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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
466416ed 23below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
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24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
fa816bf3 26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
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27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
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53=item Aliasing via reference is experimental
54
55(S experimental::refaliasing) This warning is emitted if you use
56a reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment to
57alias one variable to another. Simply suppress the warning if you
58want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
59the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be
60removed in a future Perl version:
61
62 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
63 use feature "refaliasing";
64 \$x = \$y;
65
de42a5a9 66=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 67
6df41af2 68(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 69
04f74579 70=item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
ef54e1a4 71
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72(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
73after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 74
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75=item alpha->numify() is lossy
76
77(W numeric) An alpha version can not be numified without losing
78information.
79
6df41af2 80=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 81
75b44862 82(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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83keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
84one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
85subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 86
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87To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
88before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
89Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
90imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 91
6df41af2 92To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 93on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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94to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
95L<attributes>).
43192e07 96
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97=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
98
99(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
100all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
101first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
102C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
103
6df41af2 104=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 105
7c7af292 106(S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
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107you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
108a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 109
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110=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
111
112(S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
113string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
114the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
115write C<-foo()>.
116
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117=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
118
7c7af292 119(S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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120bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
121(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
122like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
123assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
124clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
125really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 126
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127=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
128
129(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
130asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
131named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
1cecf2c0 132the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
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133function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
134and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
135
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136=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
137
138=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
4da60377 139
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140(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
141the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
1422 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
143might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
144foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
145that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
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146
147In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
148to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
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149C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
150by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
151want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
152unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
153that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
154off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 155
6df41af2 156=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 157
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158(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
159redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
160redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 161
6df41af2 162=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 163
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164(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
165redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
166into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
167though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
168which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 169
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170 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
171 while (<STDIN>) {
172 print;
173 print OUT;
174 }
175 close OUT;
c9f97d15 176
6df41af2 177=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 178
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179(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
180transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 181one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 182a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
183hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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184you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
185alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 186
6df41af2 187=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 188
6df41af2 189(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 190
f86702cc 191=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 192
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193(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
194that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
195will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 196
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197Note that for the C<Inf> and C<NaN> (infinity and not-a-number) the
198definition of "numeric" is somewhat unusual: the strings themselves
199(like "Inf") are considered numeric, and anything following them is
200considered non-numeric.
201
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202=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
203
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204(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
205system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
206take care of transforming data between external and internal
207representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
208point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
209didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
210result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
b4581f09 211
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212=item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
213
214(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
215operator which expects either a number or a string matching
216C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
217Auto-decrement> for details.
218
637494ac 219=item Array passed to stat will be coerced to a scalar%s
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220
221(W syntax) You called stat() on an array, but the array will be
222coerced to a scalar - the number of elements in the array.
223
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224=item A signature parameter must start with '$', '@' or '%'
225
226(F) Each subroutine signature parameter declaration must start with a valid
227sigil; for example:
228
229 sub foo ($a, $, $b = 1, @c) {}
230
231=item A slurpy parameter may not have a default value
232
233(F) Only scalar subroutine signature parameters may have a default value;
234for example:
235
236 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
237 sub foo (@a = (1)) {} # invalid
238 sub foo (%a = (a => b)) {} # invalid
239
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240=item assertion botched: %s
241
21b5e840 242(X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
a0d0e21e 243
0eacef8e 244=item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
a0d0e21e 245
21b5e840 246(X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
a0d0e21e 247
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248=item Assigned value is not a reference
249
250(F) You tried to assign something that was not a reference to an lvalue
251reference (e.g., C<\$x = $y>). If you meant to make $x an alias to $y, use
252C<\$x = \$y>.
253
254=item Assigned value is not %s reference
255
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256(F) You tried to assign a reference to a reference constructor, but the
257two references were not of the same type. You cannot alias a scalar to
258an array, or an array to a hash; the two types must match.
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259
260 \$x = \@y; # error
261 \@x = \%y; # error
262 $y = [];
263 \$x = $y; # error; did you mean \$y?
264
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265=item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
266
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267(F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
268the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
82122228 269
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270=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
271
272(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
273must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
274know which context to supply to the right side.
275
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276=item Assuming NOT a POSIX class since %s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
277
278(W regexp) You had something like these:
279
280 [[:alnum]]
281 [[:digit:xyz]
282
283They look like they might have been meant to be the POSIX classes
284C<[:alnum:]> or C<[:digit:]>. If so, they should be written:
285
286 [[:alnum:]]
287 [[:digit:]xyz]
288
289Since these aren't legal POSIX class specifications, but are legal
290bracketed character classes, Perl treats them as the latter. In the
291first example, it matches the characters C<":">, C<"[">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
292C<"m">, C<"n">, and C<"u">.
293
294If these weren't meant to be POSIX classes, this warning message is
295spurious, and can be suppressed by reordering things, such as
296
297 [[al:num]]
298
299or
300
301 [[:munla]]
302
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303=item <> at require-statement should be quotes
304
305(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
306C<require 'file'>.
307
2393f1b9 308=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 309
49293501 310(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 311the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 312
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313=item Attempt to bless into a freed package
314
315(F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
316the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
317do, so it throws up in hands in despair.
318
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319=item Attempt to bless into a reference
320
321(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
57dedab9 322the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
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323supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
324
325 bless $self, $proto;
326
327when you intended
328
329 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
330
331If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
332of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
333example by:
334
335 bless $self, "$proto";
336
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337=item Attempt to clear deleted array
338
339(S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
340Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
341can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
342callback on the array.
343
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344=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
345
346(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
347which is not in its key set.
348
349=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
350
351(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
352declared readonly from a restricted hash.
353
de42a5a9 354=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 355
f84fe999 356(S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
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357that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
358outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 359
12578ffb 360=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
bbce6d69 361
f84fe999 362(S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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363strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
364strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
365of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 366
7d5b40b4 367=item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 368
f84fe999 369(S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
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370free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
371SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
372free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
373try to free it.
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374
375=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
376
f84fe999 377(S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e 378
7d5b40b4 379=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
a0d0e21e 380
8f7e4d2c 381(S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
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382see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
383earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
384This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
385that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
386mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
387corrupted.
a0d0e21e 388
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389=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
390
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391(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
392function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
393means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
394invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
395literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
396avoid this warning.
84902520 397
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398=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
399
400(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
401compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
402unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
403L<perlvar/%INC>.
404
1b20cd17
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405=item Attempt to set length of freed array
406
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FC
407(W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
408been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
409scalar representing the last index of an array and later
410assigning through that reference. For example
1b20cd17
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411
412 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
413 $$r = 503
414
b7a902f4 415=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
416
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417(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
418used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
419dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 420
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421=item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
422
423(W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
424example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
425declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
426
ccce04a4
FC
427=item av_reify called on tied array
428
429(S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
430confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
431
de42a5a9 432=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 433
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434(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
435or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 436S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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437S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
438
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439=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
440
496a33f5 441(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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442substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
443most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
444
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445=item Bad filehandle: %s
446
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447(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
448symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
449open(), or did it in another package.
a0d0e21e
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450
451=item Bad free() ignored
452
be771a83 453(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
fa816bf3 454been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 455setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 456
9ea8bc6d 457This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
6903afa2 458dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
be771a83 459which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 460
aa689395 461=item Bad hash
462
463(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
464
6df41af2
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465=item Badly placed ()'s
466
467(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
468of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
469Perl yourself.
470
a7cb8dae 471=item Bad name after %s
a0d0e21e 472
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473(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
474didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
475of quotes, so
a0d0e21e
LW
476
477 $var = 'myvar';
478 $sym = mypack::$var;
479
480is not the same as
481
482 $var = 'myvar';
483 $sym = "mypack::$var";
484
88e1f1a2
JV
485=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
486
487(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
488plugin API.
489
4ad56ec9
IZ
490=item Bad realloc() ignored
491
6903afa2
FC
492(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
493had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
494be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 495
a0d0e21e
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496=item Bad symbol for array
497
498(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
499wasn't a symbol table entry.
500
4df3f177
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501=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
502
503(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
504that wasn't a symbol table entry.
505
a0d0e21e
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506=item Bad symbol for filehandle
507
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508(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
509that wasn't a symbol table entry.
a0d0e21e
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510
511=item Bad symbol for hash
512
513(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
514wasn't a symbol table entry.
515
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FC
516=item Bad symbol for scalar
517
518(P) An internal request asked to add a scalar entry to something that
519wasn't a symbol table entry.
