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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
de42a5a9 53=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
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88(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
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92=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
93
94(W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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95bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
96(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
97like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
98assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
99clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
100really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 101
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102=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
103
104(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
105asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
106named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 107the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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108function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
109and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
110
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111=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
112
113=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 114
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115(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo
116represents the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for
117element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write
118C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to
119the function named foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it
120returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
121
122In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
123to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
124C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length>
125followed by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what
126you want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/>
127to the unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to
128something that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by
129simply turning off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 130
bdac9d71 131=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
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132
133(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
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134string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
135the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
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136write C<-foo()>.
137
79ef86ee 138=item Ambiguous use of 's//le...' resolved as 's// le...'; Rewrite as 's//el' if you meant 'use locale rules and evaluate rhs as an expression'. In Perl 5.18, it will be resolved the other way
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139
140(W deprecated, ambiguous) You wrote a pattern match with substitution
79ef86ee 141immediately followed by "le". In Perl 5.16 and earlier, this is
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142resolved as meaning to take the result of the substitution, and see if
143it is stringwise less-than-or-equal-to what follows in the expression.
144Having the "le" immediately following a pattern is deprecated behavior,
79ef86ee 145so in Perl 5.18, this expression will be resolved as meaning to do the
94b03d7d 146pattern match using the rules of the current locale, and evaluate the
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147rhs as an expression when doing the substitution. In 5.14, and 5.16 if
148you want the latter interpretation, you can simply write "el" instead.
149But note that the C</l> modifier should not be used explicitly anyway;
150you should use C<use locale> instead. See L<perllocale>.
94b03d7d 151
6df41af2 152=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 153
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154(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
155redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
156redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 157
6df41af2 158=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 159
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160(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
161redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
162into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
163though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
164which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 165
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166 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
167 while (<STDIN>) {
168 print;
169 print OUT;
170 }
171 close OUT;
c9f97d15 172
6df41af2 173=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 174
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175(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
176transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 177one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 178a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
179hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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180you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
181alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 182
6df41af2 183=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 184
6df41af2 185(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 186
b0fdf69e 187=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 188
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189(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
190subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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191
192 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 193 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 194 &do_something
a0d0e21e 195
8ea97a1e 196=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 197
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198(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
199such as:
5f05dabc 200
201 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 202 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 203
8ea97a1e 204or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 205
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206 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
207 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 208
6df41af2 209=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 210
6df41af2 211(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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212name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
213error.
a0d0e21e 214
f86702cc 215=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 216
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217(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
218that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
219will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 220
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221=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
222
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223(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
224system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
225take care of transforming data between external and internal
226representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
227point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
228didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
229result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 230
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231=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
232
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233(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
234spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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235
236=item assertion botched: %s
237
21b5e840 238(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
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239
240=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
241
21b5e840 242(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 243
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244=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
245
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246(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
247the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 248
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249=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
250
251(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
252must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
253know which context to supply to the right side.
254
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255=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
256
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257(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily
258the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
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259Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
260created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
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261thread. See L<threads>.
262
2393f1b9 263=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 264
49293501 265(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 266the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 267
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268=item Attempt to bless into a reference
269
270(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 271the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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272supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
273
274 bless $self, $proto;
275
276when you intended
277
278 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
279
280If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
281of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
282example by:
283
284 bless $self, "$proto";
285
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286=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
287
288(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
289which is not in its key set.
290
291=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
292
293(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
294declared readonly from a restricted hash.
295
de42a5a9 296=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 297
f84fe999 298(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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299that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
300outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 301
12578ffb 302=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 303
f84fe999 304(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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305strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
306strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
307of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 308
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309=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
310
f84fe999 311(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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312free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
313SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
314free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
315try to free it.
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316
317=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
318
f84fe999 319(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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320
321=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
322
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323(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
324see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
325earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
326This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
327that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
328mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
329corrupted.
a0d0e21e 330
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331=item Attempt to join self
332
333(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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334impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
335to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 336
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337=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
338
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339(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
340function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
341means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
342invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
343literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
344avoid this warning.
84902520 345
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346=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
347
348(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
349compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
350unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
351L<perlvar/%INC>.
352
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353=item Attempt to set length of freed array
354
355(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
356can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
357of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
358
359 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
360 $$r = 503
361
b7a902f4 362=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
363
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364(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
365used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
366dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 367
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368=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
369
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370(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
371"locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
372obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
373will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
c32124fe 374
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375=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
376
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377(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
378the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
379The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
380will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
f1a3ce43 381
de42a5a9 382=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 383
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384(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
385or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 386S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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387S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
388
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389=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
390
496a33f5 391(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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392substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
393most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
394
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395=item Bad filehandle: %s
396
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397(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
398symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
399open(), or did it in another package.
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400
401=item Bad free() ignored
402
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403(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
404been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 405setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 406
9ea8bc6d 407This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 408dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 409which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 410
aa689395 411=item Bad hash
412
413(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
414
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415=item Badly placed ()'s
416
417(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
418of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
419Perl yourself.
420
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421=item Bad name after %s::
422
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423(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
424didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
425of quotes, so
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426
427 $var = 'myvar';
428 $sym = mypack::$var;
429
430is not the same as
431
432 $var = 'myvar';
433 $sym = "mypack::$var";
434
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435=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
436
437(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
438plugin API.
439
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440=item Bad realloc() ignored
441
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442(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
443had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
444be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 445
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446=item Bad symbol for array
447
448(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
449wasn't a symbol table entry.
450
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451=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
452
453(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
454that wasn't a symbol table entry.
455
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456=item Bad symbol for filehandle
457
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458(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
459that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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460
461=item Bad symbol for hash
462
463(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
464wasn't a symbol table entry.
465
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466=item Bareword found in conditional
467
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468(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
469conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
470of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
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471
472 open FOO || die;
473
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474It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
475a bareword:
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476
477 use constant TYPO => 1;
478 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
479
480The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
481
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482=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
483
484(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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485subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
486symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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487
488=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
489
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490(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
491compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
492you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 493
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494=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
495
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496(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
497subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
498exited.
a0d0e21e 499
68dc0745 500=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
501
502(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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503implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
504occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
505be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
506depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 507
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508=item \1 better written as $1
509
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510(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
511The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
512substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
513because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
514there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 515
252aa082
JH
516=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
517
e476b1b5 518(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
519(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
520L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 521
69282e91 522=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 523
be771a83
GS
524(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
525check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 526
c289d2f7
JH
527=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
528
529(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 530Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 531
f866a7cd
FC
532=item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
533
534=item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
535
536(W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
537C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
538itself in a future release.
