
3143A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3144decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
3145v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 3146The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
3147See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
3148
49704364 3149=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 3150
49704364
WL
3151(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
3152See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 3153
49704364 3154(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 3155silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 3156
2c86d456
DG
3157=item Invalid version format (%s)
3158
fa816bf3 3159(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
3160A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3161decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
fa816bf3
FC
3162v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
3163must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
3164optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
3165trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
3166after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
3167text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
3168for more details on allowed version formats.
46314c13 3169
798ae1b7
DG
3170=item Invalid version object
3171
fa816bf3
FC
3172(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
3173Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
3174an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
798ae1b7 3175
cd209d9d 3176=item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
e0e4a6e3 3177marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff 3178
edf23316
FC
3179(F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in this context in a regular
3180expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
3181intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
675fa9ff 3182
a0d0e21e
LW
3183=item ioctl is not implemented
3184
3185(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
3186strange for a machine that supports C.
3187
c289d2f7
JH
3188=item ioctl() on unopened %s
3189
3190(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 3191Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 3192
fe13d51d 3193=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
3194
3195(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 3196you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
3197with 'useperlio'.
3198
80cbd5ad
JH
3199=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
3200
3201(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 3202neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 3203
6e8a73f2 3204=item '%s' is an unknown bound type in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
64935bc6
KW
3205
3206(F) You used C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}> and the C<...> is not known to
3207Perl. The current valid ones are given in
3208L<perlrebackslash/\b{}, \b, \B{}, \B>.
3209
1ed4b776 3210=item %s() isn't allowed on :utf8 handles
74d1b2e4 3211
1ed4b776
TC
3212(F) The sysread(), recv(), syswrite() and send() operators are
3213not allowed on handles that have the C<:utf8> layer, either explicitly, or
74d1b2e4
FC
3214implicitly, eg., with the C<:encoding(UTF-16LE)> layer.
3215
1ed4b776
TC
3216Previously sysread() and recv() currently use only the C<:utf8> flag for the stream,
3217ignoring the actual layers. Since sysread() and recv() did no UTF-8
74d1b2e4
FC
3218validation they can end up creating invalidly encoded scalars.
3219
1ed4b776
TC
3220Similarly, syswrite() and send() used only the C<:utf8> flag, otherwise ignoring
3221any layers. If the flag is set, both wrote the value UTF-8 encoded, even if
74d1b2e4
FC
3222the layer is some different encoding, such as the example above.
3223
3224Ideally, all of these operators would completely ignore the C<:utf8> state,
3225working only with bytes, but this would result in silently breaking existing
1972ac5c
A
3226code.
3227
d4360efa 3228=item "%s" is more clearly written simply as "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
acdfc3b6 3229
d4360efa 3230(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
30b17cc1 3231
3f673807
FC
3232You specified a character that has the given plainer way of writing it, and
3233which is also portable to platforms running with different character sets.
acdfc3b6 3234
dcb414ac 3235=item $* is no longer supported as of Perl 5.30
a678626e 3236
dcb414ac
JK
3237(F) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, was removed in
32385.10.0, is no longer supported and is a fatal error as of Perl 5.30. In
a678626e
A
3239previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
3240matching within a string.
3241
3242Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
3243modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
3244with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
3245then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
3246
37398dc1
A
3247Use of this variable will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
3248
dcb414ac 3249=item $# is no longer supported as of Perl 5.30
a678626e 3250
dcb414ac
JK
3251(F) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, was removed as of
32525.10.0, is no longer supported and is a fatal error as of Perl 5.30. You
a678626e
A
3253should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
3254
ccf3535a 3255=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 3256
6903afa2
FC
3257(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
3258overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
3259an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 3260
ccf3535a 3261=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 3262
04a80ee0
RGS
3263(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
3264unaware of.
6ad11d81 3265
5a25739d
FC
3266=item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
3267
3268(S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
3269that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
3270given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
3271make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
3272it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
3273should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
3274line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
3275
aec0ef10 3276=item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
3277
3278(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
3279
3280=item Label not found for "last %s"
3281
be771a83
GS
3282(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
3283of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3284L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3285
3286=item Label not found for "next %s"
3287
3288(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
3289that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3290L<perlfunc/last>.
3291
3292=item Label not found for "redo %s"
3293
3294(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
3295that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3296L<perlfunc/last>.
3297
85ab1d1d 3298=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 3299
85ab1d1d 3300(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
3301effective uids or gids failed.
3302
49704364
WL
3303=item length/code after end of string in unpack
3304
d7f8936a 3305(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
3306length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
3307an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 3308
25e26107 3309=item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
e508c8a4 3310
0d46a4e7
FC
3311(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
3312probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
3313
3314Array size can be obtained by doing:
3315
3316 scalar(@array);
3317
3318The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
3319
3320 scalar(keys %hash);
3321
f0e67a1d
Z
3322=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
3323
d4fe7078
RS
3324(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
3325(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
3326couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
3327of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
6903afa2 3328it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
3329
3330=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
3331
3332(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
3333detectable way.
3334
69282e91 3335=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3336
be771a83
GS
3337(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
3338to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3339L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 3340
6651ba0b
FC
3341=item List form of piped open not implemented
3342
3343(F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
3344form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
3345Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
3346
2a6971a9
KW
3347=item Literal vertical space in [] is illegal except under /x in regex;
3348marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3349
3350(F) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
3351
3352Likely you forgot the C</x> modifier or there was a typo in the pattern.
3353For example, did you really mean to match a form-feed? If so, all the
3354ASCII vertical space control characters are representable by escape
3355sequences which won't present such a jarring appearance as your pattern
3356does when displayed.
3357
3358 \r carriage return
3359 \f form feed
3360 \n line feed
3361 \cK vertical tab
3362
dc6bb7ba
FC
3363=item %s: loadable library and perl binaries are mismatched (got handshake key %p, needed %p)
3364
3365(P) A dynamic loading library C<.so> or C<.dll> was being loaded into the
3366process that was built against a different build of perl than the
3367said library was compiled against. Reinstalling the XS module will
3368likely fix this error.
3369
8b7358b9 3370=item Locale '%s' contains (at least) the following characters which
f03e1e3a 3371have unexpected meanings: %s The Perl program will use the expected
8b7358b9
KW
3372meanings
3373
3374(W locale) You are using the named UTF-8 locale. UTF-8 locales are
578a6a87
KW
3375expected to have very particular behavior, which most do. This message
3376arises when perl found some departures from the expectations, and is
3377notifying you that the expected behavior overrides these differences.
3378In some cases the differences are caused by the locale definition being
3379defective, but the most common causes of this warning are when there are
3380ambiguities and conflicts in following the Standard, and the locale has
3381chosen an approach that differs from Perl's.
3382
3383One of these is because that, contrary to the claims, Unicode is not
a2d13ee0
FC
3384completely locale insensitive. Turkish and some related languages
3385have two types of C<"I"> characters. One is dotted in both upper- and
578a6a87
KW
3386lowercase, and the other is dotless in both cases. Unicode allows a
3387locale to use either the Turkish rules, or the rules used in all other
3388instances, where there is only one type of C<"I">, which is dotless in
3389the uppercase, and dotted in the lower. The perl core does not (yet)
3390handle the Turkish case, and this message warns you of that. Instead,
8b7358b9
KW
3391the L<Unicode::Casing> module allows you to mostly implement the Turkish
3392casing rules.
3393
578a6a87
KW
3394The other common cause is for the characters
3395
3396 $ + < = > ^ ` | ~
3397
3398These are probematic. The C standard says that these should be
3399considered punctuation in the C locale (and the POSIX standard defers to
a2d13ee0
FC
3400the C standard), and Unicode is generally considered a superset of
3401the C locale. But Unicode has added an extra category, "Symbol", and
578a6a87
KW
3402classifies these particular characters as being symbols. Most UTF-8
3403locales have them treated as punctuation, so that L<ispunct(2)> returns
a2d13ee0
FC
3404non-zero for them. But a few locales have it return 0. Perl takes
3405the first approach, not using C<ispunct()> at all (see L<Note [5] in
3406perlrecharclass|perlrecharclass/[5]>), and this message is raised to notify you that you
3407are getting Perl's approach, not the locale's.
8b7358b9 3408
8c6180a9
KW
3409=item Locale '%s' may not work well.%s
3410
780fcc9f 3411(W locale) You are using the named locale, which is a non-UTF-8 one, and
dae67c56
KW
3412which perl has determined is not fully compatible with what it can
3413handle. The second C<%s> gives a reason.
8c6180a9
KW
3414
3415By far the most common reason is that the locale has characters in it
3416that are represented by more than one byte. The only such locales that
3417Perl can handle are the UTF-8 locales. Most likely the specified locale
3418is a non-UTF-8 one for an East Asian language such as Chinese or
3419Japanese. If the locale is a superset of ASCII, the ASCII portion of it
780fcc9f 3420may work in Perl.
8c6180a9
KW
3421
3422Some essentially obsolete locales that aren't supersets of ASCII, mainly
3423those in ISO 646 or other 7-bit locales, such as ASMO 449, can also have
3424problems, depending on what portions of the ASCII character set get
3425changed by the locale and are also used by the program.
3426The warning message lists the determinable conflicting characters.
3427
780fcc9f
KW
3428Note that not all incompatibilities are found.
3429
3430If this happens to you, there's not much you can do except switch to use a
3431different locale or use L<Encode> to translate from the locale into
3432UTF-8; if that's impracticable, you have been warned that some things
3433may break.
3434
3435This message is output once each time a bad locale is switched into
3436within the scope of C<S<use locale>>, or on the first possibly-affected
3437operation if the C<S<use locale>> inherits a bad one. It is not raised
3438for any operations from the L<POSIX> module.
3439
a2162cd9
FC
3440=item localtime(%f) failed
3441
3442(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
3443too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
3444
3445=item localtime(%f) too large
3446
3447(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
3448than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3449wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
3450not-a-number value).
3451
3452=item localtime(%f) too small
3453
3454(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
3455than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3456wrong date.
3457
58e23c8d 3458=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3459
3460(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 3461handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 3462
b88df990
NC
3463=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
3464
e63e8a91
FC
3465(W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
3466is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
3467accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
3468warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
3469when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
3470insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
b88df990 3471
93fad930 3472=item lstat() on filehandle%s
2f7da168
RK
3473
3474(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
3475by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
3476instead on the filehandle.)
3477
345d70e3 3478=item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
bb3abb05 3479
345d70e3
FC
3480(W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
3481attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
3482does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
3483want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
3484details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
3485if you really know what you are doing.
bb3abb05 3486
885ef6f5
GG
3487=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
3488
345d70e3
FC
3489(W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
3490subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
3491not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
3492add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
3493foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
3494
3495See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
885ef6f5 3496
6f1b3ab0
FC
3497=item Magical list constants are not supported
3498
3499(F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
3500to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
3501something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
3502
2db62bbc 3503=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 3504
2db62bbc 3505(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
3506are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3507
3508=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
3509
2db62bbc 3510(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
3511are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3512
6df41af2
GS
3513=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3514
3515(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3516
3517 prefix1;prefix2
3518
3519or
6df41af2
GS
3520 prefix1 prefix2
3521
be771a83
GS
3522with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
3523a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
3524appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 3525"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3526
2f758a16
ST
3527=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
3528
d37a9538
ST
3529(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
3530syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
3531obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
3532when the function is called.
30d9c59b
Z
3533Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
3534but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
3535so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2f758a16 3536
2b5e7bc2 3537=item Malformed UTF-8 character%s
ba210ebe 3538
7cf8d05d
KW
3539(S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that should be UTF-8, but didn't
3540comply with UTF-8 encoding rules, or represents a code point whose
3541ordinal integer value doesn't fit into the word size of the current
3542platform (overflows). Details as to the exact malformation are given in
3543the variable, C<%s>, part of the message.
ba210ebe 3544
2575c402 3545One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
3f673807
FC
3546you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit
3547data). To guard against this, you can use C<Encode::decode('UTF-8', ...)>.
2575c402
JW
3548
3549If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
3f673807
FC
3550sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is set
3551without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error message.
2575c402
JW
3552
3553See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 3554
bde9e88d 3555=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
ff3f963a
KW
3556
3557(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
3558
714f94d1
FC
3559=item Malformed UTF-8 string in "%s"
3560
3561(F) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl core or in XS
3562code. Such code was trying to find out if a character, allegedly
3563stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such as
3564being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded
3565in legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used
3566by knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked
3567against was.
3568
3569Passing malformed strings was deprecated in Perl 5.18, and
3570became fatal in Perl 5.26.
3571
4a5d3a93
FC
3572=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
3573
3574(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3575rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3576
f337b084
TH
3577=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
3578
3579(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3580rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3581
3582=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
3583
3584(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3585rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3586
4a5d3a93 3587=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 3588
4a5d3a93
FC
3589(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
3590doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
3591
30d9c59b
Z
3592=item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
3593
3594(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
3595$b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
3596Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
3597caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
3598as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
3599optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
3600
2d88a86a
KW
3601=item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
3602not be portable
3603
3604(S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
3605Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
0202c428 3606in a signed integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
2d88a86a
KW
3607other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3608containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3609the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3610C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3611so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3612in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3613unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3614given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3615L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3616
3617This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3618immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3619not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3620the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3621Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3622every code point except these 22.)
3623
3624Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3625should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3626that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3627category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3628off this category.
3629
3630See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3631
e0e4a6e3
FC
3632=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3633m/%s/
4a5d3a93
FC
3634
3635(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
e0e4a6e3 3636regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 3637shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4a5d3a93 3638See L<perlre>.
f337b084 3639
de42a5a9 3640=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 3641
6903afa2 3642(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
3643usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3644too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3645resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 3646safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 3647
25f58aea
PN
3648=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3649
3650(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3651interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3652"use" or "my".
3653
0d2487cd 3654=item '%' may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
3655
3656(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
3657checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3658See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 3659
a0d0e21e
LW
3660=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3661
3662(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 3663doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3664
3cdd684c
TP
3665=item Method %s not permitted
3666
3de20fbe 3667See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 3668
a0d0e21e
LW
3669=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3670
3671(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3672by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3673ended earlier on the current line.
3674
3675=item Misplaced _ in number
3676
d4ced10d
JH
3677(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3678separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 3679
0ea23158
DM
3680=item Missing argument for %n in %s
3681
3682(F) A C<%n> was used in a format string with no corresponding argument for
3683perl to write the current string length to.