520
34d09196
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521=item Bareword found in conditional
522
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523(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
524conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
525of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
526
527 open FOO || die;
528
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529It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
530a bareword:
34d09196
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531
532 use constant TYPO => 1;
533 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
534
535The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
536
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NC
537=item Bareword in require contains "%s"
538
a52f2cce
NC
539=item Bareword in require maps to disallowed filename "%s"
540
09eb1f39 541=item Bareword in require maps to empty filename
5bad2b39 542
a52f2cce 543(F) The bareword form of require has been invoked with a filename which could
d4e5761f 544not have been generated by a valid bareword permitted by the parser. You
a52f2cce
NC
545shouldn't be able to get this error from Perl code, but XS code may throw it
546if it passes an invalid module name to C<Perl_load_module>.
547
5bad2b39
DM
548=item Bareword in require must not start with a double-colon: "%s"
549
550(F) In C<require Bare::Word>, the bareword is not allowed to start with a
d4e5761f 551double-colon. Write C<require ::Foo::Bar> as C<require Foo::Bar> instead.
5bad2b39 552
6df41af2
GS
553=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
554
555(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
be771a83
GS
556subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
557symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
558
559=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
560
be771a83
GS
561(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
562compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
563you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 564
a0d0e21e
LW
565=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
566
be771a83
GS
567(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
568subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
569exited.
a0d0e21e 570
68dc0745 571=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
572
573(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
be771a83
GS
574implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
575occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
576be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
577depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 578
c782d7ee 579=item \%d better written as $%d
6df41af2 580
be771a83
GS
581(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
582The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
583substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
584because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
585there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 586
252aa082
JH
587=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
588
e476b1b5 589(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
590(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
591L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 592
69282e91 593=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 594
be771a83
GS
595(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
596check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 597
c289d2f7
JH
598=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
599
600(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 601Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 602
c5a0f51a
JH
603=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
604
e476b1b5 605(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 606
043c750c 607=item Bizarre copy of %s
4633a7c4 608
be771a83 609(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
ab830aa0 610copiable.
4633a7c4 611
5a25739d
FC
612=item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
613
434f489b 614(P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
5a25739d
FC
615encountered an invalid data type.
616
b927b7e9 617=item Both or neither range ends should be Unicode in regex; marked by
6e8a73f2 618S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b927b7e9
KW
619
620(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
621
622In a bracketed character class in a regular expression pattern, you
623had a range which has exactly one end of it specified using C<\N{}>, and
624the other end is specified using a non-portable mechanism. Perl treats
625the range as a Unicode range, that is, all the characters in it are
626considered to be the Unicode characters, and which may be different code
627points on some platforms Perl runs on. For example, C<[\N{U+06}-\x08]>
628is treated as if you had instead said C<[\N{U+06}-\N{U+08}]>, that is it
629matches the characters whose code points in Unicode are 6, 7, and 8.
630But that C<\x08> might indicate that you meant something different, so
631the warning gets raised.
632
f675dbe5
CB
633=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
634
be771a83
GS
635(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
636iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
637which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 638
a0d0e21e
LW
639=item Callback called exit
640
4929bf7b 641(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
642exited by calling exit.
643
6df41af2 644=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 645
be771a83
GS
646(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
647parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
648that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
649early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
650subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
651checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
652function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
653the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 654
0c7df902
JH
655=item Cannot chr %f
656
657(F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
658
1b4d0d79
TC
659=item Cannot complete in-place edit of %s: %s
660
661(F) Your perl script appears to have changed directory while
662performing an in-place edit of a file specified by a relative path,
663and your system doesn't include the directory relative POSIX functions
664needed to handle that.
665
5dee29d4 666=item Cannot compress %f in pack
0c7df902 667
5dee29d4
JH
668(F) You tried compressing an infinity or not-a-number as an unsigned
669integer with BER, which makes no sense.
0c7df902 670
49704364 671=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b 672
717feafc
JH
673(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress.
674The BER compressed integer format can only be used with positive
675integers, and you attempted to compress a very large number (> 1e308).
676See L<perlfunc/pack>.
0258719b 677
49704364 678=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
679
680(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
681format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
682
5c1f4d79
NC
683=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
684
6903afa2
FC
685(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
686in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
687The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
688no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
5c1f4d79 689
4040665a 690=item Cannot copy to %s
ba2fdce6
NC
691
692(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 693be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 694
b5d97229
RGS
695=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
696
697(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
698either with open() or binmode().
699
714f94d1
FC
700=item Cannot open %s as a dirhandle: it is already open as a filehandle
701
702(F) You tried to use opendir() to associate a dirhandle to a symbol (glob
703or scalar) that already holds a filehandle. Since this idiom might render
704your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
705is a fatal error.
706
707=item Cannot open %s as a filehandle: it is already open as a dirhandle
708
709(F) You tried to use open() to associate a filehandle to a symbol (glob
710or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle. Since this idiom might render
711your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
712is a fatal error.
713
0c7df902
JH
714=item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
715
5dee29d4 716(F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an integer,
0c7df902
JH
717which makes no sense.
718
719=item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
720
721(F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
722which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
723
7355df7e
FC
724=item Cannot set tied @DB::args
725
726(F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
727is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
728
ce65bc73
FC
729=item Cannot tie unreifiable array
730
731(P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
732keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
733do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
734Perl code, but are only used internally.
735
46e58bd2
AC
736=item Cannot yet reorder sv_catpvfn() arguments from va_list
737
738(F) Some XS code tried to use C<sv_catpvfn()> or a related function with a
739format string that specifies explicit indexes for some of the elements, and
d4e5761f
FC
740using a C-style variable-argument list (a C<va_list>). This is not currently
741supported. XS authors wanting to do this must instead construct a C array
742of C<SV*> scalars containing the arguments.
46e58bd2 743
96ebfdd7
RK
744=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
745
746(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
747integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
748to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
749
a0d0e21e
LW
750=item Can't bless non-reference value
751
752(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
753encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
754
dc57907a
RGS
755=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
756
0d863452 757(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
6903afa2 758a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
0d863452
RH
759
760=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 761
0d863452
RH
762(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
763
6df41af2
GS
764=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
765
766(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
767object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
768like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
769
770 $BADREF = undef;
771 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
772 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
773
a0d0e21e
LW
774=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
775
54310121 776(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
777ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
778didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
779object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
780
781=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
782
783(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
784object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
785defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
786Something like this will reproduce the error:
787
788 $BADREF = 42;
789 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
790 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
791
dfe378f1
FC
792=item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
793
794(P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
795symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
796
2bf7e7b2
FC
797=item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
798
799(F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
800not attached to the symbol table.
801
a0d0e21e
LW
802=item Can't chdir to %s
803
f703fc96 804(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
a0d0e21e
LW
805that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
806
0545a864 807=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 808
be771a83
GS
809(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
810nosuid.
104d25b7 811
22e74366 812=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
813
814(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 815(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
816say things like:
817
818 *foo += 1;
819
820You CAN say
821
822 $foo = *foo;
823 $foo += 1;
824
825but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
826
0d863452 827=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 828
0d863452
RH
829(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
830or C<default> block.
831
a0d0e21e
LW
832=item Can't create pipe mailbox
833
be771a83
GS
834(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
835quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 836
eb64745e
GS
837=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
838
30c282f6
NC
839(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
840"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 841
fc7debfb
FC
842=item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
843
844(F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
845C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
846issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
847error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
848
1e85b658
DM
849=item Can't determine class of operator %s, assuming BASEOP
850
851(S) This warning indicates something wrong in the internals of perl.
852Perl was trying to find the class (e.g. LISTOP) of a particular OP,
853and was unable to do so. This is likely to be due to a bug in the perl
854internals, or due to a bug in XS code which manipulates perl optrees.
855
a2162cd9
FC
856=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
857
858(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
859a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
860
861=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
862
863(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
864reason.
865
866=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
867
868(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
869reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
870C<-i.bak>, or some such.
871
872=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
873
874(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
875characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
876inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
877
ab0b796c
KW
878=item Can't do %s("%s") on non-UTF-8 locale; resolved to "%s".
879
880(W locale) You are 1) running under "C<use locale>"; 2) the current
881locale is not a UTF-8 one; 3) you tried to do the designated case-change
882operation on the specified Unicode character; and 4) the result of this
883operation would mix Unicode and locale rules, which likely conflict.