539
c5a0f51a
JH
540=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
541
e476b1b5 542(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 543
4633a7c4
LW
544=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
545
be771a83 546(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
4dcecea4 547copiable.
4633a7c4 548
f675dbe5
CB
549=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
550
be771a83
GS
551(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
552iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
553which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 554
a0d0e21e
LW
555=item Callback called exit
556
4929bf7b 557(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
558exited by calling exit.
559
6df41af2 560=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 561
be771a83
GS
562(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
563parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
564that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
565early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
566subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
567checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
568function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
569the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 570
49704364 571=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
572
573(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
574compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
575attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
576See L<perlfunc/pack>.
577
49704364 578=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
579
580(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
581format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
582
5c1f4d79
NC
583=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
584
6903afa2
FC
585(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
586in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
587The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
588no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 589
4040665a 590=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
591
592(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 593be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 594
b5d97229
RGS
595=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
596
597(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
598either with open() or binmode().
599
96ebfdd7
RK
600=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
601
602(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
603integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
604to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
605
a0d0e21e
LW
606=item Can't bless non-reference value
607
608(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
609encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
610
dc57907a
RGS
611=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
612
0d863452 613(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
6903afa2 614a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
0d863452
RH
615
616=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 617
0d863452
RH
618(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
619
6df41af2
GS
620=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
621
622(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
623object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
624like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
625
626 $BADREF = undef;
627 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
628 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
629
a0d0e21e
LW
630=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
631
54310121 632(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
633ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
634didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
635object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
636
637=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
638
639(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
640object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
641defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
642Something like this will reproduce the error:
643
644 $BADREF = 42;
645 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
646 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
647
a0d0e21e
LW
648=item Can't chdir to %s
649
650(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
651that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
652
0545a864 653=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 654
be771a83
GS
655(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
656nosuid.
104d25b7 657
22e74366 658=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
659
660(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 661(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
662say things like:
663
664 *foo += 1;
665
666You CAN say
667
668 $foo = *foo;
669 $foo += 1;
670
671but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
672
0d863452 673=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 674
0d863452
RH
675(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
676or C<default> block.
677
a0d0e21e
LW
678=item Can't create pipe mailbox
679
be771a83
GS
680(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
681quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 682
eb64745e
GS
683=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
684
30c282f6
NC
685(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
686"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 687
fc7debfb
FC
688=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
689
690(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
691C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
692issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
693error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
694
6df41af2
GS
695=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
696
be771a83
GS
697(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
698a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 699
a0d0e21e
LW
700=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
701
be771a83
GS
702(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
703reason.
a0d0e21e 704
54310121 705=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 706
be771a83
GS
707(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
708reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
709C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 710
10f9c03d 711=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 712
e476b1b5 713(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
714characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
715inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 716
7253e4e3 717=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 718
6903afa2
FC
719(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
720want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The
721<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
722was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 723
a0d0e21e
LW
724=item Can't do waitpid with flags
725
be771a83
GS
726(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
727waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 728
a0d0e21e
LW
729=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
730
be771a83
GS
731(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
732point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
733line.
a0d0e21e 734
1109a392
MHM
735=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
736
737(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
738or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
739little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
740See L<perlfunc/pack>.
741
a0d0e21e
LW
742=item Can't exec "%s": %s
743
d1be9408 744(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
745named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
746permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
747C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
748architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
749can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
750#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
751
752=item Can't exec %s
753
be771a83
GS
754(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
755that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
756need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
757
758=item Can't execute %s
759
be771a83
GS
760(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
761found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 762
6df41af2 763=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 764
be771a83
GS
765(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
766is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 767
56ca2fc0
JH
768=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
769
770(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
6903afa2 771could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
e1b711da
KW
772See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
773for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 774
6df41af2
GS
775=item Can't find label %s
776
be771a83
GS
777(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
778possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
779
780=item Can't find %s on PATH
781
be771a83
GS
782(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
783found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 784
6df41af2 785=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 786
be771a83
GS
787(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
788found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
789script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
790
791=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
792
be771a83
GS
793(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
794that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
795nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 796
fb73857a 797 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
798
97b3d10f 799If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
800included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
801may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
802a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
803L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 804
660a4616
TS
805=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
806
5f8ad6b6
FC
807(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
808property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
809letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
e1b711da 810L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
6903afa2 811for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
5f8ad6b6
FC
812mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by C<\\p>
813(just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
814until C<\E>).
660a4616 815
b3647a36 816=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 817
be771a83
GS
818(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
819pipeline.
a0d0e21e 820
b3647a36
SR
821=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
822
c973c02e 823(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
824after five seconds.
825
748a9306
LW
826=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
827
be771a83
GS
828(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
829between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
830Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
831the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
832account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
833the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 834the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
835the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
836if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
837because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
838appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
839and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
840routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
841shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
842only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 843
a0d0e21e
LW
844=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
845
be771a83
GS
846(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
847pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
848
849=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
850
748a9306
LW
851(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
852mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 853
6df41af2 854=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 855
be771a83
GS
856(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
857loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
858
859=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
860
be771a83
GS
861(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
862a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
863you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
864See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 865
9850bf21 866=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 867
9850bf21
RH
868(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
869comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
870as the reduce() function in List::Util).
871
c74ace89 872=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 873
be771a83 874(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 875"string" or block.
b150fb22 876
6df41af2
GS
877=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
878
be771a83
GS
879(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
880subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
881cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
882routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 883
0b5b802d
GS
884=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
885
be771a83
GS
886(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
887signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
888signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
889processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
890situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
891may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 892
e2c0f81f
DG
893=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
894
895(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
896attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
897process identifier.
898
6df41af2 899=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 900
6df41af2 901(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
902except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
903block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
904block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
905usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
906inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
907L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 908
2c7d6b9c
RGS
909=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
910
911(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
912package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
913
b8170e59
JB
914=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
915
6903afa2
FC
916(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
917This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
918that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
919to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
920dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
921that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
922dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 923
748a9306
LW
924=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
925
2ba9eb46 926(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
927lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
928want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
929the package name.
748a9306 930
6df41af2 931=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 932
6df41af2
GS
933(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
934handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 935pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 936that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 937
ea071790 938=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
939
940(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
941found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
942unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
943need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
944the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
945to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
946L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 947
6df41af2
GS
948=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
949
be771a83
GS
950(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
951autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
952are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
953the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 954
b8170e59
JB
955=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
956
957(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 958for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
959unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
960
a0d0e21e
LW
961=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
962
963(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
964functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 965method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
966
967=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
968
be771a83
GS
969(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
970doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 971
2f7da168
RK
972=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
973
974(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
975e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
976
f4ad53f4 977=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 978
be771a83
GS
979(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
980VMS.