3684
7baa4690
HS
3685=item Missing argument in %s
3686
3664866e
AB
3687(W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3688arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3689
3690Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3691arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3692other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3693functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
7baa4690 3694
9e81e6a1
RGS
3695=item Missing argument to -%c
3696
3697(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3698immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3699
ff3f963a 3700=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 3701
e0e4a6e3 3702=item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3703
4a2d328f 3704(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
3705double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3706(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3707This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3708follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 3709
f0a2b745
KW
3710=item Missing braces on \o{}
3711
3712(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3713
a0d0e21e
LW
3714=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3715
3716(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3717"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3718
06eaf0bc
GS
3719=item Missing command in piped open
3720
be771a83
GS
3721(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3722C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3723blank.
06eaf0bc 3724
961ce445
RGS
3725=item Missing control char name in \c
3726
3727(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3728character name.
3729
591f5ca2
FC
3730=item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3731
bfe11873 3732(W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
591f5ca2 3733
8767b1ab 3734=item Missing name in "%s sub"
6df41af2 3735
87444db5 3736(F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
be771a83 3737they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
3738
3739=item Missing $ on loop variable
3740
be771a83
GS
3741(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3742are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3743can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 3744
cc507455 3745=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 3746
56da5a46
RGS
3747(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3748"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 3749
33fe1955 3750=item Missing or undefined argument to %s
f51551f7 3751
33fe1955 3752(F) You tried to call require or do with no argument or with an undefined
f51551f7 3753value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
33fe1955
LM
3754file-specification as an argument; do expects a filename. See
3755L<perlfunc/require EXPR> and L<perlfunc/do EXPR>.
f51551f7 3756
e0e4a6e3 3757=item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 3758
ff3f963a
KW
3759(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3760
605eee60 3761=item Missing right brace on \N{}
faad849d 3762
4a68bf9d 3763=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 3764
d32207c9
FC
3765(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3766
3767The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3768meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
fa816bf3 3769name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
d32207c9
FC
3770double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3771it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3772
3773Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3774in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3775for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3776
3777This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3778by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3779form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3780means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
37813; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3782C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3783
3784However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3785mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3786If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3787escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 3788
d98d5fff 3789=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 3790
be771a83
GS
3791(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3792ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3793were last editing.
a0d0e21e 3794
6df41af2
GS
3795=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3796
56da5a46
RGS
3797(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3798"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
3799the previous line just because you saw this message.
3800
a0d0e21e
LW
3801=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3802
3803(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 3804constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
3805catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3806
3807 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3808 mod(2);
3809
3810Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3811
c5674021
PDF
3812Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3813is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3814
b7e4ecc1
FC
3815 $x = 1;
3816 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3817 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3818 } # modify the 2
c5674021 3819
7a4340ed 3820=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3821
3822(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3823subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3824backwards.
3825
7a4340ed 3826=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 3827
be771a83
GS
3828(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3829couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
3830
3831=item Module name must be constant
3832
3833(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3834
be98fb35 3835=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 3836
be98fb35
GS
3837(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3838you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3839about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 3840
fe13d51d 3841=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 3842
6903afa2 3843(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
3844can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3845list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3846See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3847
85396b18
FC
3848=item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3849
3850(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3851L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3852could not be made read-only.
3853
92951bce
FC
3854=item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3855
85396b18
FC
3856(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3857but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3858
3859=item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3860
3861(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3862L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3863buffer could not be made mutable.
3864
92951bce
FC
3865=item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3866
3867(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
85396b18
FC
3868L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3869mutable before freeing the ops.
92951bce 3870
a0d0e21e
LW
3871=item msg%s not implemented
3872
3873(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3874
3875=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3876
75b44862
GS
3877(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3878They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 3879
d3d9da4a
DM
3880=item Multiple slurpy parameters not allowed
3881
3882(F) In subroutine signatures, a slurpy parameter (C<@> or C<%>) must be
3883the last parameter, and there must not be more than one of them; for
3884example:
3885
3886 sub foo ($a, @b) {} # legal
3887 sub foo ($a, @b, %) {} # invalid
3888
49704364 3889=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 3890
49704364
WL
3891(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3892follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3893See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2 3894
c869951c 3895=item %s must not be a named sequence in transliteration operator
f4240379
KW
3896
3897(F) Transliteration (C<tr///> and C<y///>) transliterates individual
3898characters. But a named sequence by definition is more than an
dabde021 3899individual character, and hence doing this operation on it doesn't make
f4240379
KW
3900sense.
3901
6df41af2
GS
3902=item "my sub" not yet implemented
3903
be771a83
GS
3904(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3905that yet.
6df41af2 3906
a21eb52b
FC
3907=item "my" subroutine %s can't be in a package
3908
3909(F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3910sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
3911
5a25739d
FC
3912=item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3913
3914(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3915You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3916sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3917lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3918name, or rename the lexical variable.
3919
fd1b7234 3920=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 3921
be771a83
GS
3922(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3923sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3924local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 3925
8149aa9f
FC
3926=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3927
c59aba6c
FC
3928(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3929names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3930just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
08a33b6b 3931declaration is also provided for this purpose.
c59aba6c 3932
66a1f5ec
FC
3933NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3934only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3935warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3936%c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
c59aba6c
FC
3937format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3938but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3939Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3940identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
8149aa9f 3941
e0e4a6e3 3942=item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b
KW
3943
3944(F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3945exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3946constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3947
3948 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3949 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3950 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3951
3952The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
675fa9ff
FC
3953need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3954two separate things, you need to separate them:
0d0b4b3b
KW
3955
3956 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3957 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3958 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3959 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3960
49704364
WL
3961=item Negative '/' count in unpack
3962
3963(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3964negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3965
a0d0e21e
LW
3966=item Negative length
3967
be771a83
GS
3968(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3969length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 3970
ed9aa3b7
SG
3971=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3972
3973(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3974greater than or equal to zero.
3975
b3211734
KW
3976=item Negative repeat count does nothing
3977
3978(W numeric) You tried to execute the
3979L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3980times, which doesn't make sense.
3981
e0e4a6e3 3982=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3983
6903afa2 3984(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
e0e4a6e3 3985So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 3986whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 3987
7253e4e3 3988Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 3989C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3990
6df41af2 3991=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 3992
be771a83
GS
3993(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3994scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 3995
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3996=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3997
3998(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3999real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
4000See L<mro>.
4001
5a25739d 4002=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
e0e4a6e3 4003marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5a25739d 4004
32a77fbe
FC
4005(F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
4006bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
4007class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
4008probably not what you want.
5a25739d 4009
022a330c 4010=item \N{} in inverted character class or as a range end-point is restricted to one character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
0b4ce96d 4011
f3ba6905
FC
4012(F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
4013multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
4014supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
bc035eed
KW
4015whole thing correctly, except under certain conditions. These currently
4016are
4017
4018=over 4
4019
4020=item When the class is inverted (C<[^...]>)
4021
4022The mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
f3ba6905 4023is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
bc035eed
KW
4024forbid it.
4025
4026=item The escape is the beginning or final end point of a range
4027
4028Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
f3ba6905 4029C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
8f0cd35a
KW
4030
4031 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
4032
f3ba6905
FC
4033What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
4034of code points, so this is made an error.
0b4ce96d 4035
bc035eed
KW
4036=item In a regex set
4037
4038The syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression yields a list of
4039single code points, none can be a sequence.
4040
4041=back
4042
a0d0e21e
LW
4043=item No %s allowed while running setuid
4044
be771a83
GS
4045(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
4046setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
4047will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
4048securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 4049
6651ba0b
FC
4050=item No code specified for -%c
4051
4052(F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
4053you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
4054argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
4055
4056 perl -e ""
4057 perl -e0
4058 perl -e1
4059
a0d0e21e
LW
4060=item No comma allowed after %s
4061
6903afa2
FC
4062(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
4063not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
4064Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
4065
6903afa2
FC
4066One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
4067a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
4068importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
4069system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
4070use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
4071please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
4072explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
4073it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
4074still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
4075the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
4076constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 4077
748a9306
LW
4078=item No command into which to pipe on command line
4079
be771a83
GS
4080(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4081redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
4082doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 4083
a0d0e21e
LW
4084=item No DB::DB routine defined
4085
be771a83 4086(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 4087for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
4088module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
4089statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
4090
4091=item No dbm on this machine
4092
4093(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 4094supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 4095
ccafdc96 4096=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 4097
ccafdc96
RGS
4098(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
4099for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
4100module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
4101of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 4102
6651ba0b
FC
4103=item No directory specified for -I
4104
4105(F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
4106I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
4107
c47ff5f1 4108=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 4109
be771a83
GS
4110(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4111redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
4112find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 4113
49704364
WL
4114=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
4115
4116(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 4117matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 4118
c47ff5f1 4119=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 4120
be771a83
GS
4121(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4122redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
4123name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 4124
2c7d6b9c
RGS
4125=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
4126
4127(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
4128in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
4129it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
fa816bf3 4130or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2c7d6b9c 4131
02a7a248
JH
4132=item Non-finite repeat count does nothing
4133
4134(W numeric) You tried to execute the
8a737443
FC
4135L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator C<Inf> (or
4136C<-Inf>) or C<NaN> times, which doesn't make sense.
02a7a248 4137
e0e4a6e3 4138=item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4139
4140(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
4141a hex one was expected, like
4142
4143 (?[ [ \xDG ] ])
4144 (?[ [ \x{DEKA} ] ])
4145
e0e4a6e3 4146=item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4147
4148(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
4149an octal one was expected, like
4150
4151 (?[ [ \o{1278} ] ])
4152
4153=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
4154
4155(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
4156unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
4157is as indicated.
4158
6df41af2
GS
4159=item "no" not allowed in expression
4160
be771a83
GS
4161(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4162returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 4163
675fa9ff
FC
4164=item Non-string passed as bitmask
4165
4166(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
4167Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
4168select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4169
c47ff5f1 4170=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 4171
be771a83
GS
4172(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4173redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
4174doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 4175
c47ff5f1 4176=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 4177
be771a83
GS
4178(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4179redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
4180find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 4181
8d9d0498
FC
4182=item No package name allowed for subroutine %s in "our"
4183
1ec3e8de
GS
4184=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
4185
8d9d0498
FC
4186(F) Fully qualified subroutine and variable names are not allowed in "our"
4187declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing rules.
4188Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 4189
a0d0e21e
LW
4190=item No Perl script found in input
4191
4192(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
4193with #! and containing the word "perl".
4194
4195=item No setregid available
4196
4197(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
4198your system.
4199
4200=item No setreuid available
4201
4202(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
4203your system.
4204
5a25739d
FC
4205=item No such class %s
4206
4207(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
4208declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
4209
e75d1f10
RD
4210=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
4211
b7e4ecc1
FC
4212(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
4213variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
4214The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
4215L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 4216
3c20a832
SP
4217=item No such hook: %s
4218
dc7e5945
FC
4219(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
4220Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 4221
6df41af2
GS
4222=item No such pipe open
4223
4224(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
4225close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
4226earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 4227
a0d0e21e
LW
4228=item No such signal: SIG%s
4229
be771a83
GS
4230(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
4231not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
4232names on your system.
a0d0e21e 4233
1532347b
KW
4234=item No Unicode property value wildcard matches:
4235
4236(W regexp) You specified a wildcard for a Unicode property value, but
4237there is no property value in the current Unicode release that matches
4238it. Check your spelling.
4239
a0d0e21e
LW
4240=item Not a CODE reference
4241
4242(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4243subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
4244use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4245also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4246
a0d0e21e
LW
4247=item Not a GLOB reference
4248
be771a83
GS
4249(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
4250symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
4251something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
4252kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4253
4254=item Not a HASH reference
4255
be771a83
GS
4256(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
4257reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
4258find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4259
b913d0b8
FC
4260=item '#' not allowed immediately following a sigil in a subroutine signature
4261
4262(F) In a subroutine signature definition, a comment following a sigil
dabde021 4263(C<$>, C<@> or C<%>), needs to be separated by whitespace or a comma etc., in
b913d0b8
FC
4264particular to avoid confusion with the C<$#> variable. For example:
4265
4266 # bad
4267 sub f ($# ignore first arg
4268 , $b) {}
4269 # good
4270 sub f ($, # ignore first arg
4271 $b) {}
4272
6df41af2
GS
4273=item Not an ARRAY reference
4274
be771a83
GS
4275(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
4276a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4277to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 4278
a0d0e21e
LW
4279=item Not a SCALAR reference
4280
be771a83
GS
4281(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
4282a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4283to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4284
4285=item Not a subroutine reference
4286
4287(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4288subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
4289use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4290also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4291
e7ea3e70 4292=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
4293
4294(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 4295doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 4296
a0d0e21e
LW
4297=item Not enough arguments for %s
4298
4299(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
4300
6df41af2
GS
4301=item Not enough format arguments
4302
be771a83
GS
4303(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
4304supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
4305
4306=item %s: not found
4307
be771a83
GS
4308(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4309of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4310yourself.
6df41af2
GS
4311
4312=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 4313
6df41af2
GS
4314(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
4315timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
4316to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
4317F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
4318need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 4319
6df41af2
GS
4320=item NULL OP IN RUN
4321
f84fe999 4322(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 4323pointer.
6df41af2 4324
55497cff 4325=item Null picture in formline
4326
4327(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
4328specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
4329supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
4330
a0d0e21e
LW
4331=item Null realloc
4332
4333(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
4334
4335=item NULL regexp argument
4336
5f05dabc 4337(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
4338
4339=item NULL regexp parameter
4340
4341(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
4342
fc36a67e 4343=item Number too long
4344
be771a83 4345(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 4346about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
4347versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
4348the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
4349"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 4350
f0a2b745
KW
4351=item Number with no digits
4352
1043934d 4353(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 4354a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 4355the braces.
f0a2b745 4356
027471cf
TC
4357=item Numeric format result too large
4358
4359(F) The length of the result of a numeric format supplied to sprintf()
4360or printf() would have been too large for the underlying C function to
4361report. This limit is typically 2GB.
4362
252aa082
JH
4363=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
4364
75b44862 4365(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
4366(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
4367L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 4368
ac7609e4 4369=item Odd name/value argument for subroutine '%s'
30d9c59b
Z
4370
4371(F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
4372received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
4373the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
35e5ce67 4374The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
30d9c59b 4375
ac7609e4
AC
4376The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
4377subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
4378regardless of what name the caller used.