884Mixing of different rule types is forbidden, so the operation was not
885done; instead the result is the indicated value, which is the best
886available that uses entirely Unicode rules. That turns out to almost
887always be the original character, unchanged.
888
889It is generally a bad idea to mix non-UTF-8 locales and Unicode, and
890this issue is one of the reasons why. This warning is raised when
891Unicode rules would normally cause the result of this operation to
892contain a character that is in the range specified by the locale,
8930..255, and hence is subject to the locale's rules, not Unicode's.
894
895If you are using locale purely for its characteristics related to things
896like its numeric and time formatting (and not C<LC_CTYPE>), consider
897using a restricted form of the locale pragma (see L<perllocale/The "use
898locale" pragma>) like "S<C<use locale ':not_characters'>>".
899
900Note that failed case-changing operations done as a result of
901case-insensitive C</i> regular expression matching will show up in this
902warning as having the C<fc> operation (as that is what the regular
903expression engine calls behind the scenes.)
904
a0d0e21e
LW
905=item Can't do waitpid with flags
906
be771a83
GS
907(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
908waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 909
a0d0e21e
LW
910=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
911
be771a83
GS
912(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
913point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
914line.
a0d0e21e 915
1109a392
MHM
916=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
917
918(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
919or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
920little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
921See L<perlfunc/pack>.
922
a0d0e21e
LW
923=item Can't exec "%s": %s
924
d1be9408 925(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
926named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
927permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
928C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
929architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
930can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
931#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
932
933=item Can't exec %s
934
be771a83
GS
935(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
936that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
937need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
938
939=item Can't execute %s
940
be771a83
GS
941(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
942found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 943
6df41af2 944=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 945
be771a83
GS
946(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
947is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2
GS
948
949=item Can't find label %s
950
be771a83
GS
951(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
952possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
953
954=item Can't find %s on PATH
955
be771a83
GS
956(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
957found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 958
6df41af2 959=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 960
be771a83
GS
961(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
962found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
963script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
964
965=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
966
be771a83
GS
967(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
968that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
969nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 970
fb73857a 971 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
972
97b3d10f 973If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
b6b8cb97
FC
974included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
975may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
976a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
977L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
a0d0e21e 978
660a4616
TS
979=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
980
29f52644
KW
981=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
982
983(F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
984known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
e1b711da 985L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
29f52644
KW
986for a complete list of available official
987properties. If it is a
988L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
989it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
990matched.
991
992If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
993by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
5f8ad6b6 994until C<\E>).
660a4616 995
b3647a36 996=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 997
be771a83
GS
998(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
999pipeline.
a0d0e21e 1000
b3647a36
SR
1001=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
1002
c973c02e 1003(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
1004after five seconds.
1005
748a9306
LW
1006=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
1007
be771a83
GS
1008(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
1009between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
1010Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
1011the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
1012account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
1013the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 1014the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
1015the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
1016if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
1017because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
1018appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
1019and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
1020routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
1021shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
1022only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 1023
a0d0e21e
LW
1024=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
1025
be771a83
GS
1026(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
1027pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
1028
1029=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
1030
748a9306
LW
1031(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
1032mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 1033
a01f4640
FC
1034=item Can't "goto" into a "given" block
1035
1036(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a C<given>
1037block. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1038
6df41af2 1039=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 1040
be771a83
GS
1041(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
1042loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
1043
1044=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
1045
be771a83
GS
1046(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
1047a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
1048you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
1049See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 1050
5a25739d
FC
1051=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
1052
1053(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
1054"string" or block.
1055
9850bf21 1056=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 1057
9850bf21
RH
1058(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
1059comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
1060as the reduce() function in List::Util).
1061
6df41af2
GS
1062=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
1063
be771a83
GS
1064(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
1065subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
1066cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
1067routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 1068
0b5b802d
GS
1069=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
1070
be771a83
GS
1071(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
1072signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
1073signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
1074processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
1075situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
1076may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 1077
e2c0f81f
DG
1078=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
1079
1080(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
1081attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
1082process identifier.
1083
6df41af2 1084=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 1085
6df41af2 1086(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
1087except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
1088block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
1089block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
1090usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
1091inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
1092L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 1093
2c7d6b9c
RGS
1094=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
1095
1096(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
1097package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
1098
b8170e59
JB
1099=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
1100
6903afa2
FC
1101(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
1102This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
1103that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
1104to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
1105dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
1106that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
1107dynamic extensions.
b8170e59 1108
748a9306
LW
1109=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
1110
2ba9eb46 1111(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
b7e4ecc1
FC
1112lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
1113want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
1114the package name.
748a9306 1115
6df41af2 1116=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 1117
6df41af2
GS
1118(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
1119handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 1120pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 1121that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 1122
ea071790 1123=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a 1124
fa816bf3
FC
1125(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
1126Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
1127the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
1128to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
1129extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
be771a83
GS
1130to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
1131L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 1132
6df41af2
GS
1133=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
1134
be771a83
GS
1135(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
1136autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
1137are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
1138the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 1139
b8170e59
JB
1140=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
1141
1142(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
d70d8e57 1143for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
b8170e59
JB
1144unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
1145
a0d0e21e
LW
1146=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
1147
1148(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
1149functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 1150method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 1151
8af56b9d
FC
1152=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
1153to load "%s"?)
1154
1155(F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
1156could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
1157requires a package that has not been loaded.
1158
a0d0e21e
LW
1159=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
1160
be771a83
GS
1161(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
1162doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 1163
2f7da168
RK
1164=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1165
1166(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1167e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1168
f4ad53f4 1169=item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
3e3baf6d 1170
be771a83
GS
1171(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1172VMS.
3e3baf6d 1173
cd40cd58
NC
1174=item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1175
ff9c1ae8 1176(S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
cd40cd58
NC
1177that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1178process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1179the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1180from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1181functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1182
a0d0e21e
LW
1183=item Can't modify %s in %s
1184
be771a83
GS
1185(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1186to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 1187
54310121 1188=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
1189
1190(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1191a NULL.
1192
0f948285 1193=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s
6df41af2 1194
8d9d0498
FC
1195=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s in %s
1196
6df41af2 1197(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 1198such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 1199
cf6e1fa1
FC
1200=item Can't modify reference to %s in %s assignment
1201
1202(F) Only a limited number of constructs can be used as the argument to a
1203reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment, and what
1204you used was not one of them. See L<perlref/Assigning to References>.
1205
1206=item Can't modify reference to localized parenthesized array in list
1207assignment
1208
1209(F) Assigning to C<\local(@array)> or C<\(local @array)> is not supported, as
1210it is not clear exactly what it should do. If you meant to make @array
1211refer to some other array, use C<\@array = \@other_array>. If you want to
1212make the elements of @array aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1213right-hand side, use C<\(@array) = @scalar_refs>.
1214
1215=item Can't modify reference to parenthesized hash in list assignment
1216
1217(F) Assigning to C<\(%hash)> is not supported. If you meant to make %hash
1218refer to some other hash, use C<\%hash = \%other_hash>. If you want to
1219make the elements of %hash into aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1220right-hand side, use a hash slice: C<\@hash{@keys} = @those_scalar_refs>.
1221
5f05dabc 1222=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 1223
5f05dabc 1224(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
1225buffer.
1226
6df41af2
GS
1227=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1228
1229(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1230there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1231count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1232grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1233though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1234once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1235
a0d0e21e
LW
1236=item Can't open %s: %s
1237
c47ff5f1 1238(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e 1239filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
46fa9b26
FC
1240switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1241this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1242you named on the command line.
1243
1244(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1245your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
a0d0e21e 1246
9a869a14
RGS
1247=item Can't open a reference
1248
1249(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1250using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1251
1252 open FH, '>', $ref;
1253
1254but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1255open is not supported.
1256
a0d0e21e
LW
1257=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1258
be771a83
GS
1259(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1260You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1261as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1262">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1263
748a9306
LW
1264=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1265
be771a83
GS
1266(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1267redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1268the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1269
1270=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1271
be771a83
GS
1272(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1273redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1274command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1275
1276=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1277
be771a83
GS
1278(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1279redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1280the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1281
1282=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1283
be771a83
GS
1284(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1285redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1286for stdout.
748a9306 1287
3b1cf97d 1288=item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1289
1290(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1291
fa3aa65a
JC
1292If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1293shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1294you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1295
6df41af2
GS
1296=item Can't read CRTL environ
1297
1298(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1299from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1300missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1301or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1302searched.