3e3baf6d 981
a0d0e21e
LW
982=item Can't modify %s in %s
983
be771a83
GS
984(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
985to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 986
54310121 987=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
988
989(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
990a NULL.
991
6df41af2
GS
992=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
993
994(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 995such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 996
5f05dabc 997=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 998
5f05dabc 999(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1000buffer.
1001
6df41af2
GS
1002=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1003
1004(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1005there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1006count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1007grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1008though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1009once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1010
a0d0e21e
LW
1011=item Can't open %s: %s
1012
c47ff5f1 1013(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
1014filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1015switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
1016is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1017the command line.
a0d0e21e 1018
9a869a14
RGS
1019=item Can't open a reference
1020
1021(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1022using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1023
1024 open FH, '>', $ref;
1025
1026but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1027open is not supported.
1028
a0d0e21e
LW
1029=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1030
be771a83
GS
1031(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1032You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1033as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1034">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1035
748a9306
LW
1036=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1037
be771a83
GS
1038(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1039redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1040the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1041
1042=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1043
be771a83
GS
1044(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1045redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1046command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1047
1048=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1049
be771a83
GS
1050(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1051redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1052the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1053
1054=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1055
be771a83
GS
1056(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1057redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1058for stdout.
748a9306 1059
2b8ca739 1060=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1061
1062(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1063
fa3aa65a
JC
1064If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1065shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1066you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1067
6df41af2
GS
1068=item Can't read CRTL environ
1069
1070(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1071from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1072missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1073or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1074searched.
6df41af2 1075
6df41af2
GS
1076=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1077
1078(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1079there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1080count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1081or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1082though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1083loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1084
64977eb6 1085=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1086
be771a83
GS
1087(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1088file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1089the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1090
a0d0e21e
LW
1091=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1092
e476b1b5 1093(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1094probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1095
748a9306
LW
1096=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1097
be771a83
GS
1098(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1099to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1100
fe13d51d 1101=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1102
1fa582fa
FC
1103(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1104opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1105package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1106
cd06dffe
GS
1107=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1108
be771a83
GS
1109(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1110temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1111is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1112
96ebfdd7
RK
1113=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1114
1115(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1116there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1117
78f9721b
SM
1118=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1119
6903afa2
FC
1120(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1121subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1122think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1123write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1124Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1125
a0d0e21e
LW
1126=item Can't stat script "%s"
1127
be771a83
GS
1128(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1129open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1130
a0d0e21e
LW
1131=item Can't take log of %g
1132
fb73857a 1133(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1134negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1135standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1136negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1137
1138=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1139
1140(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1141negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1142with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1143
1144=item Can't undef active subroutine
1145
1146(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1147however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1148redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1149
c81225bc 1150=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1151
be771a83
GS
1152(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1153into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1154specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1155indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1156
1db89ea5
BS
1157=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1158
e27ad1f2 1159(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1160table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1161for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1162
96ebfdd7
RK
1163=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1164
1165(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1166be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1167
6df41af2
GS
1168=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1169
be771a83
GS
1170(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1171references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1172
90b75b61 1173=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1174
20561843 1175(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1176Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1177provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1178
1109a392
MHM
1179=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1180
1181(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1182byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1183allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1184
6df41af2
GS
1185=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1186
be771a83
GS
1187(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1188foreach.
6df41af2 1189
aab6a793 1190=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1191
be771a83
GS
1192(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1193is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1194(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1195have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1196weren't.
1197
6d3b25aa
RGS
1198=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1199
1200(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1201that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1202For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1203is inside a big-endian group.
1204
c07a80fd 1205=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1206
1207(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1208You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1209and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1210Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1211lexical variable.
1212
a0d0e21e
LW
1213=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1214
1215(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1216reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1217test the type of the reference, if need be.
1218
748a9306 1219=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1220
be771a83
GS
1221(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1222references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1223
748a9306
LW
1224=item Can't use subscript on %s
1225
1226(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1227subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1228didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1229
6df41af2
GS
1230=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1231
75b44862
GS
1232(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1233creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1234backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1235expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1236value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1237instead.
6df41af2 1238
810b8aa5
GS
1239=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1240
1241(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1242references can be weakened.
1243
fc7debfb
FC
1244=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1245
1246(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1247loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1248from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1249or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1250
5f05dabc 1251=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1252
be771a83
GS
1253(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1254with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1255Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1256
4a68bf9d 1257=item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
f9d13529 1258
1fa582fa 1259(F)(W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
79ef86ee 1260It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.18. In the
17a3df4c
KW
1261cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1262derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1263
1264Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
f9d13529 1265
f337b084 1266=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1267
1268(W pack) You said
1269
1270 pack("C", $x)
1271
1272where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1273only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1274and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1275
1276 pack("C", $x & 255)
1277
1278If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1279instead.
1280
f337b084
TH
1281=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1282
1283(W pack) You said
1284
1285 pack("U0W", $x)
1286
6903afa2
FC
1287where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1288expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1289as if you meant:
f337b084
TH
1290
1291 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1292
1293=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1294
1295(W pack) You said
1296
1297 pack("c", $x)
1298
1299where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1300is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1301and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1302
1303 pack("c", $x & 255);
1304
1305If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1306instead.
1307
f337b084
TH
1308=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1309
1310(W unpack) You tried something like
1311
1312 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1313
1a147d38 1314where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1315below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1316value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1317
1318 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1319
1320=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1321
1322(W pack) You tried something like
1323
1324 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1325
1a147d38 1326where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1327value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1328uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1329
1330 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1331
1332=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1333
1334(W unpack) You tried something like
1335
1336 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1337
1a147d38 1338where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1339value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1340uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1341
1342 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1343
f866a7cd
FC
1344=item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1345
1346(D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1347to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1348evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
79ef86ee 1349ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.18. Just use a
f866a7cd
FC
1350semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1351
1352=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1353
1354(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1355non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1356written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1357characters.
1358
96ebfdd7
RK
1359=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1360
1361(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1362
abc7ecad
SP
1363=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1364
1365(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1366a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1367
541ed3a9
FC
1368=item Closure prototype called
1369
1370(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1371handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1372This subroutine cannot be called.
1373
49704364
WL
1374=item Code missing after '/'
1375
6903afa2
FC
1376(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1377another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1378
0876b9a0
KW
1379=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1380
c634fdd3 1381=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed
9ae3ac1a 1382
8457b38f 1383(W utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum of U+10FFFF.