4379
6ad11d81
JH
4380=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
4381
04a80ee0 4382(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 4383arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 4384
b21befc1
MG
4385=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
4386
4387(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4388which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4389
1930e939 4390=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 4391
be771a83
GS
4392(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4393which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 4394
bbce6d69 4395=item Offset outside string
4396
1fa582fa 4397(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 4398with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
4399imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
4400take place when going past the end of the string when either
4401C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
0f44b2a5 4402for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behavior
1a7a2554 4403with real files).
bbce6d69 4404
2cb35ee0
FC
4405=item Old package separator used in string
4406
4407(W syntax) You used the old package separator, "'", in a variable
4408named inside a double-quoted string; e.g., C<"In $name's house">. This
4409is equivalent to C<"In $name::s house">. If you meant the former, put
4410a backslash before the apostrophe (C<"In $name\'s house">).
4411
c289d2f7 4412=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
4413
4414(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
4415never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
4416call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
4417
96ebfdd7
RK
4418=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
4419
4420(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
4421that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
4422
a0d0e21e
LW
4423=item oops: oopsAV
4424
e476b1b5 4425(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
4426
4427=item oops: oopsHV
4428
e476b1b5 4429(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 4430
e0e4a6e3
FC
4431=item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4432m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 4433
675fa9ff 4434(F) You wrote something like
0d0b4b3b
KW
4435
4436 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
4437
4438There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
4439them.
4440
a0288114 4441=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 4442
be771a83
GS
4443(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
4444handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
4445of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 4446the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 4447
5ff1373f 4448=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 4449
52d1f2c9 4450(S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode rules
b5af3ad2
FC
4451on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
4452defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
4453
4454If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4455matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4456
4457If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 4458C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 4459
5ff1373f 4460=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 4461
4c2e59a0 4462(S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
52d1f2c9 4463rules on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
ad94bb39 4464of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
52d1f2c9 4465rules are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
ad94bb39
FC
4466they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
4467surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
4468
4469If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4470matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4471
4472If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 4473C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 4474
748a9306
LW
4475=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
4476
be771a83
GS
4477(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
4478was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
4479use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
4480example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
4481"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 4482
30d9c59b
Z
4483=item Optional parameter lacks default expression
4484
4485(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
4486named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
4487parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
4488have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
4489
6df41af2
GS
4490=item "our" variable %s redeclared
4491
52e3acf8 4492(W shadow) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
be771a83 4493in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 4494
a80b8354
GS
4495=item Out of memory!
4496
4497(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
4498remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
4499no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 4500
19a52907
JH
4501At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
4502process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
4503C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
4504the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
4505and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
4506
6d3b25aa
RGS
4507=item Out of memory during %s extend
4508
4509(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
4510the largest possible memory allocation.
4511
6df41af2 4512=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 4513
6df41af2 4514(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
6903afa2 4515remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
4516the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
4517possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 4518
1b979e0a 4519=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 4520
1fa582fa 4521(X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
be771a83
GS
4522insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
4523request.
eff9c6e2
CS
4524
4525The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
4526depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
4527However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
4528emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
4529is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
4530where the failed request happened.
55497cff 4531
1b979e0a
IZ
4532=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
4533
4534(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
4535is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
4536C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 4537
6df41af2
GS
4538=item Out of memory for yacc stack
4539
be771a83
GS
4540(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
4541parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
4542otherwise.
6df41af2 4543
28be1210
TH
4544=item '.' outside of string in pack
4545
4546(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
4547position to before the start of the packed string being built.
4548
49704364 4549=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 4550
49704364 4551(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
4552the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4553
f337b084
TH
4554=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
4555
4556(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6903afa2 4557the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
fa816bf3 4558UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
f337b084 4559
7778d804
FC
4560=item overload arg '%s' is invalid
4561
4562(W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
4563recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
4564
7cb0cfe6
BM
4565=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
4566
4567(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
6903afa2 4568but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
7cb0cfe6
BM
4569L<overload>.
4570
4571=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
4572
4573(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
6903afa2 4574overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
7cb0cfe6 4575
6df41af2
GS
4576=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
4577
be771a83
GS
4578(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
4579package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
4580some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
4581mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 4582
96ebfdd7
RK
4583=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
4584
4585(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
4586signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4587
a0d0e21e
LW
4588=item page overflow
4589
be771a83
GS
4590(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
4591page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 4592
6df41af2
GS
4593=item panic: %s
4594
4595(P) An internal error.
4596
c99a1475
NC
4597=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
4598
4599(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
4600an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
4601platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
4602enter this branch on this platform.
4603
d5e473ac
SH
4604=item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
4605
4606(P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
4607was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
4608able to initialize properly.
4609
5637ef5b 4610=item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4611
4612(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
4613
5637ef5b 4614=item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
a0d0e21e 4615
be771a83
GS
4616(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
4617there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 4618
810b8aa5
GS
4619=item panic: del_backref
4620
4621(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4622reference.
4623
a0d0e21e
LW
4624=item panic: do_subst
4625
be771a83
GS
4626(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4627data.
a0d0e21e 4628
2269b42e 4629=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 4630
2269b42e 4631(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 4632data.
a0d0e21e 4633
b7f7fd0b
NC
4634=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4635
10203f38 4636(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
4637failure was caught.
4638
255abbe7 4639=item panic: frexp: %f
c635e13b 4640
4641(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4642
5637ef5b 4643=item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
a0d0e21e
LW
4644
4645(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4646and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4647
b0d55c99
FC
4648=item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4649
4650(P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
6903afa2
FC
4651repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4652Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4653the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
b0d55c99 4654
5637ef5b 4655=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4656
4657(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4658
5637ef5b 4659=item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4660
4661(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4662
e446cec8
IZ
4663=item panic: kid popen errno read
4664
1f91b9f5 4665(F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
e446cec8 4666
5637ef5b 4667=item panic: last, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4668
4669(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4670it wasn't a block context.
4671
4672=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4673
be771a83
GS
4674(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4675scope.
a0d0e21e 4676
5637ef5b 4677=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
a0d0e21e
LW
4678
4679(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4680invalid enum on the top of it.
4681
810b8aa5
GS
4682=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4683
4684(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4685references to an object.
4686
5637ef5b 4687=item panic: malloc, %s
6df41af2
GS
4688
4689(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4690
27d5b266
JH
4691=item panic: memory wrap
4692
46f9c2c2
FC
4693(P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4694negative amount.
27d5b266 4695
5637ef5b 4696=item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4697
4698(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4699and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4700
5637ef5b 4701=item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4702
4703(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4704and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4705
4706=item panic: pad_free po
4707
c1bd5aaa 4708(P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. An attempt was
61a9f070 4709made to free a target that had not been allocated to begin with.
a0d0e21e 4710
5637ef5b 4711=item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4712
4713(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4714and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4715
4716=item panic: pad_sv po
4717
61a9f070
FC
4718(P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. Most likely
4719an operator needed a target but that target had not been allocated
4720for whatever reason.
a0d0e21e 4721
5637ef5b 4722=item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4723
4724(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4725and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4726
4727=item panic: pad_swipe po
4728
4729(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4730
5637ef5b 4731=item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4732
4733(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4734
96ebfdd7
RK
4735=item panic: pp_match%s
4736
4737(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4738data.
4739
5637ef5b 4740=item panic: realloc, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4741
4742(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4743
ccfb6d2e
FC
4744=item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4745
4746(P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4747reference count other than 1.
4748
5637ef5b 4749=item panic: restartop in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4750
4751(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4752didn't supply the destination.
4753
5637ef5b 4754=item panic: return, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4755
4756(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4757then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4758
5637ef5b 4759=item panic: scan_num, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4760
4761(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4762
4599db5f 4763=item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
d24ca0c5 4764
1f91b9f5 4765(P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
d24ca0c5
DM
4766blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4767seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4768
5a25739d
FC
4769=item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4770
4771(P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4772In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4773is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4774
6c65d5f9
NC
4775=item panic: sv_chop %s
4776
4777(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4778scalar's string buffer.
4779
5637ef5b 4780=item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4781
4782(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4783was string.
4784
4785=item panic: top_env
4786
6224f72b 4787(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 4788
65bca31a
NC
4789=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4790
a1efa96e
FC
4791(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4792permitted at run time.
65bca31a 4793
01bbc29f
FC
4794=item panic: unknown OA_*: %x
4795
4796(P) The internal routine that handles arguments to C<&CORE::foo()>
4797subroutine calls was unable to determine what type of arguments
4798were expected.
4799
dea0fc0b
JH
4800=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4801
4802(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 4803to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 4804
e0ea5e2d
NC
4805=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4806
4807(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4808to even) byte length.
4809
5637ef5b 4810=item panic: yylex, %s
2f7da168
RK
4811
4812(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4813
78181aa9
KW
4814=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4815
4816(W parenthesis) You said something like
4817
4818 my $foo, $bar = @_;
4819
4820when you meant
4821
4822 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4823
4824Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4825
28ac2b49
Z
4826=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4827
4828(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4829a detectable way.
4830
b9bd8d8c 4831=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
1a147d38
YO
4832
4833(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
6903afa2
FC
4834consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4835the nesting limit is exceeded.
1a147d38 4836
96ebfdd7
RK
4837=item C<-p> destination: %s
4838
4839(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4840command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4841redirected it with select().)
4842
0ae4a328
FC
4843=item Perl API version %s of %s does not match %s
4844
d792985a 4845(F) The XS module in question was compiled against a different incompatible
0ae4a328
FC
4846version of Perl than the one that has loaded the XS module.
4847
8954b91a 4848=item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
e0e4a6e3 4849utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
d50a4f90 4850
6014bd26
JK
4851(S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4852and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4853folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
4854Please report this as a bug using the L<perlbug> utility.
d50a4f90 4855
f51551f7
FC
4856=item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4857
4858(S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4859experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4860simply disable this warning:
4861
4862 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4863
1109a392
MHM
4864=item Perl_my_%s() not available
4865
4866(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4867so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4868conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4869'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4870
6651ba0b
FC
4871=item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4872
4873(F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4874Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4875of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4876interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4877decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4878is equivalent to v5.100.
4879
6903f24f 4880=item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
6d3b25aa
RGS
4881
4882(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4883recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4884you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4885
6df41af2
GS
4886=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4887
fa816bf3 4888(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 4889C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 4890
96ebfdd7
RK
4891=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4892
806b6d07 4893(X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
96ebfdd7 4894
6651ba0b
FC
4895=item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4896
4897(F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4898on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4899Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4900wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4901
675fa9ff
FC
4902=item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4903
ff9c1ae8 4904(S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
675fa9ff
FC
4905contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4906hash seed you think you are.
6a5b4183 4907
6df41af2
GS
4908=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4909
4910(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4911
4912 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4913 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4914 LC_ALL = "En_US",
4915 LANG = (unset)
4916 are supported and installed on your system.
4917 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4918
4919Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4920settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
4921This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4922system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4923locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4924dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4b07a369
FC
4925Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4926fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4927time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
0ea6b70f 4928L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 4929
6a5b4183
YO
4930=item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4931
ff9c1ae8 4932(S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
675fa9ff 4933but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
6a5b4183
YO
4934are as follows.
4935
4936 Numeric | String | Result
4937 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4938 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4939 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
555bd962
BG
4940 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4941 | | randomization
6a5b4183
YO
4942
4943Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
675fa9ff 4944case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
aac486f1 4945
bd3fa61c 4946=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 4947
be771a83
GS
4948(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4949process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4950fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 4951
49704364 4952=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
4953
4954(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4955
6e8a73f2 4956=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
96ebfdd7 4957
e0e4a6e3 4958(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 4959shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
96ebfdd7
RK
4960Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4961the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4962not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4963
4964=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4965
4966(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4967the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4968
46d34d0e 4969=item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes%s in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4970S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4971
46d34d0e
KW
4972(W regexp) Perl thinks that you intended to write a POSIX character
4973class, but didn't use enough brackets. These POSIX class constructs [:
4974:], [= =], and [. .] go I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of
4975the construct, for example: C<qr/[012[:alpha:]345]/>. What the regular
4976expression pattern compiled to is probably not what you were intending.
4977For example, C<qr/[:alpha:]/> compiles to a regular bracketed character
4978class consisting of the four characters C<":">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
4979C<"h">, and C<"p">. To specify the POSIX class, it should have been
4980written C<qr/[[:alpha:]]/>.
4981
4982Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
9e3ec65c 4983implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
e0e4a6e3 4984will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 4985expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4986
46d34d0e
KW
4987If the specification of the class was not completely valid, the message
4988indicates that.
4989
6fbc9859 4990=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4991S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4992
a125938c
FC
4993(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4994with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4995need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4996character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
e0e4a6e3 4997and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
a125938c 4998problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4999
6fbc9859 5000=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5001S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5002
7253e4e3
RK
5003(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
5004with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
5005need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
5006character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
e0e4a6e3 5007and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 5008problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5009
bbce6d69 5010=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
5011
e476b1b5 5012(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 5013strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
5014literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
5015parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 5016
774d564b 5017You probably wrote something like this:
5018
54310121 5019 @list = qw(
774d564b 5020 a # a comment
bbce6d69 5021 b # another comment
774d564b 5022 );
bbce6d69 5023
5024when you should have written this:
5025
774d564b 5026 @list = qw(
54310121 5027 a
5028 b
774d564b 5029 );
5030
5031If you really want comments, build your list the
5032old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
5033
5034 @list = (
5035 'a', # a comment
5036 'b', # another comment
5037 );
bbce6d69 5038
5039=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
5040
be771a83
GS
5041(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
5042commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
5043different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
5044frequently used.)
bbce6d69 5045
54310121 5046You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 5047
774d564b 5048 qw! a, b, c !;
5049
5050which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
5051commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 5052
774d564b 5053 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 5054
a0d0e21e
LW
5055=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
5056
5057(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
5058Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
5059end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
5060Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
5061
9da2d046
NT
5062=item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
5063
5064(W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
5065flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
5066C<or>. Consider:
5067
5068 sub { return $a or $b; }
5069
5070This is parsed as:
5071
5072 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
5073
5074Which is effectively just:
5075
5076 sub { return $a; }
5077
5078Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
5079
5080Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
5081
5082 sub { 1 if die; }
5083
8823cb89 5084=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %s operator
a690c7c4
FC
5085
5086(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
5087with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
5088
5089 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
5090
5091This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
5092higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
5093really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
5094parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
5095
77772344
B
5096=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
5097
5098(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
5099The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 5100record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
5101followed by the word 'bar'.