6df41af2 1303
f3106bc8
LM
1304=item Can't redeclare "%s" in "%s"
1305
1306(F) A "my", "our" or "state" declaration was found within another declaration,
1307such as C<my ($x, my($y), $z)> or C<our (my $x)>.
1308
6df41af2
GS
1309=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1310
1311(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1312there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1313count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1314or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1315though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1316loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1317
64977eb6 1318=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1319
be771a83
GS
1320(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1321file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1322the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1323
e0d4aead
TC
1324=item Can't rename in-place work file '%s' to '%s': %s
1325
1326(F) When closed implicitly, the temporary file for in-place editing
1327couldn't be renamed to the original filename.
1328
ecc6274e
FC
1329=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1330
1331(F) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1332probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1333
748a9306
LW
1334=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1335
be771a83
GS
1336(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1337to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1338
9415f659
KW
1339=item Can't represent character for Ox%X on this platform
1340
1341(F) There is a hard limit to how big a character code point can be due
1342to the fundamental properties of UTF-8, especially on EBCDIC
1343platforms. The given code point exceeds that. The only work-around is
1344to not use such a large code point.
1345
4f12ec0e
FC
1346=item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1347
1348(F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1349all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1350the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1351supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1352
fe13d51d 1353=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1354
1fa582fa
FC
1355(F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1356opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1357package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1358
cd06dffe
GS
1359=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1360
be771a83
GS
1361(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1362temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1363is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1364
96ebfdd7
RK
1365=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1366
1367(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1368there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1369
78f9721b
SM
1370=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1371
6903afa2
FC
1372(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1373subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1374think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1375write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1376Perl that the call should be in list context.
78f9721b 1377
a0d0e21e
LW
1378=item Can't stat script "%s"
1379
be771a83
GS
1380(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1381open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1382
a0d0e21e
LW
1383=item Can't take log of %g
1384
fb73857a 1385(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
6903afa2 1386negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1387standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1388negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1389
1390=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1391
1392(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1393negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1394with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1395
1396=item Can't undef active subroutine
1397
1398(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1399however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1400redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1401
ecc6274e
FC
1402=item Can't unweaken a nonreference
1403
1404(F) You attempted to unweaken something that was not a reference. Only
1405references can be unweakened.
1406
c81225bc 1407=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1408
be771a83
GS
1409(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1410into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1411specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1412indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1413
6651ba0b
FC
1414=item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1415
1416(F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1417other than "=" after the module name.
1418
1f1ec7b5
KW
1419=item Can't use a hash as a reference
1420
1421(F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1422C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1423<= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1424have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5
KW
1425
1426=item Can't use an array as a reference
1427
1428(F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
66a1f5ec
FC
1429C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1430used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1431was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1f1ec7b5 1432
1db89ea5
BS
1433=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1434
e27ad1f2 1435(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1436table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1437for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1438
96ebfdd7
RK
1439=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1440
1441(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1442be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1443
6df41af2
GS
1444=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1445
be771a83
GS
1446(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1447references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1448
90b75b61 1449=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63 1450
20561843 1451(F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
6903afa2 1452Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1d2dff63
GS
1453provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1454
1109a392
MHM
1455=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1456
1457(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1458byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1459allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1460
e35475de
KW
1461=item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1462
1463(F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1464checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1465array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1466
1467=item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1468
1469(F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1470
1471Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1472becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1473weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1474These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1475generates a fatal error.
1476
1477If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1478context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1479
1480 if (%hash) {
1481 # not empty
1482 }
1483
1484If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1485variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1486a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1487it's loaded, etc.
1488
6df41af2
GS
1489=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1490
c1f06047 1491(P) The parser got confused when trying to parse a C<foreach> loop.
6df41af2 1492
aab6a793 1493=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1494
be771a83
GS
1495(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1496is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1497(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1498have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1499weren't.
1500
6d3b25aa
RGS
1501=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1502
1503(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1504that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1505For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1506is inside a big-endian group.
1507
c07a80fd 1508=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1509
1510(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1511You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1512and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1513Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1514lexical variable.
1515
a0d0e21e
LW
1516=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1517
1518(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1519reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1520test the type of the reference, if need be.
1521
748a9306 1522=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1523
5e634d20
FC
1524=item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1525
b41bf23f
FC
1526(F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1527C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1528L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1529in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1530for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1531of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1532symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
a0d0e21e 1533
748a9306
LW
1534=item Can't use subscript on %s
1535
1536(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1537subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1538didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1539
6df41af2
GS
1540=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1541
75b44862
GS
1542(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1543creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1544backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1545expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1546value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1547instead.
6df41af2 1548
810b8aa5
GS
1549=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1550
1551(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1552references can be weakened.
1553
fc7debfb
FC
1554=item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1555
1556(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1557loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1558from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1559or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1560
5f05dabc 1561=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1562
be771a83
GS
1563(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1564with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1565Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1566
a04e6aad 1567=item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
f9d13529 1568
7357bd17 1569(F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
17a3df4c 1570
727b6379 1571Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
7357bd17 1572discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
d4360efa 1573L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
f9d13529 1574
163a633c
KW
1575=item Character following \%c must be '{' or a single-character Unicode property name in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1576
1577(F) (In the above the C<%c> is replaced by either C<p> or C<P>.) You
1578specified something that isn't a legal Unicode property name. Most
1579Unicode properties are specified by C<\p{...}>. But if the name is a
1580single character one, the braces may be omitted.
1581
f337b084 1582=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1583
1584(W pack) You said
1585
1586 pack("C", $x)
1587
1588where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1589only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1590and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1591
1592 pack("C", $x & 255)
1593
1594If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1595instead.
1596
f337b084 1597=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1598
1599(W pack) You said
1600
1601 pack("c", $x)
1602
1603where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1604is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1605and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1606
1607 pack("c", $x & 255);
1608
1609If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1610instead.
1611
f337b084
TH
1612=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1613
1614(W unpack) You tried something like
1615
1616 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1617
1a147d38 1618where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
6903afa2
FC
1619below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1620value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
f337b084
TH
1621
1622 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1623
5a25739d
FC
1624=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1625
1626(W pack) You said
1627
1628 pack("U0W", $x)
1629
1630where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1631expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1632as if you meant:
1633
1634 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1635
f337b084
TH
1636=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1637
1638(W pack) You tried something like
1639
1640 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1641
1a147d38 1642where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1643value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1644uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1645
1646 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1647
1648=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1649
1650(W unpack) You tried something like
1651
1652 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1653
1a147d38 1654where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
6903afa2 1655value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1656uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1657
1658 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1659
8d9d0498
FC
1660=item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple
1661spaces; marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
f51551f7
FC
1662
1663(F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1664in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1665defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1666could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1667L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1668
8d9d0498
FC
1669=item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space;
1670marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
f51551f7
FC
1671
1672(F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1673character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1674defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1675could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1676See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1677
60121127
TC
1678=item chdir() on unopened filehandle %s
1679
1680(W unopened) You tried chdir() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1681
d4360efa 1682=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
f866a7cd 1683
d4360efa
S
1684(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1685non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1686is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1687for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1688between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
f866a7cd 1689
6651ba0b
FC
1690=item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1691
1692(F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1693
abc7ecad
SP
1694=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1695
1696(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1697a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1698
5a25739d
FC
1699=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1700
1701(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1702
541ed3a9
FC
1703=item Closure prototype called
1704
1705(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1706handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1707This subroutine cannot be called.
1708
74d1b2e4
FC
1709=item \C no longer supported in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1710
1711(F) The \C character class used to allow a match of single byte
1712within a multi-byte utf-8 character, but was removed in v5.24 as
1713it broke encapsulation and its implementation was extremely buggy.
1714If you really need to process the individual bytes, you probably
1715want to convert your string to one where each underlying byte is
1716stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1717
49704364
WL
1718=item Code missing after '/'
1719
6903afa2
FC
1720(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1721another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 1722
c0236afe
KW
1723=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, and not portable
1724
1725(S non_unicode) You had a code point that has never been in any
1726standard, so it is likely that languages other than Perl will NOT
1727understand it. At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code
1728points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher, and this code point is higher.
1729
1730Acceptance of these code points is a Perl extension, and you should
1731expect that nothing other than Perl can handle them; Perl itself on
1732EBCDIC platforms before v5.24 does not handle them.