0876b9a0
KW
1384
1385Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code
1386points, up to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on
1387your system, but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems.
1388At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
13890x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require
1390larger than a 32 bit word.
1391
9ae3ac1a
KW
1392None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1393code point. For example,
1394
1395 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1396
1397will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1398
1399 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1400
1401will match.
1402
94b42e47
KW
1403This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1404
1405 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Fails.
1406 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also fails!
1407
1408and both these succeed:
1409
1410 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Succeeds.
1411 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also succeeds!
1412
6df41af2
GS
1413=item %s: Command not found
1414
be771a83
GS
1415(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1416Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1417
7a2e2cd6 1418=item Compilation failed in require
1419
1420(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1421Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1422encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1423
c3464db5
DD
1424=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1425
be771a83
GS
1426(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1427situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1428to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1429arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1430recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1431under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1432in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1433that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1434on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1435
38875929
DM
1436=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1437
6903afa2
FC
1438(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1439call cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked.
1440The cond_broadcast() function is used to wake up another thread
1441that is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1442sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1443is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1444variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1445thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
38875929 1446
38875929
DM
1447=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1448
6903afa2
FC
1449(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1450call cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The
1451cond_signal() function is used to wake up another thread that
1452is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1453sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1454is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1455variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1456thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
38875929 1457
69282e91 1458=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1459
be771a83
GS
1460(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1461to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1462L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1463
41ab332f 1464=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1465
be771a83
GS
1466(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1467an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1468specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1469corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1470L<overload>.
6df41af2 1471
fc8cd66c
YO
1472=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1473
1a147d38
YO
1474(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1475the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1476forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1477See L<charnames>.
1478
779c5bc9
GS
1479=item Constant is not %s reference
1480
1481(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1482is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1483The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1484usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1485See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1486
4cee8e80
CS
1487=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1488
aeb94125
FC
1489(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1490been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1491for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1492
9607fc9c 1493=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1494
be771a83
GS
1495(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1496for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1497workarounds.
9607fc9c 1498
e7ea3e70
IZ
1499=item Copy method did not return a reference
1500
6903afa2 1501(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1502L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1503
4aaa4757
FC
1504=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1505
1506(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1507with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1508in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1509called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1510
1511 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1512 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1513
6798c92b
GS
1514=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1515
1516(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1517
a0d0e21e
LW
1518=item corrupted regexp pointers
1519
1520(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1521expression compiler gave it.
1522
1523=item corrupted regexp program
1524
be771a83
GS
1525(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1526valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1527
de42a5a9 1528=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1529
1530(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1531
49704364
WL
1532=item Count after length/code in unpack
1533
1534(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1535you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1536L<perlfunc/pack>.
1537
a0d0e21e
LW
1538=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1539
be771a83
GS
1540(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1541100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1542infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1543which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1544
aad1d01f
NC
1545This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1546setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1547
f10b0346 1548=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1549
be771a83
GS
1550(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1551checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1552array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1553
f10b0346 1554=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1555
f0ec9725
KR
1556(D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1557discouraged since 5.004.
1558
1559Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1560becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1561weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1562These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1563
1564If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1565context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
16546e45
KR
1566
1567 if (%hash) {
1568 # not empty
1569 }
1570
f0ec9725
KR
1571If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1572variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1573a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1574it's loaded, etc.
1575
69794302 1576
bcb95744
FC
1577=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1578
6903afa2 1579(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1580most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1581of the C<....> part.
1582
1583The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1584discovered.
1585
62658f4d
PM
1586=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1587
1588(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1589there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1590
fc36a67e 1591=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1592
be771a83
GS
1593(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1594long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1595that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1596
4a68bf9d 1597=item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1598
1599(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
5fca8acb
FC
1600But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1601are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1602and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1603parentheses or colons.
cb233ae3 1604
6d3b25aa
RGS
1605=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1606
1607(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1608There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1609not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 1610conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
6d3b25aa 1611static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 1612relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 1613declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1614
6d3b25aa
RGS
1615 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1616
1617becomes
1618
1619 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1620
36fb85f3
RGS
1621Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1622have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1623
1624 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1625
500ab966
RGS
1626=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1627
1628(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
1629just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1630than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 1631
3cdd684c
TP
1632=item Did not produce a valid header
1633
1634See Server error.
1635
6df41af2
GS
1636=item %s did not return a true value
1637
1638(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1639it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1640traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1641do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1642
cc507455 1643=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1644
413ff9f6
FC
1645(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1646some such.
4633a7c4 1647
cc507455 1648=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1649
be771a83
GS
1650(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1651variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1652seems superfluous.
33633739 1653
cc507455 1654=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1655
be771a83
GS
1656(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1657@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1658carried away.
748a9306 1659
7e1af8bc 1660=item Died
5f05dabc 1661
1662(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 1663you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 1664
3cdd684c
TP
1665=item Document contains no data
1666
1667See Server error.
1668
62658f4d
PM
1669=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1670
1671(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1672define a C<$VERSION.>
1673
49704364
WL
1674=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1675
1676(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1677See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1678
a0d0e21e
LW
1679=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1680
1681(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1682
1683=item do_study: out of memory
1684
1685(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1686
6df41af2
GS
1687=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1688
56da5a46
RGS
1689(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1690"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1691name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1692because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1693"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1694something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1695subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1696"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1697
ac206dc8
RGS
1698=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1699
1700(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1701qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1702
84d78eb7
YO
1703=item dump is not supported
1704
1705(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1706
a0d0e21e
LW
1707=item Duplicate free() ignored
1708
be771a83
GS
1709(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1710already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1711
1109a392
MHM
1712=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1713
1714(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1715in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1716
4633a7c4
LW
1717=item elseif should be elsif
1718
56da5a46
RGS
1719(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1720ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1721"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1722unlikely to be what you want.
1723
ab13f0c7
JH
1724=item Empty %s
1725
af6f566e 1726(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
6903afa2 1727described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
af6f566e 1728a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1729
85ab1d1d 1730=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1731
85ab1d1d 1732(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1733effective uids or gids failed.
1734
c038024b
RGS
1735=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1736
1737(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1738aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 1739program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 1740
748a9306
LW
1741=item Error converting file specification %s
1742
5f05dabc 1743(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1744specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1745single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1746an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1747conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1748
e4d48cc9
GS
1749=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1750
be771a83
GS
1751(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1752expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1753is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1754
fc8f615e 1755=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
e4d48cc9 1756
be771a83
GS
1757(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1758C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
1759pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1760it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1761C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1762interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1763L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1764
6df41af2
GS
1765=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1766
be771a83
GS
1767(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1768assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1769pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1770
1a147d38
YO
1771=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1772
1773(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 1774any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38
YO
1775
1776The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1777discovered.