5102
5103If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
5104C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
5105
5106If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
5107followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
5108C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
5109
e5035638
FC
5110=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
5111
ccf3535a 5112(W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
6903afa2 5113but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
e5035638
FC
5114literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
5115to the array you apparently lost track of.
5116
a0d0e21e
LW
5117=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
5118
e476b1b5 5119(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 5120
a0d0e21e
LW
5121 open FOO || die;
5122
5123is now misinterpreted as
5124
5125 open(FOO || die);
5126
be771a83
GS
5127because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
5128list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
5129parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
5130of "||".
a0d0e21e 5131
3cdd684c
TP
5132=item Premature end of script headers
5133
3de20fbe 5134See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 5135
6df41af2
GS
5136=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
5137
be771a83 5138(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5139before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 5140
9a7dcd9c 5141=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5142
be771a83 5143(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5144before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5145
6df41af2 5146=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 5147
6df41af2
GS
5148(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
5149applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
5150port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
5151L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 5152in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 5153
327323c1
RGS
5154=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
5155
fa816bf3
FC
5156(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
5157useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
327323c1 5158
3fe9a6f1 5159=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 5160
9a0b3859 5161(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 5162declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 5163
ed9aa3b7
SG
5164=item Prototype not terminated
5165
2a6fd447 5166(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
5167definition.
5168
eedb00fa
PM
5169=item Prototype '%s' overridden by attribute 'prototype(%s)' in %s
5170
5171(W prototype) A prototype was declared in both the parentheses after
5172the sub name and via the prototype attribute. The prototype in
5173parentheses is useless, since it will be replaced by the prototype
5174from the attribute before it's ever used.
5175
6e8a73f2 5176=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
96ebfdd7 5177
6903afa2 5178(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
e0e4a6e3 5179you meant it literally. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5180expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 5181
6e8a73f2 5182=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9baa0206 5183
6903afa2 5184(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
e0e4a6e3 5185the {min,max} construct. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5186expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 5187
675fa9ff
FC
5188=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex
5189
e0e4a6e3
FC
5190=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex; marked by
5191S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
5192
5193(W regexp) Minima should be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
5194want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}.
5195
e1729dc6 5196=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 5197
b45f050a
JF
5198(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
5199it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
5200quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
5201"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
5202C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 5203
89ea2908
GA
5204=item Range iterator outside integer range
5205
5206(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
5207are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
5208One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
5209by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 5210
ad513756 5211=item Ranges of ASCII printables should be some subset of "0-9", "A-Z", or
6e8a73f2 5212"a-z" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ad513756
FC
5213
5214(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
5215
5216Stricter rules help to find typos and other errors. Perhaps you didn't
5217even intend a range here, if the C<"-"> was meant to be some other
5218character, or should have been escaped (like C<"\-">). If you did
5219intend a range, the one that was used is not portable between ASCII and
5220EBCDIC platforms, and doesn't have an obvious meaning to a casual
5221reader.
5222
5223 [3-7] # OK; Obvious and portable
5224 [d-g] # OK; Obvious and portable
5225 [A-Y] # OK; Obvious and portable
5226 [A-z] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5227 [a-Z] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5228 [%-.] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5229 [\x41-Z] # WRONG; Not portable; not obvious to non-geek
5230
5231(You can force portability by specifying a Unicode range, which means that
5232the endpoints are specified by
5233L<C<\N{...}>|perlrecharclass/Character Ranges>, but the meaning may
5234still not be obvious.)
5235The stricter rules require that ranges that start or stop with an ASCII
5236character that is not a control have all their endpoints be the literal
5237character, and not some escape sequence (like C<"\x41">), and the ranges
5238must be all digits, or all uppercase letters, or all lowercase letters.
5239
5240=item Ranges of digits should be from the same group in regex; marked by
6e8a73f2 5241S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ad513756
FC
5242
5243(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
5244
5245Stricter rules help to find typos and other errors. You included a
5246range, and at least one of the end points is a decimal digit. Under the
5247stricter rules, when this happens, both end points should be digits in
5248the same group of 10 consecutive digits.
5249
3b7fbd4a
SP
5250=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5251
1a147d38 5252(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
5253a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5254
96ebfdd7
RK
5255=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
5256
5257(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
5258before now. Check your control flow.
5259
b5fe5ca2
SR
5260=item read() on closed filehandle %s
5261
5262(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
5263
5264=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
5265
5266(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
5267
de42a5a9 5268=item Reallocation too large: %x
6df41af2
GS
5269
5270(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
5271
4ad56ec9
IZ
5272=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
5273
be771a83
GS
5274(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
5275already been freed.
4ad56ec9 5276
a0d0e21e
LW
5277=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
5278
19b29141 5279(S debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
be771a83 5280the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
5281which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
5282
6651ba0b
FC
5283=item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
5284
5285(P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
5286a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
5287$fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
5288loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
5289
3e0ccd42 5290=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 5291
2c7d6b9c
RGS
5292(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
5293believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
5294crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 5295
f51551f7
FC
5296=item Redundant argument in %s
5297
5298(W redundant) You called a function with more arguments than other
3617dbb6 5299arguments you supplied indicated would be needed. Currently only
f51551f7
FC
5300emitted when a printf-type format required fewer arguments than were
5301supplied, but might be used in the future for e.g. L<perlfunc/pack>.
5302
12605ff9
FC
5303=item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
5304
2e0cfa16
FC
5305=item refcnt: fd %d%s
5306
12605ff9
FC
5307=item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
5308
fa816bf3 5309(P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
2e0cfa16
FC
5310you see this message, something is very wrong.
5311
1930e939
TP
5312=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
5313
be771a83 5314(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
6903afa2
FC
5315with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
5316usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
5317to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
5318
5319 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
5320 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
5321 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
5322 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
5323
810b8aa5
GS
5324=item Reference is already weak
5325
e476b1b5 5326(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
5327Doing so has no effect.
5328
ae2cf9f6
DIM
5329=item Reference is not weak
5330
5331(W misc) You have attempted to unweaken a reference that is not weak.
5332Doing so has no effect.
5333
e0e4a6e3 5334=item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b72d83b2 5335
6903afa2
FC
5336(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
5337to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
5338(normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
5339backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
b72d83b2 5340
e0e4a6e3
FC
5341=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5342m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
5343
5344(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
6903afa2 5345not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
bbaee129
FC
5346you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
5347expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 5348
6e8a73f2 5349The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a 5350discovered.
9baa0206 5351
e0e4a6e3
FC
5352=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
5353in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
5354
5355(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
9381611c 5356expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
6903afa2 5357such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
9381611c 5358spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
1a147d38 5359
6e8a73f2 5360The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
5361discovered.
5362
e0e4a6e3
FC
5363=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by
5364S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38 5365
bcb95744
FC
5366(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
5367are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
5368expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
1a147d38 5369
6e8a73f2 5370The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
5371discovered.
5372
a0d0e21e
LW
5373=item regexp memory corruption
5374
5375(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
5376expression compiler gave it.
5377
ff3f26d2
KW
5378=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
5379
4d910168 5380=item Regexp modifier "%c" may appear a maximum of twice in regex; marked
e0e4a6e3 5381by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 5382
ce170e67 5383(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
ff3f26d2 5384of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
3955e1a9 5385
6fbc9859
MH
5386=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <--
5387HERE in m/%s/
9442e3b8 5388
f8b5bc72
FC
5389(F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
5390another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
9442e3b8
KW
5391expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
5392the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
5393
591f5ca2
FC
5394=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
5395
4d910168
FC
5396=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear twice in regex; marked by <--
5397HERE in m/%s/
5398
ce170e67 5399(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
591f5ca2
FC
5400of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
5401
3955e1a9
KW
5402=item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
5403
4d910168 5404=item Regexp modifiers "%c" and "%c" are mutually exclusive in regex;
e0e4a6e3 5405marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 5406
ce170e67 5407(F) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
3955e1a9
KW
5408mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
5409supposed to be there.
5410
aec0ef10 5411=item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5412
be771a83
GS
5413(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
5414earlier.
a0d0e21e 5415
a7f533cb 5416=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @#)
a1b95068 5417
d7f8936a 5418(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068 5419numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
6903afa2 5420terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
a1b95068 5421
b08e453b
RB
5422=item Replacement list is longer than search list
5423
5424(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
fa816bf3 5425search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
b08e453b
RB
5426are meaningless.
5427
d9790612
KW
5428=item '(*%s' requires a terminating ':' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5429
5430(F) You used a construct that needs a colon and pattern argument.
5431Supply these or check that you are using the right construct.
5432
5e0a247b
KW
5433=item '%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'
5434
5435(W misc, regexp) You wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179> in a
5436double-quotish string. All but the last digit is treated as a single
5437character, specified in octal. The last digit is the next character in
5438the string. To tell Perl that this is indeed what you want, you can use
5439the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use exactly three digits to specify the octal
5440for the character.
5441
a0d0e21e
LW
5442=item Reversed %s= operator
5443
be771a83 5444(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
964742a1 5445always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 5446
abc7ecad
SP
5447=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5448
1b303a7d
FC
5449(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed
5450or not really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
abc7ecad 5451
96ebfdd7
RK
5452=item Scalars leaked: %d
5453
7bd1381d 5454(S internal) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping
4f5966a5
FC
5455of scalars: not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time
5456Perl exited. What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which
5457is of course bad, especially if the Perl program is intended to be
5458long-running.
96ebfdd7 5459
a0d0e21e
LW
5460=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
5461
be771a83
GS
5462(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
5463single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
5464value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
5465behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
5466argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
5467and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
5468if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 5469
748a9306 5470On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 5471element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
5472Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
5473L<perlref>.
5474
a6006777 5475=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
5476
75b44862 5477(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
5478element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
5479(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
5480like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
5481argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
5482and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
5483if you're expecting only one subscript.
5484
5485On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
5486as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
5487not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 5488L<perlref>.
5489
a0d0e21e
LW
5490=item Search pattern not terminated
5491
5492(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
5493construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5494Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 5495
ea9d9ebc 5496Note that since Perl 5.10.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd 5497construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
ea9d9ebc
FC
5498in Perl 5.10.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
5499misparsed by pre-5.10.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
5d9c98cd 5500
abc7ecad
SP
5501=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5502
5503(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
5504really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5505
3257ea4f
FC
5506=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
5507
5508(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
5509filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
5510
a0d0e21e
LW
5511=item select not implemented
5512
5513(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
5514
ae21d580 5515=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 5516
ae21d580
JH
5517(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
5518the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 5519
6df41af2 5520=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 5521
75b44862
GS
5522(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
5523semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
5524
5525=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
5526
be771a83
GS
5527(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
5528scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 5529
6df41af2 5530=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 5531
6df41af2 5532(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 5533
69282e91 5534=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5535
be771a83 5536(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5537before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5538
0ae4a328
FC
5539=item Sequence "\c{" invalid
5540
5541(F) These three characters may not appear in sequence in a
5542double-quotish context. This message is raised only on non-ASCII
5543platforms (a different error message is output on ASCII ones). If you
5544were intending to specify a control character with this sequence, you'll
5545have to use a different way to specify it.
5546
e0e4a6e3 5547=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7b8d334a 5548
6903afa2 5549(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
e0e4a6e3 5550S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6903afa2 5551discovered. See L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 5552
e0e4a6e3
FC
5553=item Sequence (?%c...) not implemented in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5554m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5555
6903afa2 5556(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
e0e4a6e3 5557but has not yet been written. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 5558regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5559
e0e4a6e3
FC
5560=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5561m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5562
d921c7bf 5563(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
e0e4a6e3 5564The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
d921c7bf 5565discovered. This may happen when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
fb85c044 5566Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9442e3b8 5567redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
9de15fec 5568causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 5569
aec0ef10 5570=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
5571
5572(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
aec0ef10 5573parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See
7253e4e3 5574L<perlre>.
6df41af2 5575
07ea66ee
FC
5576=item Sequence (?&... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5577m/%s/
5578
5579(F) A named reference of the form C<(?&...)> was missing the final
5580closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
5581in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5582
e0e4a6e3 5583=item Sequence (?%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
5584in m/%s/
5585
5586(F) A named group of the form C<(?'...')> or C<< (?<...>) >> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 5587closing quote or angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
4599db5f
FC
5588regular expression the problem was discovered.
5589
e0e4a6e3 5590=item Sequence (?(%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
5591in m/%s/
5592
5593(F) A named reference of the form C<(?('...')...)> or C<< (?(<...>)...) >> was
5594missing the final closing quote or angle bracket after the name. The
e0e4a6e3 5595S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4599db5f
FC
5596discovered.
5597
5b9ce456
KW
5598=item Sequence (?... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5599m/%s/
5600
5601(F) There was no matching closing parenthesis for the '('. The
5602S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
5603discovered.
5604
e0e4a6e3
FC
5605=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5606m/%s/
5a25739d
FC
5607
5608(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
5609sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
5610
9da1dd8f
DM
5611=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
5612
be149b43
DM
5613(F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
5614followed immediately by a ')'.
9da1dd8f 5615
74d1b2e4 5616=item Sequence (?PE<gt>... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4599db5f 5617
74d1b2e4 5618(F) A named reference of the form C<(?PE<gt>...)> was missing the final
cfbef7dc
KW
5619closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
5620in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5621
5622=item Sequence (?PE<lt>... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5623
5624(F) A named group of the form C<(?PE<lt>...E<gt>')> was missing the final
5625closing angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
5626regular expression the problem was discovered.
5627
74d1b2e4
FC
5628=item Sequence ?P=... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5629m/%s/
cfbef7dc 5630
74d1b2e4 5631(F) A named reference of the form C<(?P=...)> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 5632closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
4599db5f
FC
5633in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5634
5635=item Sequence (?R) not terminated in regex m/%s/
5636
5637(F) An C<(?R)> or C<(?0)> sequence in a regular expression was missing the
5638final parenthesis.
5639
3de20fbe 5640=item Z<>500 Server error
a5f75d66 5641
6903afa2
FC
5642(A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
5643when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
5644actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
5645frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
5646not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
5647headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 5648
5649B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
5650
6903afa2
FC
5651You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
5652the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
5653user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
5654variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
5655in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
5656less. Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 5657
06a5f41f
JH
5658 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
5659 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
5660 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 5661
be94a901
GS
5662You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
5663
a0d0e21e
LW
5664=item setegid() not implemented
5665
be771a83
GS
5666(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
5667support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5668didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5669
5670=item seteuid() not implemented
5671
be771a83
GS
5672(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
5673support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5674didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5675
81777298
GS
5676=item setpgrp can't take arguments
5677
be771a83
GS
5678(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
5679arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
5680group ID.