1733
1734Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a 32 bit word.
1735
1736Perl also makes no guarantees that the representation of these code
1737points won't change at some point in the future, say when machines
1738become available that have larger than a 64-bit word. At that time,
1739files written by an older Perl would require conversion before being
1740readable by a newer Perl.
1741
5a25739d
FC
1742=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1743
2d88a86a 1744(S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1b64326b
FC
1745of U+10FFFF.
1746
c0236afe
KW
1747Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, but
1748these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. Further, even if
1749these languages/systems accept these large code points, they may have
1750chosen a different representation for them than the UTF-8-like one that
1751Perl has, which would mean files are not exchangeable between them and
1752Perl.
1753
1754On EBCDIC platforms, code points above 0x3FFF_FFFF have a different
1755representation in Perl v5.24 than before, so any file containing these
1756that was written before that version will require conversion before
1757being readable by a later Perl.
0876b9a0 1758
6df41af2
GS
1759=item %s: Command not found
1760
a892b81a 1761(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
66a1f5ec
FC
1762instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1763Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
8f721816 1764
3bcfc7b3
LM
1765 #!/usr/bin/perl
1766
1767=item %s: command not found
1768
1769(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<bash> or another shell
1770instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1771Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1772
1773 #!/usr/bin/perl
1774
1775=item %s: command not found: %s
1776
1777(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<zsh> or another shell
1778instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1779Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1780
1781 #!/usr/bin/perl
6df41af2 1782
7a2e2cd6 1783=item Compilation failed in require
1784
1785(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1786Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1787encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1788
c3464db5
DD
1789=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1790
be771a83
GS
1791(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1792situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1793to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1794arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1795recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1796under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1797in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1798that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1799on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1800
69282e91 1801=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1802
be771a83
GS
1803(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1804to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1805L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1806
e21e7c6a
FC
1807=item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1808
1809(F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1810(see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1811L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1812
1813=item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1814
1815(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1816overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
f738a371 1817L<overload> pragma?
e21e7c6a 1818
779c5bc9
GS
1819=item Constant is not %s reference
1820
1821(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83 1822is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
6903afa2 1823The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
be771a83 1824usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1825See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1826
0ac016fc 1827=item Constants from lexical variables potentially modified elsewhere are
9840d1d6 1828deprecated. This will not be allowed in Perl 5.32
0ac016fc
FC
1829
1830(D deprecated) You wrote something like
1831
1832 my $var;
1833 $sub = sub () { $var };
1834
1835but $var is referenced elsewhere and could be modified after the C<sub>
1836expression is evaluated. Either it is explicitly modified elsewhere
1837(C<$var = 3>) or it is passed to a subroutine or to an operator like
1838C<printf> or C<map>, which may or may not modify the variable.
1839
1840Traditionally, Perl has captured the value of the variable at that
1841point and turned the subroutine into a constant eligible for inlining.
1842In those cases where the variable can be modified elsewhere, this
1843breaks the behavior of closures, in which the subroutine captures
1844the variable itself, rather than its value, so future changes to the
1845variable are reflected in the subroutine's return value.
1846
9840d1d6
A
1847This usage is deprecated, and will no longer be allowed in Perl 5.32,
1848making it possible to change the behavior in the future.
0ac016fc
FC
1849
1850If you intended for the subroutine to be eligible for inlining, then
1851make sure the variable is not referenced elsewhere, possibly by
1852copying it:
1853
1854 my $var2 = $var;
1855 $sub = sub () { $var2 };
1856
1857If you do want this subroutine to be a closure that reflects future
1858changes to the variable that it closes over, add an explicit C<return>:
1859
1860 my $var;
1861 $sub = sub () { return $var };
1862
4cee8e80
CS
1863=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1864
aeb94125
FC
1865(W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1866been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1867for commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1868
9607fc9c 1869=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1870
be771a83
GS
1871(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1872for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1873workarounds.
9607fc9c 1874
5a25739d
FC
1875=item Constant(%s) unknown
1876
1877(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1878to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1879character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
3ee1a09c 1880forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?
5a25739d 1881
4a873d7a
FC
1882=item :const is experimental
1883
1884(S experimental::const_attr) The "const" attribute is experimental.
1885If you want to use the feature, disable the warning with C<no warnings
1886'experimental::const_attr'>, but know that in doing so you are taking
1887the risk that your code may break in a future Perl version.
1888
b77472f9
FC
1889=item :const is not permitted on named subroutines
1890
1891(F) The "const" attribute causes an anonymous subroutine to be run and
465068b9 1892its value captured at the time that it is cloned. Named subroutines are
b77472f9
FC
1893not cloned like this, so the attribute does not make sense on them.
1894
e7ea3e70
IZ
1895=item Copy method did not return a reference
1896
6903afa2 1897(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1898L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1899
4aaa4757
FC
1900=item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1901
1902(F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
8d605c0d 1903with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
4aaa4757
FC
1904in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1905called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1906
1907 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1908 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1909
6798c92b
GS
1910=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1911
1912(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1913
675fa9ff
FC
1914=item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1915
1916(P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1917one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1918latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1919
a0d0e21e
LW
1920=item corrupted regexp pointers
1921
1922(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1923expression compiler gave it.
1924
1925=item corrupted regexp program
1926
be771a83
GS
1927(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1928valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1929
de42a5a9 1930=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1931
1932(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1933
49704364
WL
1934=item Count after length/code in unpack
1935
1936(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1937you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1938L<perlfunc/pack>.
1939
3f645a4e
FC
1940=item Declaring references is experimental
1941
1942(S experimental::declared_refs) This warning is emitted if you use
1943a reference constructor on the right-hand side of C<my>, C<state>, C<our>, or
1944C<local>. Simply suppress the warning if you want to use the feature, but
1945know that in doing so you are taking the risk of using an experimental
1946feature which may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
1947
1948 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
1949 use feature "declared_refs";
1950 $fooref = my \$foo;
1951
f2cccb4c
KW
1952=for comment
1953The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1954share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1955
6651ba0b
FC
1956=item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1957
a0d0e21e
LW
1958=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1959
be771a83
GS
1960(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1961100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1962infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1963which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1964
aad1d01f
NC
1965This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1966setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1967
e0e4a6e3
FC
1968=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1969S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
bcb95744 1970
6903afa2 1971(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
bcb95744
FC
1972most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1973of the C<....> part.
1974
6e8a73f2 1975The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
bcb95744
FC
1976discovered.
1977
62658f4d
PM
1978=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1979
1980(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1981there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1982
0ffcbc25
FC
1983=item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1984
4a0af295 1985(F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
0ffcbc25
FC
1986such as:
1987
1988 $foo{$bar}
1989 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
1990
1991or a hash or array slice, such as:
1992
1993 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1994 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
1995
cc0776d6
DIM
1996or a hash key/value or array index/value slice, such as:
1997
1998 %foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1999 %{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2000
fc36a67e 2001=item Delimiter for here document is too long
2002
be771a83
GS
2003(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
2004long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
2005that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 2006
c437f7ac 2007=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30
6d3b25aa 2008
fa816bf3
FC
2009(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
2010has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
6d3b25aa 2011not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
6903afa2 2012conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
fa816bf3 2013static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
6903afa2 2014relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
6d3b25aa 2015declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 2016
6d3b25aa
RGS
2017 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
2018
2019becomes
2020
2021 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
2022
ea9d9ebc 2023Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
fa816bf3 2024lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
36fb85f3
RGS
2025
2026 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
2027
c437f7ac
A
2028This use of C<my()> in a false conditional has been deprecated since
2029Perl 5.10, and it will become a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
2030
500ab966
RGS
2031=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
2032
2033(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
6903afa2
FC
2034just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
2035than to create a dangling reference.
500ab966 2036
3cdd684c
TP
2037=item Did not produce a valid header
2038
3de20fbe 2039See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 2040
6df41af2
GS
2041=item %s did not return a true value
2042
2043(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
2044it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
2045traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
2046do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
2047
cc507455 2048=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 2049
413ff9f6
FC
2050(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
2051some such.
4633a7c4 2052
cc507455 2053=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 2054
52e3acf8 2055(W shadow) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
be771a83
GS
2056variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
2057seems superfluous.
33633739 2058
cc507455 2059=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 2060
be771a83
GS
2061(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
2062@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
2063carried away.