1778
fc36a67e 1779=item Excessively long <> operator
1780
1781(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1782Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1783filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1784variable and glob that.
1785
ed9aa3b7
SG
1786=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1787
af8bb25a 1788(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 1789OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 1790
fe13d51d 1791=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1792
1793(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1794
1795=item Exiting eval via %s
1796
be771a83
GS
1797(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1798goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1799
1800=item Exiting format via %s
1801
9a2ff54b 1802(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1803goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1804
0a753a76 1805=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1806
be771a83
GS
1807(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1808sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1809loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1810
a0d0e21e
LW
1811=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1812
be771a83
GS
1813(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1814as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1815
1816=item Exiting substitution via %s
1817
be771a83
GS
1818(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1819as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1820
7b8d334a
GS
1821=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1822
be771a83
GS
1823(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1824the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1825usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1826e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1827
6df41af2
GS
1828=item %s: Expression syntax
1829
be771a83
GS
1830(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1831Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1832
1833=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1834
3c10abe3
AG
1835(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1836CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1837queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1838
7253e4e3 1839=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1840
be771a83 1841(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1842character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1843in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1844"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1845problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1846
1b1ee2ef 1847=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1848
be771a83
GS
1849(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1850system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1851details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1852you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1853
1854=item fcntl is not implemented
1855
1856(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1857PDP-11 or something?
1858
22846ab4
AB
1859=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1860
1861(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1862is not possible.
1863
f337b084
TH
1864=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1865
1866(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
1867which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1868a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 1869C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 1870
af8c498a 1871=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1872
6c8d78fb
HS
1873(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1874it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1875"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1876write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1877
af8c498a 1878=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1879
6c8d78fb
HS
1880(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1881you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
1882with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1883read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1884is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1885output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1886
1887=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1888
1889(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 1890as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1891previously.
1892
1893=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1894
1895(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1896as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1897
1898=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1899
1900(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1901a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1902happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1903name.
a0d0e21e 1904
56e90b21
GS
1905=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1906
be771a83 1907(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1908some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1909filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1910same name?
56e90b21 1911
6df41af2
GS
1912=item Format not terminated
1913
1914(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1915to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1916
a0d0e21e
LW
1917=item Format %s redefined
1918
e476b1b5 1919(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1920
1921 {
271595cc 1922 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1923 eval "format NAME =...";
1924 }
1925
a0d0e21e
LW
1926=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1927
e476b1b5 1928(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1929
1930 if ($foo = 123)
1931
1932when you meant
1933
1934 if ($foo == 123)
1935
1936(or something like that).
1937
6df41af2
GS
1938=item %s found where operator expected
1939
56da5a46
RGS
1940(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1941If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1942operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1943operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1944
a0d0e21e
LW
1945=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1946
1947(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1948
1949=item gethostent not implemented
1950
1951(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1952because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1953on the Internet.
1954
69282e91 1955=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1956
be771a83
GS
1957(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1958socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1959
748a9306
LW
1960=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1961
1962(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1963C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1964
6df41af2
GS
1965=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1966
be771a83
GS
1967(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1968forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1969L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1970
1971=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1972
a4edf47d 1973(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1974that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1975declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1976which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1977
e476b1b5
GS
1978=item glob failed (%s)
1979
73c4e9dc
FC
1980(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
1981for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
1982pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 1983nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
1984resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
1985is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
1986in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
1987if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
1988all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 1989think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1990C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1991
a0d0e21e
LW
1992=item Glob not terminated
1993
1994(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1995a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1996not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1997earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1998
bcd05b94 1999=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2000
e9200be3 2001(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2002it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2003date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2004not-a-number value).
2005
bcd05b94 2006=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2007
e9200be3 2008(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2009it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2010
6df41af2 2011=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2012
6df41af2
GS
2013(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2014version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2015
2016=item goto must have label
2017
2018(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2019unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2020
49704364 2021=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 2022
bca4a986
FC
2023(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2024something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 2025
fe13d51d 2026=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2027
2028(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2029
a0d0e21e
LW
2030=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2031
be771a83
GS
2032(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2033to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2034created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
2035
2036=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2037
be771a83
GS
2038(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2039spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 2040
6df41af2
GS
2041=item %s has too many errors
2042
2043(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2044Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2045
e6897b1a
KW
2046=item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
2047
2048(D syntax)
2049
6903afa2
FC
2050You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following
2051a pattern without an intervening space. If you are trying to use
2052the C</le> flags on a substitution, use C</el> instead. Otherwise, add
2053white space between the pattern and following word to eliminate
2054the warning. As an example of the latter, the two constructs:
2055
e6897b1a
KW
2056
2057 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
2058 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
2059
6903afa2
FC
2060both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow
2061the first form in Perl 5.18. And,
e6897b1a
KW
2062
2063 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
2064
2065will be disallowed too.
2066
252aa082
JH
2067=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2068
e476b1b5 2069(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2070(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2071L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2072
8903cb82 2073=item Identifier too long
2074
2075(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2076about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2077names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2078of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2079
c3c41406 2080=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 2081
20561843 2082(W) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a zero-length
6903afa2
FC
2083sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class its
2084behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
2085been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2086
6df41af2 2087=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 2088
6df41af2 2089(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2090
6df41af2 2091=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2092
be771a83
GS
2093(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2094binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2095offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2096
6597eb22
FC
2097=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2098
2099(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2100Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2101
78d0fecf 2102=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
4fdae800 2103
d5898338 2104(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2105would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2106when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2107version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2108to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2109
d37a9538
ST
2110=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2111
197afce1 2112(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2113Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
d37a9538 2114
904d85c5
RGS
2115=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2116
2117(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2118you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2119
8e742a20
MHM
2120=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2121
6903afa2 2122(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2123
a0d0e21e
LW
2124=item Illegal division by zero
2125
be771a83
GS
2126(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2127your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2128meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2129
6df41af2
GS
2130=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2131
be771a83
GS
2132(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2133A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2134number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2135
a0d0e21e
LW
2136=item Illegal modulus zero
2137
be771a83
GS
2138(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2139numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2140
6df41af2 2141=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2142
6df41af2
GS
2143(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2144two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2145
2146=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2147
d1be9408 2148(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2149
399388f4 2150=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2151
d1be9408 2152(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2153Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2154
fe13d51d 2155=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2156
6df41af2 2157(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2158following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2159
6df41af2 2160=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2161
75b44862 2162(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2163internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2164delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2165
6df41af2 2166=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2167
be771a83
GS
2168(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2169name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2170didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2171ignored.