81777298 5681
a0d0e21e
LW
5682=item setrgid() not implemented
5683
be771a83
GS
5684(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
5685support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5686didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5687
5688=item setruid() not implemented
5689
be771a83
GS
5690(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
5691support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5692didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5693
6df41af2
GS
5694=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
5695
be771a83
GS
5696(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
5697forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
5698L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
5699
520b6fb6 5700=item Setting $/ to a reference to %s is forbidden
6da34ecb 5701
3f673807
FC
5702(F) You assigned a reference to a scalar to C<$/> where the referenced item is
5703not a positive integer. In older perls this B<appeared> to work the same as
5704setting it to C<undef> but was in fact internally different, less efficient
5705and with very bad luck could have resulted in your file being split by a
5706stringified form of the reference.
6da34ecb 5707
ea9d9ebc 5708In Perl 5.20.0 this was changed so that it would be B<exactly> the same as
3f673807 5709setting C<$/> to undef, with the exception that this warning would be thrown.
6da34ecb 5710
3f673807
FC
5711You are recommended to change your code to set C<$/> to C<undef> explicitly if
5712you wish to slurp the file. As of Perl 5.28 assigning C<$/> to a reference
5713to an integer which isn't positive is a fatal error.
6da34ecb 5714
ee0ba734 5715=item Setting $/ to %s reference is forbidden
a48e4205
FC
5716
5717(F) You tried to assign a reference to a non integer to C<$/>. In older
5718Perls this would have behaved similarly to setting it to a reference to
5719a positive integer, where the integer was the address of the reference.
5720As of Perl 5.20.0 this is a fatal error, to allow future versions of Perl
5721to use non-integer refs for more interesting purposes.
5722
a0d0e21e
LW
5723=item shm%s not implemented
5724
5725(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
5726
984200d0
YST
5727=item !=~ should be !~
5728
5729(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
5730interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
5731operators: probably not what you intended.
5732
6df41af2
GS
5733=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
5734
5735(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
5736as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
5737result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
5738probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 5739
69282e91 5740=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5741
75b44862
GS
5742(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
5743superfluous.
a0d0e21e 5744
f86702cc 5745=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 5746
be771a83
GS
5747(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
5748Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 5749
efc859fb
FC
5750=item Slab leaked from cv %p
5751
5752(S) If you see this message, then something is seriously wrong with the
5753internal bookkeeping of op trees. An op tree needed to be freed after
5754a compilation error, but could not be found, so it was leaked instead.
5755
3b9aea04
SH
5756=item sleep(%u) too large
5757
5758(W overflow) You called C<sleep> with a number that was larger than
5759it can reliably handle and C<sleep> probably slept for less time than
5760requested.
5761
30d9c59b
Z
5762=item Slurpy parameter not last
5763
5764(F) In a subroutine signature, you put something after a slurpy (array or
5765hash) parameter. The slurpy parameter takes all the available arguments,
5766so there can't be any left to fill later parameters.
5767
7896dde7
Z
5768=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
5769
5770(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
5771overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure
5772for the smart match.
5773
0f539b13
BF
5774=item Smartmatch is experimental
5775
5776(S experimental::smartmatch) This warning is emitted if you
5777use the smartmatch (C<~~>) operator. This is currently an experimental
5778feature, and its details are subject to change in future releases of
7896dde7
Z
5779Perl. Particularly, its current behavior is noticed for being
5780unnecessarily complex and unintuitive, and is very likely to be
5781overhauled.
0f539b13 5782
b02f3645
AC
5783=item Sorry, hash keys must be smaller than 2**31 bytes
5784
5785(F) You tried to create a hash containing a very large key, where "very
5786large" means that it needs at least 2 gigabytes to store. Unfortunately,
5787Perl doesn't yet handle such large hash keys. You should
5788reconsider your design to avoid hashing such a long string directly.
5789
714f94d1
FC
5790=item sort is now a reserved word
5791
5792(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
5793But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
5794
f1c31c52
FC
5795=item Source filters apply only to byte streams
5796
5797(F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
5798source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
5799not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
5800C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
5801
8cbc2e3b
JH
5802=item splice() offset past end of array
5803
5804(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
fa816bf3
FC
5805the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
5806end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
5807try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
5808See L<perlfunc/splice>.
8cbc2e3b 5809
a0d0e21e
LW
5810=item Split loop
5811
be771a83
GS
5812(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
5813iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
6903afa2 5814happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 5815
a0d0e21e
LW
5816=item Statement unlikely to be reached
5817
be771a83
GS
5818(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
5819die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
5820unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
5821instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
5822a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 5823
a21eb52b
FC
5824=item "state" subroutine %s can't be in a package
5825
5826(F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5827sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
5828
a2e39214
FC
5829=item "state %s" used in sort comparison
5830
5831(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
5832You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
5833sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
5834lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
5835name, or rename the lexical variable.
5836
5a25739d
FC
5837=item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
5838
5839(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5840sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
5841local() if you want to localize a package variable.
5842
9ddeeac9 5843=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 5844
355b1299
JH
5845(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
5846was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 5847
5a25739d
FC
5848=item Strings with code points over 0xFF may not be mapped into in-memory file handles
5849
5850(W utf8) You tried to open a reference to a scalar for read or append
5851where the scalar contained code points over 0xFF. In-memory files
5852model on-disk files and can only contain bytes.
5853
fe13d51d 5854=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 5855
be771a83
GS
5856(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
5857stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
5858C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 5859
a8c56356
DM
5860=item Subroutine attributes must come before the signature
5861
5862(F) When subroutine signatures are enabled, any subroutine attributes must
5863come before the signature. Note that this order was the opposite in
3b980406 5864versions 5.22..5.26. So:
a8c56356 5865
3b980406
Z
5866 sub foo :lvalue ($a, $b) { ... } # 5.20 and 5.28 +
5867 sub foo ($a, $b) :lvalue { ... } # 5.22 .. 5.26
a8c56356 5868
4e85e1b4
FC
5869=item Subroutine "&%s" is not available
5870
5871(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5872attempting to capture an outer lexical subroutine that is not currently
5873available. This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the lexical
c387a7d0
FC
5874subroutine may be declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has
5875not yet been created. (Remember that named subs are created at compile
5876time, while anonymous subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5877
5878 sub { my sub a {...} sub f { \&a } }
5879
c387a7d0 5880At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current "a" sub,
4e85e1b4
FC
5881since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely, the
5882following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by now
5883been created and is live:
5884
5885 sub { my sub a {...} eval 'sub f { \&a }' }->();
5886
c387a7d0
FC
5887The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a lexical subroutine
5888that has gone out of scope, for example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5889
5890 sub f {
5891 my sub a {...}
5892 sub { eval '\&a' }
5893 }
5894 f()->();
5895
5896Here, when the '\&a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
5897being executed, so its &a is not available for capture.
5898
4eb94d7c
FC
5899=item "%s" subroutine &%s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5900
52e3acf8 5901(W shadow) A "my" or "state" subroutine has been redeclared in the
4eb94d7c
FC
5902current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to
5903the previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error.
5904Note that the earlier subroutine will still exist until the end of
20d33786 5905the scope or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
4eb94d7c 5906
9d92fedb
FC
5907=item Subroutine %s redefined
5908
5909(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
5910
5911 {
5912 no warnings 'redefine';
5913 eval "sub name { ... }";
5914 }
5915
2a9203e9
FC
5916=item Subroutine "%s" will not stay shared
5917
5918(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a "my"
5919subroutine defined in an outer named subroutine.
5920
5921When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of the outer
5922subroutine's lexical subroutine as it was before and during the *first*
5923call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5924outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5925longer share a common value for the lexical subroutine. In other words,
5926it will no longer be shared. This will especially make a difference
5927if the lexical subroutines accesses lexical variables declared in its
5928surrounding scope.
5929
5930This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5931anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5932reference lexical subroutines in outer subroutines are created, they
5933are automatically rebound to the current values of such lexical subs.
5934
a0d0e21e
LW
5935=item Substitution loop
5936
be771a83
GS
5937(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
5938shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
5939is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 5940L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
5941
5942=item Substitution pattern not terminated
5943
d1be9408 5944(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5945construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5946Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5947
5948=item Substitution replacement not terminated
5949
d1be9408 5950(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5951construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5952Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5953
5954=item substr outside of string
5955
8a9eb13d 5956(W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
be771a83
GS
5957a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
5958length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
5959substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
5960assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 5961
bf1320bf
RGS
5962=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
5963
9d277376 5964(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
bf1320bf
RGS
5965inferior to its current type.
5966
05a40652
FC
5967=item SWASHNEW didn't return an HV ref
5968
5969(P) Something went wrong internally when Perl was trying to look up
5970Unicode characters.
5971
6fbc9859 5972=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5973S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5974
fa816bf3
FC
5975(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
5976two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
5977both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
5978it in clustering parentheses:
b45f050a
JF
5979
5980 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
5981
e0e4a6e3 5982The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem
fa816bf3 5983was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5984
e0e4a6e3
FC
5985=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5986m/%s/
b45f050a 5987
9f57786a
FC
5988(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
5989is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5990
5991 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
5992 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
5993 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
5994 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
5995 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
5996 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
5997 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
5998 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
5999 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
6000
6e8a73f2 6001The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9f57786a 6002discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 6003
a1244175
FC
6004=item Switch (?(condition)... not terminated in regex; marked by
6005S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6006
99775d13
FC
6007(F) You omitted to close a (?(condition)...) block somewhere
6008in the pattern. Add a closing parenthesis in the appropriate
6009position. See L<perlre>.
a1244175 6010
85ab1d1d
JH
6011=item switching effective %s is not implemented
6012
be771a83
GS
6013(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
6014and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 6015
a0d0e21e
LW
6016=item syntax error
6017
6018(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
6019
6020 A keyword is misspelled.
6021 A semicolon is missing.
6022 A comma is missing.
6023 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
6024 An opening or closing brace is missing.
6025 A closing quote is missing.
6026
6027Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
6028error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
6029The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
6030it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 6031before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
6032Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
6033the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
6034C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
524e9188 6035if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
a0d0e21e 6036
ccf3535a 6037=item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
cb1a09d0 6038
be771a83
GS
6039(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
6040of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
6041yourself.
cb1a09d0 6042
25f58aea
PN
6043=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
6044
6045(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
6046a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
6047or "my $var" or "our $var".
6048
19a498a4 6049=item Syntax error in (?[...]) in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6050
6051(F) Perl could not figure out what you meant inside this construct; this
6052notifies you that it is giving up trying.
6053
591f5ca2
FC
6054=item %s syntax OK
6055
6056(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
6057
b5fe5ca2
SR
6058=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
6059
6060(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
6061
6062=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
6063
6064(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
6065
6087ac44 6066=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 6067
6087ac44
JH
6068(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
6069"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
6070machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
6071unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 6072
69282e91 6073=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 6074
be771a83 6075(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 6076before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 6077
96ebfdd7
RK
6078=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
6079
6080(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
6081know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
6082
fc36a67e 6083=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
6084
be771a83
GS
6085(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
6086for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 6087
abc7ecad
SP
6088=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
6089
6090(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
6091a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
6092
c2771421
FC
6093=item tell() on unopened filehandle
6094
6095(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
6096was either never opened or has since been closed.
6097
e7206367
KW
6098=item The alpha_assertions feature is experimental
6099
6100(S experimental::alpha_assertions) This feature is experimental
8c11620d 6101and its behavior may change in any future release of perl. See
e7206367
KW
6102L<perlre/Extended Patterns>.
6103
67b16946 6104=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
a0d0e21e
LW
6105
6106(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
6107probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 6108think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
6109will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
6110will deny it.
6111
3f645a4e
FC
6112=item The experimental declared_refs feature is not enabled
6113
6114(F) To declare references to variables, as in C<my \%x>, you must first enable
6115the feature:
6116
6117 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
6118 use feature "declared_refs";
6119
675fa9ff
FC
6120=item The %s function is unimplemented
6121
6122(F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture,
6123according to the probings of Configure.
6124
21c34e97
KW
6125=item The private_use feature is experimental
6126
6127(S experimental::private_use) This feature is actually a hook for future
6128use.
6129
0d0b4b3b
KW
6130=item The regex_sets feature is experimental
6131
6132(S experimental::regex_sets) This warning is emitted if you
6133use the syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression.
6134The details of this feature are subject to change.
27169d38 6135If you want to use it, but know that in doing so you
0d0b4b3b
KW
6136are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which may
6137change in a future Perl version, you can do this to silence the
6138warning:
6139
6140 no warnings "experimental::regex_sets";
6141
edf23316
FC
6142=item The script_run feature is experimental
6143
6144(S experimental::script_run) This feature is experimental
6145and its behavior may in any future release of perl. See
6146L<perlre/Script Runs>.
6147
30d9c59b
Z
6148=item The signatures feature is experimental
6149
6150(S experimental::signatures) This warning is emitted if you unwrap a
6151subroutine's arguments using a signature. Simply suppress the warning
6152if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
6153the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be removed
6154in a future Perl version:
6155
6156 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
6157 use feature "signatures";
6158 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
6159
5e1c7ca2 6160=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 6161
be771a83
GS
6162(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
6163linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
6164past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
6165instead.
a0d0e21e 6166
1532347b
KW
6167=item The Unicode property wildcards feature is experimental
6168
6169(S experimental::uniprop_wildcards) This feature is experimental
6170and its behavior may in any future release of perl. See
6171L<perlunicode/Wildcards in Property Values>.
6172
371fce9b
DM
6173=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
6174
1108974d 6175(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 6176
437784d6 6177=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
6178
6179=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
6180
75b44862 6181(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
6182element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
6183wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
6184need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
6185F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
6186target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
6187%ENV which produced the warning.
6188
6a5b4183
YO
6189=item This Perl has not been built with support for randomized hash key traversal but something called Perl_hv_rand_set().
6190
6191(F) Something has attempted to use an internal API call which
6192depends on Perl being compiled with the default support for randomized hash
f26c79ba 6193key traversal, but this Perl has been compiled without it. You should
6a5b4183
YO
6194report this warning to the relevant upstream party, or recompile perl
6195with default options.