748a9306 2064
7e1af8bc 2065=item Died
5f05dabc 2066
2067(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 2068you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 2069
3cdd684c
TP
2070=item Document contains no data
2071
3de20fbe 2072See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 2073
62658f4d
PM
2074=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
2075
2076(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
943fc58e 2077define a C<$VERSION>.
62658f4d 2078
49704364
WL
2079=item '/' does not take a repeat count
2080
2081(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
2082See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2083
1c99110e 2084=item do "%s" failed, '.' is no longer in @INC; did you mean do "./%s"?
2a0461a3 2085
b28683c9 2086(D deprecated) Previously C< do "somefile"; > would search the current
1c99110e
DM
2087directory for the specified file. Since perl v5.26.0, F<.> has been
2088removed from C<@INC> by default, so this is no longer true. To search the
2089current directory (and only the current directory) you can write
2090C< do "./somefile"; >.
2a0461a3 2091
95cb0d72
FC
2092=item Don't know how to get file name
2093
2094(P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
2095somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
2096
4021c788 2097=item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
a0d0e21e
LW
2098
2099(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
2100
2101=item do_study: out of memory
2102
2103(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
2104
6df41af2
GS
2105=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
2106
56da5a46
RGS
2107(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2108"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
2109name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
2110because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
2111"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
2112something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
2113subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
2114"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 2115
30b17cc1 2116=item dump() better written as CORE::dump(). dump() will no longer be available in Perl 5.30
ac206dc8 2117
30b17cc1
A
2118(D deprecated, misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function,
2119without fully qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo.
2120
4fa40147 2121Use of a unqualified C<dump()> was deprecated in Perl 5.8.0, and this
30b17cc1
A
2122will not be available in Perl 5.30.
2123
2124See L<perlfunc/dump>.
ac206dc8 2125
84d78eb7
YO
2126=item dump is not supported
2127
2128(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
2129
a0d0e21e
LW
2130=item Duplicate free() ignored
2131
be771a83
GS
2132(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
2133already been freed.
a0d0e21e 2134
1109a392
MHM
2135=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
2136
35f0cd76
FC
2137(W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
2138type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1109a392 2139
4633a7c4
LW
2140=item elseif should be elsif
2141
fa816bf3
FC
2142(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
2143it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
2144named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
2145unlikely to be what you want.
2146
c30c479a
KW
2147=item Empty \%c in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2148
e0e4a6e3 2149=item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 2150
af6f566e 2151(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
6903afa2 2152described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
af6f566e 2153a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 2154
fd503f5c 2155=item ${^ENCODING} is no longer supported
a15a3d9b 2156
fd503f5c 2157(F) The special variable C<${^ENCODING}>, formerly used to implement
a15a3d9b
FC
2158the C<encoding> pragma, is no longer supported as of Perl 5.26.0.
2159
fd503f5c
DIM
2160Setting it to anything other than C<undef> is a fatal error as of Perl
21615.28.
ac641426 2162
85ab1d1d 2163=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2164
85ab1d1d 2165(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2166effective uids or gids failed.
2167
c038024b
RGS
2168=item %ENV is aliased to %s
2169
2170(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
2171aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
6903afa2 2172program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
c038024b 2173
748a9306
LW
2174=item Error converting file specification %s
2175
5f05dabc 2176(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 2177specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
2178single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
2179an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
2180conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 2181
ad19ef22 2182=item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
e4d48cc9 2183
be771a83
GS
2184(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2185expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
2186is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 2187
ad19ef22 2188=item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
e4d48cc9 2189
be771a83
GS
2190(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
2191C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
2192pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
2193it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
2194C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
2195interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
2196L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 2197
ad19ef22 2198=item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
6df41af2 2199
be771a83
GS
2200(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
2201assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
2202pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 2203
e0e4a6e3
FC
2204=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
2205S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
2206
2207(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
6903afa2 2208any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1a147d38 2209
6e8a73f2 2210The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
2211discovered.
2212
fc36a67e 2213=item Excessively long <> operator
2214
2215(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
2216Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
2217filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
2218variable and glob that.
2219
ed9aa3b7
SG
2220=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
2221
af8bb25a 2222(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
6903afa2 2223OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 2224
c77da5ff 2225=item %sExecution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
2226
2227(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
2228
0ffcbc25
FC
2229=item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
2230
4a0af295 2231(F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
0ffcbc25
FC
2232subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
2233
2234 $foo{$bar}
2235 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
2236 &do_something
2237
2238=item exists argument is not a subroutine name
2239
ccfc2567
FC
2240(F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
2241and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
0ffcbc25 2242
a0d0e21e
LW
2243=item Exiting eval via %s
2244
be771a83
GS
2245(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
2246goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
2247
2248=item Exiting format via %s
2249
9a2ff54b 2250(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 2251goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 2252
0a753a76 2253=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
2254
be771a83
GS
2255(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
2256sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
2257loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 2258
a0d0e21e
LW
2259=item Exiting subroutine via %s
2260
be771a83
GS
2261(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
2262as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2263
2264=item Exiting substitution via %s
2265
be771a83
GS
2266(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
2267as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 2268
e0e4a6e3 2269=item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2270
675fa9ff 2271(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2272
2273 (?13
2274
2275to denote a capturing group of the form
2276L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
2277but omitted the C<")">.
2278
c9ffefcc
FC
2279=item Expecting close paren for nested extended charclass in regex; marked
2280by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2281
2282(F) While parsing a nested extended character class like:
2283
2284 (?[ ... (?flags:(?[ ... ])) ... ])
2285 ^
2286
2287we expected to see a close paren ')' (marked by ^) but did not.
2288
2289=item Expecting close paren for wrapper for nested extended charclass in
2290regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2291
2292(F) While parsing a nested extended character class like:
2293
2294 (?[ ... (?flags:(?[ ... ])) ... ])
2295 ^
2296
2297we expected to see a close paren ')' (marked by ^) but did not.
2298
e0e4a6e3 2299=item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
27350048 2300
8b6fbf55
FC
2301(F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
2302only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
2303C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
2304containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
27350048
FC
2305This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
2306interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
2307have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
2308L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
2309
baabe3fb 2310=item Experimental aliasing via reference not enabled
1f8155a2 2311
baabe3fb 2312(F) To do aliasing via references, you must first enable the feature:
1f8155a2 2313
baabe3fb
FC
2314 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
2315 use feature "refaliasing";
1f8155a2
FC
2316 \$x = \$y;
2317
74d1b2e4
FC
2318=item Experimental %s on scalar is now forbidden
2319
2320(F) An experimental feature added in Perl 5.14 allowed C<each>, C<keys>,
2321C<push>, C<pop>, C<shift>, C<splice>, C<unshift>, and C<values> to be called with a
2322scalar argument. This experiment is considered unsuccessful, and
2323has been removed. The C<postderef> feature may meet your needs better.
2324
30d9c59b
Z
2325=item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
2326
2327(F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
2328
caa35032 2329 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
30d9c59b
Z
2330 use feature "signatures";
2331 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
2332
7b8d334a
GS
2333=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
2334
be771a83
GS
2335(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
2336the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
2337usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
2338e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 2339
6df41af2
GS
2340=item %s: Expression syntax
2341
be771a83
GS
2342(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
2343Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2344
2345=item %s failed--call queue aborted
2346
3c10abe3
AG
2347(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
2348CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
2349queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 2350
e0d4aead 2351=item Failed to close in-place work file %s: %s
502aca56
TC
2352
2353(F) Closing an output file from in-place editing, as with the C<-i>
2354command-line switch, failed.
2355
e0e4a6e3 2356=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
73b437c8 2357
98d31c73 2358(W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3 2359character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
3c6ca74a
FC
2360in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
2361construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
e0e4a6e3 2362the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
3c6ca74a 2363the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 2364
1b1ee2ef 2365=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 2366
be771a83
GS
2367(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
2368system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
2369details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
2370you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
2371
2372=item fcntl is not implemented
2373
2374(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2375PDP-11 or something?
2376
22846ab4
AB
2377=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2378
2379(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2380is not possible.
2381
f337b084
TH
2382=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2383
d8b5cc61 2384(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
6903afa2
FC
2385which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2386a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 2387C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 2388
a0e213fc
A
2389=item File::Glob::glob() will disappear in perl 5.30. Use File::Glob::bsd_glob() instead.
2390
2391(D deprecated) C<< File::Glob >> has a function called C<< glob >>, which
2392just calls C<< bsd_glob >>. However, its prototype is different from the
2393prototype of C<< CORE::glob >>, and hence, C<< File::Glob::glob >> should
2394not be used.