54310121 2172
6df41af2 2173=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2174
be771a83
GS
2175(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2176the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2177system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2178times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2179would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2180
be771a83
GS
2181Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2182also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2183
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2184=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2185
2186(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2187C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2188documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2189
979699d9
JH
2190=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2191
2192(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2193Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2194encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2195
1a147d38
YO
2196=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2197
2198(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2199text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2200either consume text or fail.
2201
2202The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2203discovered.
2204
6dbe9451
NC
2205=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2206
6903afa2
FC
2207(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2208initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2209C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2210context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2211supported in a future perl release.
6dbe9451 2212
a0d0e21e
LW
2213=item Insecure dependency in %s
2214
8b1a09fc 2215(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2216The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2217setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2218tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2219from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2220such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2221L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2222
2223=item Insecure directory in %s
2224
be771a83
GS
2225(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2226setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2227the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2228See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2229
62f468fc 2230=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2231
2232(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2233setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2234C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2235supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2236the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2237
0e9be77f
DM
2238=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2239
2240(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2241expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2242function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2243See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2244
b9ef414d
FC
2245=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2246
2247(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2248or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2249integers for your architecture.
2250
a7ae9550
GS
2251=item Integer overflow in %s number
2252
75b44862 2253(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2254either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2255your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2256On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2257representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
22580b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2259transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2260internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2261operations.
bbce6d69 2262
46314c13
JP
2263=item Integer overflow in version
2264
2265(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2266size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2267because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2268element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2269trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2270100/9.
2271
7253e4e3 2272=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2273
2274(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2275The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2276discovered.
2277
748a9306
LW
2278=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2279
be771a83
GS
2280(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2281you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2282to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2283L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2284Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2285terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2286
7253e4e3 2287=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2288
7253e4e3
RK
2289(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2290<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2291discovered.
a0d0e21e 2292
6df41af2
GS
2293=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2294
75b44862 2295(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2296followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2297operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2298L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2299
09bef843
SB
2300=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2301
a4a4c9e2 2302(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
2303by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2304
2305=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2306
a4a4c9e2 2307(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 2308recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2309
c635e13b 2310=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2311
be771a83
GS
2312(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2313L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2314
9e08bc66
TS
2315=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2316
2317(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2318didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2319from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2320The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2321The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2322escape was discovered.
2323
8149aa9f
FC
2324=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2325
2326(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
2327number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
23280 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 2329
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2330=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2331
162a3e34
FC
2332(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2333where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2334the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2335a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 2336
7253e4e3 2337=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2338
2339(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2340greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2341C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2342up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2343problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2344
d1573ac7 2345=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2346
2347(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2348character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2349
09bef843
SB
2350=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2351
0120eecf 2352(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2353elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2354parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2355See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2356
b4581f09
JH
2357=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2358
2bfc5f71
FC
2359(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2360than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
2361If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2362list was terminated too soon.
2363
2c86d456
DG
2364=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2365
2366(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2367A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2368decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2369v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2370The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2371See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2372
49704364 2373=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2374
49704364
WL
2375(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2376See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 2377
49704364 2378(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2379silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2380
2c86d456
DG
2381=item Invalid version format (%s)
2382
2383(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2384A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2385decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
9da2b86b
FC
2386v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it must
2387have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional.
2388Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2c86d456
DG
2389component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2390dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
a6485a24 2391criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2c86d456 2392allowed version formats.
46314c13 2393
798ae1b7
DG
2394=item Invalid version object
2395
2396(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2397the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2398was blessed into the "version" class.
2399
a0d0e21e
LW
2400=item ioctl is not implemented
2401
2402(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2403strange for a machine that supports C.
2404
c289d2f7
JH
2405=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2406
2407(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 2408Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 2409
fe13d51d 2410=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2411
2412(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 2413you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
2414with 'useperlio'.
2415
80cbd5ad
JH
2416=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2417
2418(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 2419neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 2420
b4581f09
JH
2421=item $* is no longer supported
2422
a58ac25e 2423(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
6903afa2 2424perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
a58ac25e
FC
2425previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2426matching within a string.
4fd19576
B
2427
2428Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
6903afa2
FC
2429modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2430with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
570dedd4 2431then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2432
8ae1fe26
RGS
2433=item $# is no longer supported
2434
a58ac25e 2435(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
6903afa2 2436perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
a58ac25e 2437should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
8ae1fe26 2438
ccf3535a 2439=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 2440
6903afa2
FC
2441(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2442overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2443an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 2444
ccf3535a 2445=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 2446
04a80ee0
RGS
2447(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2448unaware of.
6ad11d81 2449
a0d0e21e
LW
2450=item junk on end of regexp
2451
2452(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2453
2454=item Label not found for "last %s"
2455
be771a83
GS
2456(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2457of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2458L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2459
2460=item Label not found for "next %s"
2461
2462(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2463that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2464L<perlfunc/last>.
2465
2466=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2467
2468(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2469that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2470L<perlfunc/last>.
2471
85ab1d1d 2472=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2473
85ab1d1d 2474(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2475effective uids or gids failed.
2476
49704364
WL
2477=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2478
d7f8936a 2479(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
2480length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2481an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 2482
e508c8a4
MH
2483=item length() used on %s
2484
0d46a4e7
FC
2485(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2486probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
2487
2488Array size can be obtained by doing:
2489
2490 scalar(@array);
2491
2492The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2493
2494 scalar(keys %hash);
2495
f0e67a1d
Z
2496=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2497
2498(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
6903afa2
FC
2499(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2500couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2501of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
2502it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
2503
2504=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2505
2506(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2507detectable way.
2508
69282e91 2509=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2510
be771a83
GS
2511(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2512to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2513L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2514
bcd05b94 2515=item localtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2516
e9200be3 2517(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
fc003d4b 2518than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
6903afa2 2519wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2520not-a-number value).
2521
bcd05b94 2522=item localtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2523
e9200be3 2524(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
fc003d4b 2525than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
e7a1a147 2526wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2527
58e23c8d 2528=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2529
2530(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 2531handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2532
b88df990
NC
2533=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2534
2535(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2536for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
6903afa2 2537hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
b88df990
NC
2538because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2539are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2540You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2541
2f7da168
RK
2542=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2543
2544(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2545by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2546instead on the filehandle.)