6196
1f692f6a
JK
6197=item This use of my() in false conditional is no longer allowed
6198
6199(F) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
6200has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6201not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6202conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
6203static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6204relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6205declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
6206
6207 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
6208
6209becomes
6210
6211 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
6212
6213Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
6214lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
6215
6216 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
6217
6218This use of C<my()> in a false conditional was deprecated beginning in
6219Perl 5.10 and became a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
6220
a0d0e21e
LW
6221=item times not implemented
6222
be771a83
GS
6223(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
6224suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 6225
6d3b25aa
RGS
6226=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
6227
b7e4ecc1
FC
6228(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
6229the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
6230B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
6231Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
6232everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
6d3b25aa
RGS
6233
6234If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
b7e4ecc1
FC
6235mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
6236fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
6237Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
6238
6239If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 6240B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 6241
3a2263fe
RGS
6242=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
6243
6244(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
6245uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
6246specified an illegal mapping.
6247See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
6248
49704364
WL
6249=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
6250
1a147d38 6251(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 6252
a0d0e21e
LW
6253=item Too few args to syscall
6254
6255(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
6256system call to call, silly dilly.
6257
ac7609e4 6258=item Too few arguments for subroutine '%s'
bb6b75cd 6259
3f673807
FC
6260(F) A subroutine using a signature fewer arguments than required by the
6261signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
bb6b75cd 6262
3f673807
FC
6263The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If
6264the subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be
6265shown, regardless of what name the caller used.
ac7609e4 6266
96ebfdd7
RK
6267=item Too late for "-%s" option
6268
6269(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
6270B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
6271
6903afa2
FC
6272In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
6273are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4ba71d51 6274
6903afa2
FC
6275The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
6276well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
6277specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
6278it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
6279it to perl.
96ebfdd7 6280
ddda08b7
GS
6281=item Too late to run %s block
6282
6283(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
6284when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
6285loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
6286instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
6287BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 6288
a0d0e21e
LW
6289=item Too many args to syscall
6290
5f05dabc 6291(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
6292
6293=item Too many arguments for %s
6294
6295(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
6296
ac7609e4 6297=item Too many arguments for subroutine '%s'
bb6b75cd 6298
3f673807
FC
6299(F) A subroutine using a signature received more arguments than permitted
6300by the signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
bb6b75cd 6301
ac7609e4
AC
6302The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
6303subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
6304regardless of what name the caller used.
bb6b75cd 6305
6ef7fe53
KW
6306=item Too many nested open parens in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6307
6308(F) You have exceeded the number of open C<"("> parentheses that haven't
6309been matched by corresponding closing ones. This limit prevents eating
6310up too much memory. It is initially set to 1000, but may be changed by
6311setting C<${^RE_COMPILE_RECURSION_LIMIT}> to some other value. This may
6312need to be done in a BEGIN block before the regular expression pattern
6313is compiled.
6314
6df41af2
GS
6315=item Too many )'s
6316
49704364
WL
6317(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6318Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6319
8c40cb74
NC
6320=item Too many ('s
6321
be771a83
GS
6322(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6323Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 6324
7253e4e3 6325=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 6326
be771a83
GS
6327(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
6328Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 6329
2c268ad5 6330=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
6331
6332(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 6333or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
6334C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 6335
2c268ad5 6336=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 6337
6a36df5d
YST
6338(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
6339y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 6340
96ebfdd7
RK
6341=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
6342
6343(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
6903afa2 6344disallowed. See L<Safe>.
96ebfdd7 6345
a0d0e21e
LW
6346=item truncate not implemented
6347
6348(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
6349Configure knows about.
6350
19c481f4
FC
6351=item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
6352
6353(F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
6354to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
6355ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
6356nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
6357
a0d0e21e
LW
6358=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
6359
6360(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 6361certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
6362%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
6363{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
6364
eec2d3df
GS
6365=item umask not implemented
6366
be771a83
GS
6367(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
6368use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e
LW
6369
6370=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
6371
c632e777 6372(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6373many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
6374
6375=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
6376
4a983e45 6377(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6378many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
6379
6380=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
6381
090cebb2 6382(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6383many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e 6384
6651ba0b
FC
6385=item Unbalanced string table refcount: (%d) for "%s"
6386
31ff3bd2 6387(S internal) On exit, Perl found some strings remaining in the shared
6651ba0b
FC
6388string table used for copy on write and for hash keys. The entries
6389should have been freed, so this indicates a bug somewhere.
6390
a0d0e21e
LW
6391=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
6392
2092d7c1 6393(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6394many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
6395
6396=item Undefined format "%s" called
6397
6398(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
6399another package? See L<perlform>.
6400
6401=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
6402
be771a83
GS
6403(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
6404Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6405
6406=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
6407
be771a83
GS
6408(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
6409since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
6410
6411=item Undefined subroutine called
6412
6413(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
6414or if it was, it has since been undefined.
6415
6416=item Undefined subroutine in sort
6417
be771a83
GS
6418(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
6419to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 6420
4633a7c4
LW
6421=item Undefined top format "%s" called
6422
6423(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
6424another package? See L<perlform>.
6425
20408e3c
GS
6426=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
6427
be771a83
GS
6428(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
6429C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
6430C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 6431
6df41af2
GS
6432=item %s: Undefined variable
6433
be771a83
GS
6434(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6435Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 6436
76416d1a
KW
6437=item Unescaped left brace in regex is passed through in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6438
6439(W regexp) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
6440match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
6441regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6442some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
6443C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6444delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
6445also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6446
6447 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6448
6449Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
6450language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6451needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6452contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
6453conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6454not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6455non-deprecation warning.
6456
6457In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
6458still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
6459literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
6460v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6461now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
6462The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
6463
6464The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6465
6466=over 4
6467
6468=item *
6469
6470as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
6471anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6472
6473=item *
6474
6475as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
6476
6477=item *
6478
6479as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6480
6481 /foo({bar)/
6482 /foo(?:{bar)/
6483
6484=item *
6485
6486as the first character following a quantifier
6487
6488 /\s*{/
6489
6490=back
6491
6492=for comment
6493The text of the message above is duplicated below to allow splain (and
6494'use diagnostics') to work. Since one is deprecated, and one not, khw
6495thinks they can't be combined as one message.
8e84dec2 6496
0367231c
KW
6497=item Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated here (and will be fatal in Perl 5.32), passed through in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6498
8e84dec2 6499(D deprecated, regexp) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
21792e61 6500match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
8e84dec2
KW
6501regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6502some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
21792e61
KW
6503C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6504delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
8e84dec2
KW
6505also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6506
6507 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6508
21792e61 6509Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
8e84dec2
KW
6510language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6511needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6512contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
76416d1a
KW
6513conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6514not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6515non-deprecation warning.
8e84dec2 6516
21792e61 6517In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
8e84dec2 6518still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
21792e61 6519literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
8e84dec2
KW
6520v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6521now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
76416d1a 6522The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
8e84dec2
KW
6523
6524The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6525
6526=over 4
6527
6528=item *
6529
21792e61 6530as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
8e84dec2
KW
6531anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6532
6533=item *
6534
21792e61 6535as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
8e84dec2
KW
6536
6537=item *
6538
6539as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6540
6541 /foo({bar)/
6542 /foo(?:{bar)/
6543
6544=item *
6545
6546as the first character following a quantifier
6547
6548 /\s*{/
6549
6550=back
6551
6552=for comment
6553The text of the message above is duplicated below to allow splain (and
6554'use diagnostics') to work. Since one is fatal, and one not, they can't
76416d1a
KW
6555be combined as one message. Perhaps perldiag could be enhanced to
6556handle this case.
8e84dec2
KW
6557
6558=item Unescaped left brace in regex is illegal here in regex;
6e8a73f2 6559marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
412f55bb 6560
8e84dec2
KW
6561(F) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
6562match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
6563regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6564some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
6565C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6566delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
6567also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6568
6569 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6570
6571Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
6572language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6573needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6574contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
76416d1a
KW
6575conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal. Those that are
6576not potentially ambiguous do not warn; those that are do raise a
6577non-deprecation warning.
8e84dec2
KW
6578
6579In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
6580still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
6581literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
6582v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6583now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
76416d1a 6584The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.32.
8e84dec2
KW
6585
6586The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6587
6588=over 4
6589
6590=item *
6591
6592as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
6593anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6594
6595=item *
6596
6597as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
6598
6599=item *
6600
6601as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6602
6603 /foo({bar)/
6604 /foo(?:{bar)/
6605
6606=item *
6607
6608as the first character following a quantifier
412f55bb 6609
8e84dec2 6610 /\s*{/
412f55bb 6611
8e84dec2 6612=back
1656665e 6613
a4368cc3
KW
6614=item Unescaped literal '%c' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6615
6616(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>>)
6617
6618Within the scope of C<S<use re 'strict'>> in a regular expression
6619pattern, you included an unescaped C<}> or C<]> which was interpreted
6620literally. These two characters are sometimes metacharacters, and
6621sometimes literals, depending on what precedes them in the
6622pattern. This is unlike the similar C<)> which is always a
6623metacharacter unless escaped.
6624
6625This action at a distance, perhaps a large distance, can lead to Perl
6626silently misinterpreting what you meant, so when you specify that you
6627want extra checking by C<S<use re 'strict'>>, this warning is generated.
6628If you meant the character as a literal, simply confirm that to Perl by
6629preceding the character with a backslash, or make it into a bracketed
6630character class (like C<[}]>). If you meant it as closing a
6631corresponding C<[> or C<{>, you'll need to look back through the pattern
6632to find out why that isn't happening.
6633
a0d0e21e
LW
6634=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
6635
6636(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
6637representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
6638
e0e4a6e3
FC
6639=item Unexpected binary operator '%c' with no preceding operand in regex;
6640marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6641
675fa9ff 6642(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
6643
6644 (?[ | \p{Digit} ])
6645
6646where the C<"|"> is a binary operator with an operand on the right, but
6647no operand on the left.
6648
e0e4a6e3 6649=item Unexpected character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6650
675fa9ff 6651(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
6652
6653 (?[ z ])
6654
6655Within C<(?[ ])>, no literal characters are allowed unless they are
6656within an inner pair of square brackets, like
6657
6658 (?[ [ z ] ])
6659
6660Another possibility is that you forgot a backslash. Perl isn't smart
6661enough to figure out what you really meant.
6662
6651ba0b
FC
6663=item Unexpected constant lvalue entersub entry via type/targ %d:%d
6664
6665(P) When compiling a subroutine call in lvalue context, Perl failed an
6666internal consistency check. It encountered a malformed op tree.
6667
6c341f67
TC
6668=item Unexpected exit %u
6669
6670(S) exit() was called or the script otherwise finished gracefully when
6671C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in C<PL_exit_flags>.
6672
878ce265 6673=item Unexpected exit failure %d
6c341f67
TC
6674
6675(S) An uncaught die() was called when C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in
6676C<PL_exit_flags>.
6677
e0e4a6e3 6678=item Unexpected ')' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6679
6680(F) You had something like this:
6681
6682 (?[ ( \p{Digit} + ) ])
6683
6684The C<")"> is out-of-place. Something apparently was supposed to
6685be combined with the digits, or the C<"+"> shouldn't be there, or
6686something like that. Perl can't figure out what was intended.
6687
c9ffefcc
FC
6688=item Unexpected ']' with no following ')' in (?[... in regex; marked by
6689<-- HERE in m/%s/
6690
6691(F) While parsing an extended character class a ']' character was
6692encountered at a point in the definition where the only legal use of
6693']' is to close the character class definition as part of a '])', you
6694may have forgotten the close paren, or otherwise confused the parser.
6695
e0e4a6e3
FC
6696=item Unexpected '(' with no preceding operator in regex; marked by
6697S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6698
6699(F) You had something like this:
6700
6701 (?[ \p{Digit} ( \p{Lao} + \p{Thai} ) ])
6702
6703There should be an operator before the C<"(">, as there's
6704no indication as to how the digits are to be combined
6705with the characters in the Lao and Thai scripts.
6706
ba707cdc 6707=item Unicode non-character U+%X is not recommended for open interchange
0876b9a0 6708
4c2e59a0 6709(S nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
66a1f5ec
FC
6710defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those
6711are legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so,
6712applications shouldn't attempt to exchange them. An application
6713may not be expecting any of these characters at all, and receiving
6714them may lead to bugs. If you know what you are doing you can
6715turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
6716
6717This is not really a "severe" error, but it is supposed to be
6718raised by default even if warnings are not enabled, and currently
6719the only way to do that in Perl is to mark it as serious.
6a807e21 6720
1532347b
KW
6721=item Unicode property wildcard not terminated
6722
6723(F) A Unicode property wildcard looks like a delimited regular
6724expression pattern (all within the braces of the enclosing C<\p{...}>.
6725The closing delimtter to match the opening one was not found. If the
6726opening one is escaped by preceding it with a backslash, the closing one
6727must also be so escaped.
6728
c794c51b
FC
6729=item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
6730
4c2e59a0 6731(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
c794c51b
FC
6732not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
6733U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
6734internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
6735available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
6736problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
6737came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 6738off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
c794c51b 6739
dcfe9e74
KW
6740=item Unknown charname '%s'
6741
6742(F) The name you used inside C<\N{}> is unknown to Perl. Check the
6743spelling. You can say C<use charnames ":loose"> to not have to be
6744so precise about spaces, hyphens, and capitalization on standard Unicode
6745names. (Any custom aliases that have been created must be specified
6746exactly, regardless of whether C<:loose> is used or not.) This error may
6747also happen if the C<\N{}> is not in the scope of the corresponding
6748C<S<use charnames>>.
6749
d9790612
KW
6750=item Unknown '(*...)' construct '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6751
6752(F) The C<(*> was followed by something that the regular expression
6753compiler does not recognize. Check your spelling.
6754
04177465
FC
6755=item Unknown error
6756
6757(P) Perl was about to print an error message in C<$@>, but the C<$@> variable
6758did not exist, even after an attempt to create it.
6759
7bb2ffc8
KW
6760=item Unknown locale category %d; can't set it to %s
6761
6762(W locale) You used a locale category that perl doesn't recognize, so it
6763cannot carry out your request. Check that you are using a valid
6764category. If so, see L<perllocale/Multi-threaded> for advice on
6765reporting this as a bug, and for modifying perl locally to accommodate
6766your needs.
6767
6170680b
IZ
6768=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
6769
437784d6 6770(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 6771of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 6772C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 6773
b4581f09
JH
6774=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
6775
6776(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
6777system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
6778internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
6779are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
6780explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
6781value of the environment variable PERLIO.