2395
2396C<< File::Glob::glob() >> was deprecated in perl 5.8.0. A deprecation
2397message was issued from perl 5.26.0 onwards, and the function will
2398disappear in perl 5.30.0.
2399
2400Code using C<< File::Glob::glob() >> should call
2401C<< File::Glob::bsd_glob() >> instead.
2402
af8c498a 2403=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 2404
6c8d78fb
HS
2405(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2406it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2407"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2408write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 2409
af8c498a 2410=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 2411
6c8d78fb
HS
2412(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2413you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
2414with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2415read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2416is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2417output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
2418
2419=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2420
2421(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
6903afa2 2422as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
2423previously.
2424
2425=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2426
2427(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
fa816bf3 2428as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
2429
2430=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2431
2432(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
2433a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2434happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2435name.
a0d0e21e 2436
56e90b21
GS
2437=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2438
be771a83 2439(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 2440some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
2441filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2442same name?
56e90b21 2443
6df41af2
GS
2444=item Format not terminated
2445
2446(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2447to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2448
a0d0e21e
LW
2449=item Format %s redefined
2450
e476b1b5 2451(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
2452
2453 {
271595cc 2454 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
2455 eval "format NAME =...";
2456 }
2457
a0d0e21e
LW
2458=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2459
e476b1b5 2460(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
2461
2462 if ($foo = 123)
2463
2464when you meant
2465
2466 if ($foo == 123)
2467
2468(or something like that).
2469
6df41af2
GS
2470=item %s found where operator expected
2471
56da5a46
RGS
2472(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2473If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
2474operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2475operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 2476
a0d0e21e
LW
2477=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2478
2479(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2480
2481=item gethostent not implemented
2482
2483(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2484because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2485on the Internet.
2486
69282e91 2487=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2488
be771a83
GS
2489(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2490socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 2491
748a9306
LW
2492=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2493
2494(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2495C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2496
6df41af2
GS
2497=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2498
be771a83
GS
2499(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2500forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
2501L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2502
0f539b13
BF
2503=item given is experimental
2504
675fa9ff
FC
2505(S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2506is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2507in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2508L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 2509
68567d27
FC
2510=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2511declare "my %s"?)
6df41af2 2512
a4edf47d 2513(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 2514that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
2515declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2516which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 2517
e476b1b5
GS
2518=item glob failed (%s)
2519
5ead438e 2520(S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
73c4e9dc
FC
2521for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2522pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
be771a83 2523nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
73c4e9dc
FC
2524resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2525is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2526in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2527if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2528all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
be771a83 2529think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 2530C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 2531
a0d0e21e
LW
2532=item Glob not terminated
2533
2534(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
2535a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2536not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2537earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 2538
b35b96b6
JH
2539=item gmtime(%f) failed
2540
2541(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2542too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2543
bcd05b94 2544=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2545
e9200be3 2546(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b 2547it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
6903afa2 2548date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
fc003d4b
MS
2549not-a-number value).
2550
bcd05b94 2551=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2552
e9200be3 2553(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
e7a1a147 2554it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
8b56d6ff 2555
6df41af2 2556=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 2557
6df41af2
GS
2558(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2559version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
2560
2561=item goto must have label
2562
2563(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2564unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2565
6651ba0b
FC
2566=item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2567
2568(F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2569the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2570has since been undefined.
2571
6fbc9859 2572=item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 2573S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1f4f6bf1
YO
2574
2575(F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
f26c79ba
FC
2576they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2577this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
1f4f6bf1 2578
5a25739d
FC
2579=item ()-group starts with a count
2580
2581(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2582something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2583
fe13d51d 2584=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
2585
2586(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2587
a0d0e21e
LW
2588=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2589
be771a83
GS
2590(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2591to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2592created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e 2593
6df41af2
GS
2594=item %s has too many errors
2595
2596(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2597Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2598
61e61fbc
JH
2599=item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2600
d8f2b442 2601(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
61e61fbc
JH
2602than the floating point supports.
2603
2604=item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2605
d8f2b442 2606(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
b6d9b423
JH
2607than the floating point supports. With the IEEE 754 floating point,
2608this may also mean that the subnormals (formerly known as denormals)
2609are being used, which may or may not be an error.
61e61fbc 2610
5488d373 2611=item Hexadecimal float: internal error (%s)
cf4f6003
JH
2612
2613(F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2614
61e61fbc
JH
2615=item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2616
2617(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2618the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2619the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2620
40bca5ae
JH
2621=item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2622
2623(W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2624digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2625long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2626(needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2627
2628=item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2629
2630(F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
d8f2b442 2631the internals of the long double format are unknown;
40bca5ae
JH
2632therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2633
252aa082
JH
2634=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2635
e476b1b5 2636(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2637(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2638L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2639
8903cb82 2640=item Identifier too long
2641
2642(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2643about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2644names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2645of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2646
e0e4a6e3
FC
2647=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2648S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
fc8cd66c 2649
f3ba6905 2650(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
0f44b2a5
FC
2651zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character
2652class its behavior is not well defined. Check that the correct
2653escape has been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
fc8cd66c 2654
283151b7 2655=item Illegal binary digit '%c'
f675dbe5 2656
6df41af2 2657(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2658
6df41af2 2659=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2660
be771a83
GS
2661(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2662binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2663offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2664
6597eb22
FC
2665=item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2666
e4d150f1
FC
2667(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2668declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2669indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2670or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
6597eb22 2671
b913d0b8
FC
2672=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2673
2674(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as
2675it would any other whitespace, which means you should never see
2676this error when Perl was built using standard options. For some
2677reason, your version of Perl appears to have been built without
2678this support. Talk to your Perl administrator.
2679
bb6b75cd 2680=item Illegal character following sigil in a subroutine signature
d3d9da4a
DM
2681
2682(F) A parameter in a subroutine signature contained an unexpected character
d4e5761f
FC
2683following the C<$>, C<@> or C<%> sigil character. Normally the sigil
2684should be followed by the variable name or C<=> etc. Perhaps you are
d3d9da4a
DM
2685trying use a prototype while in the scope of C<use feature 'signatures'>?
2686For example:
2687
2688 sub foo ($$) {} # legal - a prototype
2689
2690 use feature 'signatures;
2691 sub foo ($$) {} # illegal - was expecting a signature
2692 sub foo ($a, $b)
2693 :prototype($$) {} # legal
2694
2695
d37a9538
ST
2696=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2697
197afce1 2698(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2699Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
30d9c59b
Z
2700Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2701that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2702instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
d37a9538 2703
904d85c5
RGS
2704=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2705
2706(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
6903afa2 2707you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
904d85c5 2708
8e742a20
MHM
2709=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2710
6903afa2 2711(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
8e742a20 2712
a0d0e21e
LW
2713=item Illegal division by zero
2714
be771a83
GS
2715(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2716your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2717meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2718
6df41af2
GS
2719=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2720
be771a83
GS
2721(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2722A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2723number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2724
a0d0e21e
LW
2725=item Illegal modulus zero
2726
be771a83
GS
2727(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2728numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2729
6df41af2 2730=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2731
6df41af2
GS
2732(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2733two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4 2734
283151b7 2735=item Illegal octal digit '%c'
a0d0e21e 2736
d1be9408 2737(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2738
399388f4 2739=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2740
d1be9408 2741(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2742Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2743
ecc6274e
FC
2744=item Illegal operator following parameter in a subroutine signature
2745
2746(F) A parameter in a subroutine signature, was followed by something
2747other than C<=> introducing a default, C<,> or C<)>.
2748
2749 use feature 'signatures';
2750 sub foo ($=1) {} # legal
2751 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
2752 sub foo ($a += 1) {} # illegal
2753 sub foo ($a == 1) {} # illegal
2754
e0e4a6e3 2755=item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
c608e803 2756
675fa9ff 2757(F) You wrote something like
c608e803
KW
2758
2759 (?+foo)
2760
2761The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2762capturing group. See
2763L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2764
375ed12a
JH
2765=item Illegal suidscript
2766
2767(F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2768
fe13d51d 2769=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2770
6df41af2 2771(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2772following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2773
4003ea29
KW
2774=item Illegal user-defined property name
2775
2776(F) You specified a Unicode-like property name in a regular expression
2777pattern (using C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>) that Perl knows isn't an official
2778Unicode property, and was likely meant to be a user-defined property
2779name, but it can't be one of those, as they must begin with either C<In>
2780or C<Is>. Check the spelling. See also
2781L</Can't find Unicode property definition "%s">.