2547
bb3abb05
FC
2548=item lvalue attribute cannot be removed after the subroutine has been defined
2549
2550(W misc) The lvalue attribute on a Perl subroutine cannot be turned off
2551once the subroutine is defined.
2552
885ef6f5
GG
2553=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2554
bb3abb05
FC
2555(W misc) Making a Perl subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been
2556defined, whether by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute
2557or by using L<attributes.pm|attributes>, is not possible. To make the subroutine an
2558lvalue subroutine, add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put
2559the declaration before the definition.
885ef6f5 2560
2db62bbc 2561=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 2562
2db62bbc 2563(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2564are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2565
2566=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2567
2db62bbc 2568(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
2569are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2570
6df41af2
GS
2571=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2572
2573(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2574
2575 prefix1;prefix2
2576
2577or
6df41af2
GS
2578 prefix1 prefix2
2579
be771a83
GS
2580with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2581a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2582appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2583"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2584
2f758a16
ST
2585=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2586
d37a9538
ST
2587(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2588syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2589obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2590when the function is called.
2f758a16 2591
ba210ebe
JH
2592=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2593
2575c402
JW
2594(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2595encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2596
2575c402
JW
2597One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2598you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
6903afa2 25998-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2575c402
JW
2600
2601If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2602sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2603set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2604message.
2605
2606See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2607
ff3f963a
KW
2608=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2609
2610(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2611
4a5d3a93
FC
2612=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2613
2614(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2615rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2616
f337b084
TH
2617=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2618
2619(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2620rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2621
2622=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2623
2624(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2625rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2626
4a5d3a93 2627=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 2628
4a5d3a93
FC
2629(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2630doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2631
2632=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2633
2634(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2635regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2636shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2637See L<perlre>.
f337b084 2638
de42a5a9 2639=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 2640
6903afa2 2641(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2642usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2643too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2644resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 2645safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 2646
25f58aea
PN
2647=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2648
2649(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2650interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2651"use" or "my".
2652
49704364 2653=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2654
2655(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2656checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2657See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2658
a0d0e21e
LW
2659=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2660
2661(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2662doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2663
3cdd684c
TP
2664=item Method %s not permitted
2665
2666See Server error.
2667
a0d0e21e
LW
2668=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2669
2670(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2671by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2672ended earlier on the current line.
2673
2674=item Misplaced _ in number
2675
d4ced10d
JH
2676(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2677separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2678
7baa4690
HS
2679=item Missing argument in %s
2680
2681(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2682supplied.
2683
9e81e6a1
RGS
2684=item Missing argument to -%c
2685
2686(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2687immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2688
ff3f963a 2689=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2690
4a2d328f 2691(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
2692double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2693(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2694This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2695follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 2696
f0a2b745
KW
2697=item Missing braces on \o{}
2698
2699(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2700
a0d0e21e
LW
2701=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2702
2703(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2704"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2705
06eaf0bc
GS
2706=item Missing command in piped open
2707
be771a83
GS
2708(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2709C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2710blank.
06eaf0bc 2711
961ce445
RGS
2712=item Missing control char name in \c
2713
2714(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2715character name.
2716
6df41af2
GS
2717=item Missing name in "my sub"
2718
be771a83
GS
2719(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2720they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2721
2722=item Missing $ on loop variable
2723
be771a83
GS
2724(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2725are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2726can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2727
cc507455 2728=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2729
56da5a46
RGS
2730(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2731"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2732
ab13f0c7
JH
2733=item Missing right brace on %s
2734
ff3f963a
KW
2735(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2736
4a68bf9d 2737=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 2738
d32207c9
FC
2739(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2740
2741The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2742meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
2743name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2744double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2745it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2746
2747Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2748in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2749for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2750
2751This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2752by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2753form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2754means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
27553; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2756C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2757
2758However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2759mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2760If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2761escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2762
d98d5fff 2763=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2764
be771a83
GS
2765(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2766ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2767were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2768
6df41af2
GS
2769=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2770
56da5a46
RGS
2771(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2772"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2773the previous line just because you saw this message.
2774
a0d0e21e
LW
2775=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2776
2777(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2778constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2779catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2780
2781 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2782 mod(2);
2783
2784Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2785
c5674021
PDF
2786Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2787is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2788
b7e4ecc1
FC
2789 $x = 1;
2790 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2791 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
2792 } # modify the 2
c5674021 2793
7a4340ed 2794=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2795
2796(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2797subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2798backwards.
2799
7a4340ed 2800=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2801
be771a83
GS
2802(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2803couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2804
2805=item Module name must be constant
2806
2807(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2808
be98fb35 2809=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2810
be98fb35
GS
2811(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2812you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2813about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2814
fe13d51d 2815=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 2816
6903afa2 2817(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
2818can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2819list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2820See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2821
a0d0e21e
LW
2822=item msg%s not implemented
2823
2824(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2825
2826=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2827
75b44862
GS
2828(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2829They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2830
49704364 2831=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2832
49704364
WL
2833(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2834follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2835See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2836
2837=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2838
be771a83
GS
2839(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2840that yet.
6df41af2 2841
fd1b7234 2842=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2843
be771a83
GS
2844(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2845sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2846local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2847
8149aa9f
FC
2848=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2849
2850(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2851If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2852again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2853provided for this purpose.
2854
2855NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2856%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2857the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2858will not trigger this warning.
2859
4a68bf9d 2860=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
ff3f963a 2861
c3c41406 2862(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
f4e361c7
FC
2863character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses
2864its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not
2865what you want.
c3c41406 2866
4a68bf9d 2867=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
c3c41406 2868
f4e361c7
FC
2869(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
2870sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
2871bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
7fae04b9 2872backslash in double-quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2873
2874 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2875 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2876 /$re/;
2877
b09c05e6 2878Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2879
2880 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2881 /$re/;
2882
2883The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2884components:
2885
2886 $re = '\N';
2887 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2888
2889It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2890doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2891
2892Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2893C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2894
2895 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2896 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2897
49704364
WL
2898=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2899
2900(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2901negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2902
a0d0e21e
LW
2903=item Negative length
2904
be771a83
GS
2905(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2906length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2907
ed9aa3b7
SG
2908=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2909
2910(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2911greater than or equal to zero.
2912
7253e4e3 2913=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2914
6903afa2
FC
2915(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
2916So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the
2917regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2918
7253e4e3 2919Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2920C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2921
6df41af2 2922=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2923
be771a83
GS
2924(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2925scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2926
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2927=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2928
2929(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2930real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2931See L<mro>.