6782
f675dbe5
CB
6783=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
6784
6785(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
6786iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
6787data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
6788subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 6789
283151b7 6790=item Unknown regexp modifier "/%s"
0da72d5e
KW
6791
6792(F) Alphanumerics immediately following the closing delimiter
6793of a regular expression pattern are interpreted by Perl as modifier
6794flags for the regex. One of the ones you specified is invalid. One way
6795this can happen is if you didn't put in white space between the end of
6796the regex and a following alphanumeric operator:
6797
6798 if ($a =~ /foo/and $bar == 3) { ... }
6799
6800The C<"a"> is a valid modifier flag, but the C<"n"> is not, and raises
6801this error. Likely what was meant instead was:
6802
6803 if ($a =~ /foo/ and $bar == 3) { ... }
6804
5a25739d
FC
6805=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
6806
6807(W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
6808
e0e4a6e3
FC
6809=item Unknown switch condition (?(...)) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6810m/%s/
96ebfdd7
RK
6811
6812(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6903afa2 6813is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5fecf430 6814
e7206367
KW
6815 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
6816 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
6817 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
6818 (*pla:...) (*plb:...) true if subpattern matches; also
6819 (*positive_lookahead:...)
6820 (*positive_lookbehind:...)
6821 (*nla:...) (*nlb:...) true if subpattern fails to match; also
6822 (*negative_lookahead:...)
6823 (*negative_lookbehind:...)
6824 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
6825 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
6826 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2,
6827 etc.
6828 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
6829 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
96ebfdd7 6830
6e8a73f2 6831The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
96ebfdd7
RK
6832discovered. See L<perlre>.
6833
a05d7ebb
JH
6834=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
6835
a4a4c9e2 6836(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb
JH
6837of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
6838
64187737 6839=item Unknown Unicode option value %d
a05d7ebb 6840
a4a4c9e2 6841(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb 6842of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 6843
e0e4a6e3 6844=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1
YO
6845
6846(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
6847after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
6848L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
6849
c2771421
FC
6850=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
6851
6903afa2 6852(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
c2771421
FC
6853category that is unknown to perl at this point.
6854
14ef4c80
FC
6855Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
6856module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
6857module first.
c2771421 6858
e0e4a6e3 6859=item Unmatched [ in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6860
6903afa2 6861(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 6862include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
e0e4a6e3 6863first. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
6903afa2 6864problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 6865
e0e4a6e3 6866=item Unmatched ( in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 6867
e0e4a6e3 6868=item Unmatched ) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
6869
6870(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
6903afa2 6871expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
e0e4a6e3 6872the matching parenthesis. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 6873regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 6874
d98d5fff 6875=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 6876
be771a83
GS
6877(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
6878ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
6879general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
6880you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 6881
a0d0e21e
LW
6882=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
6883
be771a83
GS
6884(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
6885reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
6886somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
6887subroutine.
a0d0e21e 6888
e0e4a6e3
FC
6889=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by S<<-- HERE> after %s near column
6890%d
a0d0e21e 6891
54310121 6892(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
1b303a7d
FC
6893in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you
6894tried to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as
6895a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 6896
e0e4a6e3
FC
6897=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class in regex; marked by
6898S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6899
675fa9ff
FC
6900(F) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6901recognized by Perl inside character classes. This is a fatal
6902error when the character class is used within C<(?[ ])>.
0d0b4b3b 6903
6fbc9859 6904=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex;
e0e4a6e3 6905marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6906
be771a83
GS
6907(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6908recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 6909understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
e0e4a6e3 6910The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2628b4e0 6911escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6912
4a68bf9d 6913=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 6914
2628b4e0 6915(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
6916recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
6917change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 6918
e0e4a6e3
FC
6919=item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by
6920S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6921
be771a83 6922(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b7e4ecc1 6923recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
e0e4a6e3 6924this may change in a future version of Perl. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 6925whereabouts in the regular expression the escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6926
a0d0e21e
LW
6927=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
6928
be771a83
GS
6929(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
6930recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
6931on your system.
a0d0e21e 6932
90248788 6933=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 6934
be771a83
GS
6935(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
6936think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
6937bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
6938
6939=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
6940
be771a83
GS
6941(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
6942operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 6943PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6944
6945=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
6946
6947(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
6948
6df41af2
GS
6949=item Unsupported function %s
6950
6951(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
6952At least, Configure doesn't think so.
6953
54310121 6954=item Unsupported function fork
6955
6956(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
6957
be771a83 6958Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6903afa2 6959of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
be771a83 6960changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 6961
7aa207d6 6962=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
6963
6964(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 6965declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 6966
a0d0e21e
LW
6967=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
6968
6969(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
6970least that's what Configure thought.
6971
d9790612
KW
6972=item Unterminated '(*...' argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6973
6974(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*...:...)> but did not terminate
6975the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
6976
6df41af2 6977=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 6978
be771a83
GS
6979(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
6980start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
6981block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
6982attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 6983
09bef843
SB
6984=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
6985
be771a83
GS
6986(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
6987an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
6988character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
6989character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
6990
f1991046
GS
6991=item Unterminated compressed integer
6992
6993(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
6994compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
6995See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6996
d9790612
KW
6997=item Unterminated '(*...' construct in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6998
6999(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*...)> but did not terminate
7000the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
7001
6f2d7fc9
FC
7002=item Unterminated delimiter for here document
7003
7004(F) This message occurs when a here document label has an initial
7005quotation mark but the final quotation mark is missing. Perhaps
7006you wrote:
7007
7008 <<"foo
7009
7010instead of:
7011
7012 <<"foo"
7013
e0e4a6e3 7014=item Unterminated \g... pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
779fedd7 7015
e0e4a6e3 7016=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2bf803e2 7017
5364049c
KW
7018(F) In a regular expression, you had a C<\g> that wasn't followed by a
7019proper group reference. In the case of C<\g{>, the closing brace is
7020missing; otherwise the C<\g> must be followed by an integer. Fix the
7021pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 7022
6df41af2 7023=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 7024
6df41af2 7025(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
7026a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
7027not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
7028earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 7029
e0e4a6e3
FC
7030=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
7031m/%s/
905fe053
FC
7032
7033(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 7034the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 7035
e0e4a6e3 7036=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
905fe053
FC
7037
7038(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 7039the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 7040
6df41af2 7041=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 7042
be771a83
GS
7043(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
7044still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 7045
8e11cd2b
JC
7046=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
7047
7048(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
7049See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
7050
7051=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
7052
7053(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
7054See L<Win32> for more information.
7055
89474f50
FC
7056=item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
7057
7058(W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
7059
7060 if ($[ > 5.006) {
7061 ...
7062 }
7063
7064You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
7065arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
7066
6da34ecb
FC
7067=item Use "%s" instead of "%s"
7068
7069(F) The second listed construct is no longer legal. Use the first one
7070instead.
7071
8fe85e3f
FC
7072=item Useless assignment to a temporary
7073
7074(W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
7075the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
7076be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
7077
e0e4a6e3
FC
7078=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by
7079S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 7080
96ebfdd7
RK
7081(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
7082meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 7083
96ebfdd7 7084 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
7085
7086must be written as
7087
96ebfdd7 7088 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5 7089
6e8a73f2 7090The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9e3ec65c 7091discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 7092
b4581f09
JH
7093=item Useless localization of %s
7094
6903afa2
FC
7095(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
7096but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
b4581f09
JH
7097some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
7098
e0e4a6e3
FC
7099=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
7100m/%s/
9d1d55b5 7101
96ebfdd7
RK
7102(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
7103meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 7104
96ebfdd7 7105 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
7106
7107must be written as
7108
96ebfdd7 7109 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5 7110
6e8a73f2 7111The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9e3ec65c 7112discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 7113
3108f4df
FC
7114=item Useless use of attribute "const"
7115
796b6530 7116(W misc) The C<const> attribute has no effect except
3108f4df
FC
7117on anonymous closure prototypes. You applied it to
7118a subroutine via L<attributes.pm|attributes>. This is only useful
7119inside an attribute handler for an anonymous subroutine.
7120
b08e453b
RB
7121=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
7122
7123(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6903afa2 7124same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
b08e453b
RB
7125about the /d modifier.
7126
820438b1
FC
7127=item Useless use of \E
7128
7129(W misc) You have a \E in a double-quotish string without a C<\U>,
7130C<\L> or C<\Q> preceding it.
7131
4fa6dd16
KW
7132=item Useless use of greediness modifier '%c' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7133
7134(W regexp) You specified something like these:
7135
7136 qr/a{3}?/
7137 qr/b{1,1}+/
7138
7139The C<"?"> and C<"+"> don't have any effect, as they modify whether to
7140match more or fewer when there is a choice, and by specifying to match
7141exactly a given numer, there is no room left for a choice.
7142
6df41af2 7143=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 7144
75b44862 7145(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
7146nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
7147value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
7148often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
7149to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
7150get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
7151said
a0d0e21e 7152
6df41af2 7153 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 7154
6df41af2
GS
7155when you meant to say
7156
7157 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
7158
7159Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
7160reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
7161example, if you say
7162
7163 $array = (1,2);
7164
7165when you should have said
7166
7167 $array = [1,2];
7168
7169The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
7170while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
7171a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
7172throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
7173L<perlref> for more on this.
7174
65191a1e
BS
7175This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
7176since they are often used in statements like
7177
4358a253 7178 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
7179
7180String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
7181about.
7182
e0e4a6e3 7183=item Useless use of (?-p) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
7184
7185(W regexp) The C<p> modifier cannot be turned off once set. Trying to do
7186so is futile.
7187
6df41af2
GS
7188=item Useless use of "re" pragma
7189
6903afa2 7190(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6df41af2 7191
a801c63c
RGS
7192=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
7193
7194(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
7195
7196 my $x = sort @y;
7197
7198This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
7199
de4864e4
JH
7200=item Useless use of %s with no values
7201
f87c3213 7202(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6903afa2
FC
7203apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
7204usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
de4864e4 7205possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6903afa2 7206if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
de4864e4
JH
7207you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
7208
6df41af2
GS
7209=item "use" not allowed in expression
7210
be771a83
GS
7211(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
7212returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 7213
c6e25b09 7214=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is forbidden
4633a7c4 7215
3f673807
FC
7216(F) You are now required to use the explicitly quoted form if you wish
7217to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
83ce3e12 7218
3f673807
FC
7219Use of a bare terminator was deprecated in Perl 5.000, and is a fatal
7220error as of Perl 5.28.
e5aa3f0b 7221
64e578a2
MJD
7222=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
7223
7224(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
7225modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
7226
4ac733c9
MJD
7227=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
7228
7229(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
7230use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
7231used. (This may change in the future.)
7232
fb7e7255
KW
7233=item Use of code point 0x%s is not allowed; the permissible max is 0x%x
7234
7235=item Use of code point 0x%s is not allowed; the permissible max is 0x%x
7236in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
113b8661
A
7237
7238(F) You used a code point that is not allowed, because it is too large.
7239Unicode only allows code points up to 0x10FFFF, but Perl allows much
7240larger ones. Earlier versions of Perl allowed code points above IV_MAX
7241(0x7FFFFFF on 32-bit platforms, 0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF on 64-bit platforms),
7242however, this could possibly break the perl interpreter in some constructs,
7243including causing it to hang in a few cases.
2d212e86
KW
7244
7245If your code is to run on various platforms, keep in mind that the upper
7246limit depends on the platform. It is much larger on 64-bit word sizes
7247than 32-bit ones.
7248
fcdb3ac1 7249The use of out of range code points was deprecated in Perl 5.24, and
113b8661 7250became a fatal error in Perl 5.28.
fcdb3ac1 7251
675fa9ff
FC
7252=item Use of each() on hash after insertion without resetting hash iterator results in undefined behavior
7253
f26c79ba
FC
7254(S internal) The behavior of C<each()> after insertion is undefined;
7255it may skip items, or visit items more than once. Consider using
7256C<keys()> instead of C<each()>.
675fa9ff 7257
2dc78664 7258=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
036e1e65 7259
2dc78664
NC
7260(F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
7261C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
7262This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
7263error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
7264
7265If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
7266a space before the C<=>.
036e1e65 7267
fafdadbd
KW
7268=item Use of %s for non-UTF-8 locale is wrong. Assuming a UTF-8 locale
7269
7270(W locale) You are matching a regular expression using locale rules,
7271and the specified construct was encountered. This construct is only
7272valid for UTF-8 locales, which the current locale isn't. This doesn't
7273make sense. Perl will continue, assuming a Unicode (UTF-8) locale, but
7274the results are likely to be wrong.
7275
b6c83531 7276=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 7277
b6c83531
JH
7278(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
7279This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
7280
7281 @a = (3,4);
7282 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
7283
7284You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
7285For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
7286reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
7287middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
7288
96ebfdd7 7289=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 7290
96ebfdd7
RK
7291(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
7292operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
7293repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 7294
dc6e8de0 7295=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
0b98bec9
RGS
7296
7297(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
7298scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
7299
dc6e8de0 7300This was deprecated in Perl 5.12.
9fc8eee0 7301
600c10ce
KW
7302=item Use of '%s' in \p{} or \P{} is deprecated because: %s
7303
7304(D deprecated) Certain properties are deprecated by Unicode, and may
7305eventually be removed from the Standard, at which time Perl will follow
7306along. In the meantime, this message is raised to notify you.
7307
64278e8c
A
7308=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s::%s() is no longer allowed
7309
7310(F) As an accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines were looked up as
7311methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy), even when the subroutines to be
7312autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as
7313methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<< $obj->bar() >>).
7314
7315This was deprecated in Perl 5.004, and was made fatal in Perl 5.28.
d9d53e86 7316
6df41af2
GS
7317=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
7318
7319(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
7320only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
7321
5840701a 7322=item Use of -l on filehandle%s
5a7abfcc
FC
7323
7324(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
7325it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
7326The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
7327
1f1cc344 7328=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 7329
77b96956 7330(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
7331isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
7332to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 7333
64977eb6 7334If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344 7335C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
54e0f05c 7336however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
c69ca1d4 7337operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 7338
87e05d1a 7339=item Use of strings with code points over 0xFF as arguments to %s
5d09ee1c 7340operator is not allowed
87e05d1a 7341
3f673807
FC
7342(F) You tried to use one of the string bitwise operators (C<&> or C<|> or C<^> or
7343C<~>) on a string containing a code point over 0xFF. The string bitwise
7344operators treat their operands as strings of bytes, and values beyond
73450xFF are nonsensical in this context.