2932
a0d0e21e
LW
2933=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2934
be771a83
GS
2935(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2936setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2937will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2938securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2939
a0d0e21e
LW
2940=item No comma allowed after %s
2941
6903afa2
FC
2942(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
2943not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
2944Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2945
6903afa2
FC
2946One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
2947a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2948importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
2949system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
2950use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
2951please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
2952explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
2953it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
2954still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
2955the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
2956constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 2957
748a9306
LW
2958=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2959
be771a83
GS
2960(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2961redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2962doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2963
a0d0e21e
LW
2964=item No DB::DB routine defined
2965
be771a83 2966(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 2967for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
2968module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2969statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2970
2971=item No dbm on this machine
2972
2973(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2974supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2975
ccafdc96 2976=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2977
ccafdc96
RGS
2978(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2979for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2980module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2981of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2982
c47ff5f1 2983=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2984
be771a83
GS
2985(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2986redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2987find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2988
49704364
WL
2989=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2990
2991(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 2992matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 2993
c47ff5f1 2994=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2995
be771a83
GS
2996(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2997redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2998name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2999
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3000=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3001
3002(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3003in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3004it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3005or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3006
6df41af2
GS
3007=item "no" not allowed in expression
3008
be771a83
GS
3009(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3010returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 3011
c47ff5f1 3012=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 3013
be771a83
GS
3014(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3015redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3016doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 3017
c47ff5f1 3018=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 3019
be771a83
GS
3020(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3021redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3022find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 3023
1ec3e8de
GS
3024=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3025
be771a83
GS
3026(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3027declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3028semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 3029
a0d0e21e
LW
3030=item No Perl script found in input
3031
3032(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3033with #! and containing the word "perl".
3034
3035=item No setregid available
3036
3037(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3038your system.
3039
3040=item No setreuid available
3041
3042(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3043your system.
3044
6df41af2
GS
3045=item No %s specified for -%c
3046
3047(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
3048you haven't specified one.
f7af5ce1 3049
e75d1f10
RD
3050=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3051
b7e4ecc1
FC
3052(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3053variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3054The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3055L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 3056
2c692339
RGS
3057=item No such class %s
3058
dc7e5945
FC
3059(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3060declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2c692339 3061
3c20a832
SP
3062=item No such hook: %s
3063
dc7e5945
FC
3064(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3065Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 3066
6df41af2
GS
3067=item No such pipe open
3068
3069(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
3070close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3071earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 3072
a0d0e21e
LW
3073=item No such signal: SIG%s
3074
be771a83
GS
3075(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3076not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3077names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
3078
3079=item Not a CODE reference
3080
3081(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3082subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3083use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3084also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3085
3086=item Not a format reference
3087
3088(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
3089format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
3090
3091=item Not a GLOB reference
3092
be771a83
GS
3093(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3094symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3095something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3096kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3097
3098=item Not a HASH reference
3099
be771a83
GS
3100(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3101reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3102find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3103
6df41af2
GS
3104=item Not an ARRAY reference
3105
be771a83
GS
3106(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3107a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3108to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 3109
d4fc4415
FC
3110=item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3111
3112(F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3113another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3114or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3115
a0d0e21e
LW
3116=item Not a SCALAR reference
3117
be771a83
GS
3118(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3119a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3120to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3121
3122=item Not a subroutine reference
3123
3124(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3125subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3126use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3127also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3128
e7ea3e70 3129=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3130
3131(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3132doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3133
a0d0e21e
LW
3134=item Not enough arguments for %s
3135
3136(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3137
6df41af2
GS
3138=item Not enough format arguments
3139
be771a83
GS
3140(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3141supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3142
3143=item %s: not found
3144
be771a83
GS
3145(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3146of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3147yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3148
3149=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3150
6df41af2
GS
3151(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3152timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3153to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3154F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3155need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3156
f0a2b745
KW
3157=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3158
5493e060
FC
3159(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3160unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as
3161indicated.
f0a2b745 3162
4ef2275c
GA
3163=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3164
3165(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3166Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
6903afa2 3167select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4ef2275c 3168
a0d0e21e
LW
3169=item Null filename used
3170
be771a83
GS
3171(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3172machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 3173
6df41af2
GS
3174=item NULL OP IN RUN
3175
f84fe999 3176(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 3177pointer.
6df41af2 3178
55497cff 3179=item Null picture in formline
3180
3181(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3182specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3183supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3184
a0d0e21e
LW
3185=item Null realloc
3186
3187(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3188
3189=item NULL regexp argument
3190
5f05dabc 3191(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3192
3193=item NULL regexp parameter
3194
3195(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3196
fc36a67e 3197=item Number too long
3198
be771a83 3199(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3200about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3201versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3202the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3203"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3204
f0a2b745
KW
3205=item Number with no digits
3206
1043934d 3207(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 3208a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 3209the braces.
f0a2b745 3210
6df41af2
GS
3211=item Octal number in vector unsupported
3212
be771a83
GS
3213(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3214The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3215future version.
6df41af2 3216
252aa082
JH
3217=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3218
75b44862 3219(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3220(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3221L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 3222
6ad11d81
JH
3223=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3224
04a80ee0 3225(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 3226arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3227
b21befc1
MG
3228=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3229
3230(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3231which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3232
1930e939 3233=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3234
be771a83
GS
3235(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3236which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3237
bbce6d69 3238=item Offset outside string
3239
1fa582fa 3240(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 3241with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3242imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3243take place when going past the end of the string when either
3244C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3245for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3246with real files).
bbce6d69 3247
c289d2f7 3248=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3249
3250(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3251never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3252call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3253
96ebfdd7
RK
3254=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3255
3256(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3257that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3258
a0d0e21e
LW
3259=item oops: oopsAV
3260
e476b1b5 3261(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3262
3263=item oops: oopsHV
3264
e476b1b5 3265(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3266
abc718f2
RGS
3267=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3268
a4a4c9e2 3269(W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3270a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3271Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3272and is deprecated.
3273
3274=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3275
a4a4c9e2 3276(W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3277a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3278Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3279and is deprecated.
3280
a0288114 3281=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3282
be771a83
GS
3283(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3284handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3285of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 3286the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3287
5ff1373f 3288=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 3289
8457b38f 3290(W utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
73c4e9dc
FC
3291semantics on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do
3292is not defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
3293
3294If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3295matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3296
3297If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 3298C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 3299
5ff1373f 3300=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 3301
8457b38f 3302(W utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
73c4e9dc
FC
3303semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of
3304surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics
3305are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and they are to do