87e05d1a 7346
c8b94fe0 7347Certain instances became fatal in Perl 5.28; others in perl 5.32.
ecbcbef0 7348
da5a0da2 7349=item Use of strings with code points over 0xFF as arguments to vec is forbidden
315f3fc1 7350
da5a0da2 7351(F) You tried to use L<C<vec>|perlfunc/vec EXPR,OFFSET,BITS>
315f3fc1
KW
7352on a string containing a code point over 0xFF, which is nonsensical here.
7353
da5a0da2 7354This became fatal in Perl 5.32.
315f3fc1 7355
bbd7eb8a
RD
7356=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
7357
159f47d9 7358(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
7359arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
7360but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
7361arguments. See L<perlsec>.
7362
94749a5e 7363=item Use of unassigned code point or non-standalone grapheme for a
823c3b2d 7364delimiter is not allowed
94749a5e 7365
823c3b2d 7366(F)
94749a5e
KW
7367A grapheme is what appears to a native-speaker of a language to be a
7368character. In Unicode (and hence Perl) a grapheme may actually be
7369several adjacent characters that together form a complete grapheme. For
7370example, there can be a base character, like "R" and an accent, like a
7371circumflex "^", that appear when displayed to be a single character with
7372the circumflex hovering over the "R". Perl currently allows things like
7373that circumflex to be delimiters of strings, patterns, I<etc>. When
7374displayed, the circumflex would look like it belongs to the character
7375just to the left of it. In order to move the language to be able to
823c3b2d 7376accept graphemes as delimiters, we cannot allow the use of
94749a5e
KW
7377delimiters which aren't graphemes by themselves. Also, a delimiter must
7378already be assigned (or known to be never going to be assigned) to try
7379to future-proof code, for otherwise code that works today would fail to
7380compile if the currently unassigned delimiter ends up being something
7381that isn't a stand-alone grapheme. Because Unicode is never going to
7382assign
7383L<non-character code points|perlunicode/Noncharacter code points>, nor
7384L<code points that are above the legal Unicode maximum|
7385perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points>, those can be delimiters, and
823c3b2d 7386their use is legal.
94749a5e 7387
cc95b072 7388=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 7389
be771a83
GS
7390(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
7391defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
7392To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 7393
6903afa2
FC
7394To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
7395the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
7396it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
7397undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
50a39ba4 7398and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
6903afa2
FC
7399literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
7400optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
7401C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
7402your program.
e5be4a53 7403
67cdf558
KW
7404=item "use re 'strict'" is experimental
7405
7406(S experimental::re_strict) The things that are different when a regular
7407expression pattern is compiled under C<'strict'> are subject to change
7408in future Perl releases in incompatible ways. This means that a pattern
7409that compiles today may not in a future Perl release. This warning is
7410to alert you to that risk.
7411
e0e4a6e3
FC
7412=item Use \x{...} for more than two hex characters in regex; marked by
7413S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
7414
7415(F) In a regular expression, you said something like
7416
7417 (?[ [ \xBEEF ] ])
7418
7419Perl isn't sure if you meant this
7420
7421 (?[ [ \x{BEEF} ] ])
7422
7423or if you meant this
7424
7425 (?[ [ \x{BE} E F ] ])
7426
7427You need to add either braces or blanks to disambiguate.
7428
6fbc9859 7429=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class in
e0e4a6e3 7430regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ff3f963a 7431
f3ba6905
FC
7432(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return
7433a multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
7434supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match
7435the whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted
7436(C<[^...]>), or the escape is the beginning or final end point of
7437a range. For these, what should happen isn't clear at all. In
7438these circumstances, Perl discards all but the first character
7439of the returned sequence, which is not likely what you want.
ff3f963a 7440
6e8a73f2 7441=item Using /u for '%s' instead of /%s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
64935bc6
KW
7442
7443(W regexp) You used a Unicode boundary (C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}>) in a
7444portion of a regular expression where the character set modifiers C</a>
7445or C</aa> are in effect. These two modifiers indicate an ASCII
33f0d962 7446interpretation, and this doesn't make sense for a Unicode definition.
64935bc6
KW
7447The generated regular expression will compile so that the boundary uses
7448all of Unicode. No other portion of the regular expression is affected.
7449
c794c51b
FC
7450=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
7451
7452(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
0f44b2a5 7453currently reserved for future use, as the exact behavior has not
6903afa2 7454been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
c794c51b 7455modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
0876b9a0 7456
949cf498
KW
7457=item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
7458
4c2e59a0 7459(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
949cf498
KW
7460not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
7461U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
7462internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
7463available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
7464problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
7465came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 7466off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9466bab6 7467
68dc0745 7468=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 7469
75b44862 7470(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
7471C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
7472can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
7473false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
7474constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
7475C<defined> operator.
a6006777 7476
f675dbe5
CB
7477=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
7478
be771a83
GS
7479(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
7480%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
7481longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
74821024 characters.
f675dbe5 7483
b5c19bd7 7484=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 7485
b5c19bd7
DM
7486(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
7487attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6903afa2 7488This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
7489declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
7490(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6903afa2 7491subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 7492
b5c19bd7 7493 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 7494
b5c19bd7 7495At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6903afa2 7496since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
b5c19bd7
DM
7497the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
7498now been created and is live:
be771a83 7499
b5c19bd7
DM
7500 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
7501
7502The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
7503gone out of scope, for example,
7504
7505 sub f {
7506 my $a;
7507 sub { eval '$a' }
7508 }
7509 f()->();
7510
1b303a7d
FC
7511Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
7512being executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 7513
b4581f09
JH
7514=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
7515
120b0f81 7516(S misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
413ff9f6 7517that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
7518something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
7519that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
7520front of your variable.
7521
aec0ef10 7522=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex m/%s/
b4581f09 7523
2abbd513
KW
7524(F) B<This message no longer should be raised as of Perl 5.30.> It is
7525retained in this document as a convenience for people using an earlier
7526Perl version.
7527
7528In Perl 5.30 and earlier, lookbehind is allowed
7529only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
d0a29c36
KW
7530known at compile time. For positive lookbehind, you can use the C<\K>
7531regex construct as a way to get the equivalent functionality. See
a8f2f5fa 7532L<(?<=pattern) and \K in perlre|perlre/\K>.
d0a29c36 7533
754dd754
KW
7534Starting in Perl 5.18, there are non-obvious Unicode rules under C</i>
7535that can match variably, but which you might not think could. For
7536example, the substring C<"ss"> can match the single character LATIN
7537SMALL LETTER SHARP S. Here's a complete list of the current ones
7538affecting ASCII characters:
7539
7540 ASCII
7541 sequence Matches single letter under /i
7542 FF U+FB00 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF
7543 FFI U+FB03 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFI
7544 FFL U+FB04 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFL
7545 FI U+FB01 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FI
7546 FL U+FB02 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FL
7547 SS U+00DF LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S
7548 U+1E9E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S
7549 ST U+FB06 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE ST
7550 U+FB05 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE LONG S T
7551
7552This list is subject to change, but is quite unlikely to.
7553Each ASCII sequence can be any combination of upper- and lowercase.
7554
7555You can avoid this by using a bracketed character class in the
7556lookbehind assertion, like
7557
7558 (?<![sS]t)
7559 (?<![fF]f[iI])
7560
7561This fools Perl into not matching the ligatures.
7562
7563Another option for Perls starting with 5.16, if you only care about
7564ASCII matches, is to add the C</aa> modifier to the regex. This will
7565exclude all these non-obvious matches, thus getting rid of this message.
7566You can also say
7567
7568 use if $] ge 5.016, re => '/aa';
7569
d0a29c36
KW
7570to apply C</aa> to all regular expressions compiled within its scope.
7571See L<re>.
b4581f09
JH
7572
7573=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
7574
52e3acf8 7575(W shadow) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
b9cc85ad
FC
7576current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
7577previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
7578that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
20d33786 7579or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
b4581f09 7580
6df41af2
GS
7581=item Variable syntax
7582
7583(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
7584of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
7585Perl yourself.
7586
44a8e56a 7587=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
7588
be771a83 7589(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 7590lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 7591
b5c19bd7 7592When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
7593the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
7594call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
7595outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
7596longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
7597variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 7598
44a8e56a 7599This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
7600anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 7601reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 7602are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 7603
6651ba0b
FC
7604=item vector argument not supported with alpha versions
7605
8b6051f1 7606(S printf) The %vd (s)printf format does not support version objects
6651ba0b
FC
7607with alpha parts.
7608
e0e4a6e3
FC
7609=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by
7610S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 7611
6903afa2
FC
7612(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
7613argument or check that you are using the right verb.
e2e6a0f1 7614
e0e4a6e3
FC
7615=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by
7616S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 7617
6903afa2 7618(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
e2e6a0f1
YO
7619argument or check that you are using the right verb.
7620
9c88bb56 7621=item Version control conflict marker
397c43d8
LM
7622
7623(F) The parser found a line starting with C<E<lt><<<<<<>,
d4e5761f 7624C<E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>>, or C<=======>. These may be left by a
397c43d8
LM
7625version control system to mark conflicts after a failed merge operation.
7626
084610c0
GS
7627=item Version number must be a constant number
7628
7629(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
7630its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
7631the version number.
7632
808ee47e
SP
7633=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
7634
32e998fd
RGS
7635(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
7636are being ignored.
808ee47e 7637
7e1af8bc 7638=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 7639
7640(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 7641you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 7642
f86702cc 7643=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 7644
be771a83
GS
7645(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
7646the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
7647space.
a0d0e21e 7648
96d7c888
FC
7649=item Warning: unable to close filehandle properly: %s
7650
7651=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly: %s
7652
ab7ca7ed
AP
7653(S io) There were errors during the implicit close() done on a filehandle
7654when its reference count reached zero while it was still open, e.g.:
cc4d3128
DM
7655
7656 {
7657 open my $fh, '>', $file or die "open: '$file': $!\n";
7658 print $fh $data or die "print: $!";
7659 } # implicit close here
7660
95032a5b
AP
7661Because various errors may only be detected by close() (e.g. buffering could
7662allow the C<print> in this example to return true even when the disk is full),
d4e5761f
FC
7663it is dangerous to ignore its result. So when it happens implicitly, perl
7664will signal errors by warning.
cc4d3128 7665
ab7ca7ed
AP
7666B<Prior to version 5.22.0, perl ignored such errors>, so the common idiom shown
7667above was liable to cause B<silent data loss>.
96d7c888 7668
5f05dabc 7669=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 7670
be771a83
GS
7671(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
7672looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
7673term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
7674function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
7675
7676 rand + 5;
7677
7678you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
7679
7680 rand() + 5;
7681
7682but in actual fact, you got
7683
7684 rand(+5);
7685
5f05dabc 7686So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 7687
7896dde7 7688=item when is experimental
0f539b13 7689
7896dde7
Z
7690(S experimental::smartmatch) C<when> depends on smartmatch, which is
7691experimental. Additionally, it has several special cases that may
7692not be immediately obvious, and their behavior may change or
7693even be removed in any future release of perl. See the explanation
7694under L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 7695
4b3603a4
JH
7696=item Wide character in %s
7697
479b791b
KW
7698(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (ordinal >255) when it wasn't
7699expecting one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print).
7700
7701If this warning does come from I/O, the easiest
7702way to quiet it is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer, I<e.g.>,
7703S<C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>>. Another way to turn off the warning is
7704to add S<C<no warnings 'utf8';>> but that is often closer to
cd28123a
JH
7705cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
7706filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 7707
479b791b
KW
7708If the warning comes from other than I/O, this diagnostic probably
7709indicates that incorrect results are being obtained. You should examine
7710your code to determine how a wide character is getting to an operation
7711that doesn't handle them.
7712
613abc6d
KW
7713=item Wide character (U+%X) in %s
7714
7715(W locale) While in a single-byte locale (I<i.e.>, a non-UTF-8
7716one), a multi-byte character was encountered. Perl considers this
50ea4745 7717character to be the specified Unicode code point. Combining non-UTF-8
613abc6d
KW
7718locales and Unicode is dangerous. Almost certainly some characters
7719will have two different representations. For example, in the ISO 8859-7
7720(Greek) locale, the code point 0xC3 represents a Capital Gamma. But so
7721also does 0x393. This will make string comparisons unreliable.
7722
7723You likely need to figure out how this multi-byte character got mixed up
7724with your single-byte locale (or perhaps you thought you had a UTF-8
7725locale, but Perl disagrees).
7726
49704364
WL
7727=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
7728
fa816bf3
FC
7729(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]>
7730only if C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that
7731can be determined from the template alone. This is not possible if
7732it contains any of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign
7733the template.
49704364 7734
74d1b2e4
FC
7735=item %s() with negative argument
7736
7737(S misc) Certain operations make no sense with negative arguments.
7738Warning is given and the operation is not done.
7739
9a7dcd9c 7740=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 7741
be771a83 7742(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 7743before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 7744
9ae3ac1a 7745=item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
b4581f09 7746
27f95370
FC
7747(S utf8) When reading in different encodings, Perl tries to
7748map everything into Unicode characters. The bytes you read
7749in are not legal in this encoding. For example
b4581f09
JH
7750
7751 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
7752
7753if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
7754
49704364 7755=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 7756
49704364
WL
7757(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
7758the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 7759
49704364 7760=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
7761
7762(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
7763the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7764
a0d0e21e
LW
7765=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
7766
5f05dabc 7767(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 7768sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
b5145c7d
Z
7769about what you want. There is a vulnerability anywhere that you have a
7770set-id script, and to close it you need to remove the set-id bit from
7771the script that you're attempting to run. To actually run the script
7772set-id, your best bet is to put a set-id C wrapper around your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
7773
7774=item You need to quote "%s"
7775
be771a83
GS
7776(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
7777Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
7778which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
7779assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
7780what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 7781
6cfd5ea7
JH
7782=item Your random numbers are not that random
7783
50a39ba4 7784(F) When trying to initialize the random seed for hashes, Perl could
6cfd5ea7
JH
7785not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
7786Something Very Wrong.
7787
e0e4a6e3 7788=item Zero length \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
8a5a438d 7789
f3ba6905 7790(F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a zero-length
8a5a438d 7791sequence. Such an escape was used in an extended character class, i.e.
fe0a3646
KW
7792C<(?[...])>, or under C<use re 'strict'>, which is not permitted. Check
7793that the correct escape has been used, and the correct charnames handler
7794is in scope. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
7795expression the problem was discovered.
8a5a438d 7796
a0d0e21e
LW
7797=back
7798
00eb3f2b
RGS
7799=head1 SEE ALSO
7800
44ecbbd8 7801L<warnings>, L<diagnostics>.
00eb3f2b 7802
56e90b21 7803=cut