2782
6df41af2 2783=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2784
75b44862 2785(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2786internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2787delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2788
6df41af2 2789=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2790
be771a83
GS
2791(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2792name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2793didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2794ignored.
54310121 2795
6df41af2 2796=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2797
be771a83
GS
2798(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2799the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2800system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2801times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2802would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2803
be771a83
GS
2804Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2805also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2806
e0e4a6e3
FC
2807=item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2808in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 2809
675fa9ff 2810(F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
0d0b4b3b
KW
2811expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2812too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2813enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2814
6fbc9859
MH
2815=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2816parent '%s'
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2817
2818(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2819C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2820documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2821
cdd6375d
MH
2822=item Indentation on line %d of here-doc doesn't match delimiter
2823
2824(F) You have an indented here-document where one or more of its lines
2825have whitespace at the beginning that does not match the closing
2826delimiter.
2827
2828For example, line 2 below is wrong because it does not have at least
28292 spaces, but lines 1 and 3 are fine because they have at least 2:
2830
2831 if ($something) {
2832 print <<~EOF;
2833 Line 1
2834 Line 2 not
2835 Line 3
2836 EOF
2837 }
2838
2839Note that tabs and spaces are compared strictly, meaning 1 tab will
2840not match 8 spaces.
2841
6a2ed79a 2842=item Infinite recursion in regex
1a147d38
YO
2843
2844(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
6903afa2 2845text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
1a147d38
YO
2846either consume text or fail.
2847
714f94d1
FC
2848=item Infinite recursion via empty pattern
2849
2850(F) You tried to use the empty pattern inside of a regex code block,
2851for instance C</(?{ s!!! })/>, which resulted in re-executing
2852the same pattern, which is an infinite loop which is broken by
2853throwing an exception.
2854
f99042c8 2855=item Initialization of state variables in list currently forbidden
6dbe9451 2856
f99042c8
Z
2857(F) C<state> only permits initializing a single variable, specified
2858without parentheses. So C<state $a = 42> and C<state @a = qw(a b c)> are
2859allowed, but not C<state ($a) = 42> or C<(state $a) = 42>. To initialize
2860more than one C<state> variable, initialize them one at a time.
6dbe9451 2861
2186f873
FC
2862=item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2863
2864(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2865(indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2866it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2867is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2868returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2869a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2870expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2871returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2872
2873=item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2874
2875(W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2876(indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2877better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2878is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2879it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2880provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2881if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2882it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2883
a0d0e21e
LW
2884=item Insecure dependency in %s
2885
8b1a09fc 2886(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2887The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2888setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2889tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2890from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2891such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2892L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2893
2894=item Insecure directory in %s
2895
be771a83
GS
2896(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2897setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2898the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2899See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2900
62f468fc 2901=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2902
2903(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2904setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2905C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2906supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2907the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2908
0e9be77f
DM
2909=item Insecure user-defined property %s
2910
2911(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2912expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2913function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2914See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2915
b9ef414d
FC
2916=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2917
2918(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2919or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2920integers for your architecture.
2921
a7ae9550
GS
2922=item Integer overflow in %s number
2923
35928bc5 2924(S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2925either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2926your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2927On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2928representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
29290b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2930transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2931internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2932operations.
bbce6d69 2933
fc89ca81
FC
2934=item Integer overflow in srand
2935
2936(S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2937in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2938replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2939architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2940you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2941return the same sequence of random numbers.
2942
46314c13
JP
2943=item Integer overflow in version
2944
18da5252
FC
2945=item Integer overflow in version %d
2946
784d71ed
FC
2947(W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2948the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
f084e84f 2949because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
784d71ed
FC
2950element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2951to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
46314c13 2952
e0e4a6e3 2953=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2954
2955(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
e0e4a6e3 2956The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2957discovered.
2958
748a9306
LW
2959=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2960
be771a83
GS
2961(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2962you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2963to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2964L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2965Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2966terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2967
870978ae
FC
2968=item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2969
2970(S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2971formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2972C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2973by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2974message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2975reserved format.
2976
e0e4a6e3 2977=item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 2978
fa816bf3 2979(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
e0e4a6e3 2980S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
7253e4e3 2981discovered.
a0d0e21e 2982
6df41af2
GS
2983=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2984
75b44862 2985(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2986followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2987operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2988L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2989
f51551f7
FC
2990=item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2991marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2992
2993(F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2994expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2995intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2996with whitespace.
2997
09bef843
SB
2998=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2999
a4a4c9e2 3000(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
3001by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
3002
3003=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
3004
a4a4c9e2 3005(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 3006recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 3007
e0e4a6e3
FC
3008=item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
3009S<<-- HERE> in '%s
225fb84f
KW
3010
3011(F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
3012the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
3013the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3014
c8028aa6
TC
3015=item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
3016
fa3234e3
FC
3017(W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
3018arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
3019formerly ignored by system calls.
c8028aa6 3020
e0e4a6e3 3021=item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
a690c7c4
FC
3022
3023(F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
3024indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3025
c635e13b 3026=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
3027
be771a83
GS
3028(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
3029L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 3030
e0e4a6e3
FC
3031=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
3032S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9e08bc66 3033
98d31c73 3034(W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
9e08bc66
TS
3035didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
3036from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
98d31c73
FC
3037The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
3038instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
e0e4a6e3 3039The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
9e08bc66
TS
3040escape was discovered.
3041
8149aa9f
FC
3042=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
3043
e0e4a6e3
FC
3044=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
3045S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3046
8149aa9f 3047(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
74f8e9e3
FC
3048number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
30490 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
8149aa9f 3050
6651ba0b
FC
3051=item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
3052
3053(F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
3054cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
3055arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
3056B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
3057
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3058=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
3059
162a3e34
FC
3060(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
3061where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
3062the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
3063a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 3064
40e4140b
FC
3065=item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
3066
3067(W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
abc0aa9d 3068not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
40e4140b
FC
3069character (U+FFFD).
3070
74d1b2e4
FC
3071=item Invalid number '%s' for -C option.
3072
3073(F) You supplied a number to the -C option that either has extra leading
3074zeroes or overflows perl's unsigned integer representation.
3075
6651ba0b
FC
3076=item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
3077
8ff21bfe
FC
3078(S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
3079with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
982c4ecb 3080See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
6651ba0b 3081
6e8a73f2 3082=item Invalid quantifier in {,} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
35cd12d1
HS
3083
3084(F) The pattern looks like a {min,max} quantifier, but the min or max
3085could not be parsed as a valid number - either it has leading zeroes,
3086or it represents too big a number to cope with. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3087where in the regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3088
e0e4a6e3 3089=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3090
3091(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
3092greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
3093C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
e0e4a6e3 3094up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 3095problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 3096
d1573ac7 3097=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
3098
3099(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
3100character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
3101
09bef843
SB
3102=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
3103
0120eecf 3104(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
3105elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
3106parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
3107See L<attributes>.
09bef843 3108
b4581f09
JH
3109=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
3110
2bfc5f71
FC
3111(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
3112than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
3113If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
3114list was terminated too soon.
3115
2c86d456
DG
3116=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
3117
fa816bf3 3118(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
3119A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3120decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
3121v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 3122The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
3123See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
3124
49704364 3125=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 3126
49704364
WL
3127(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
3128See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6728c851 3129
49704364 3130(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 3131silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 3132
2c86d456
DG
3133=item Invalid version format (%s)
3134
fa816bf3 3135(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2c86d456
DG
3136A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3137decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
fa816bf3
FC
3138v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
3139must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
3140optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
3141trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
3142after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
3143text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
3144for more details on allowed version formats.
46314c13 3145
798ae1b7
DG
3146=item Invalid version object
3147
fa816bf3
FC
3148(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
3149Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
3150an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
798ae1b7 3151
cd209d9d 3152=item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
e0e4a6e3 3153marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff 3154
cd209d9d 3155(F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in
675fa9ff
FC
3156this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
3157indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
cd209d9d 3158and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
675fa9ff 3159
a0d0e21e
LW
3160=item ioctl is not implemented
3161
3162(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
3163strange for a machine that supports C.
3164
c289d2f7
JH
3165=item ioctl() on unopened %s
3166
3167(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 3168Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 3169
fe13d51d 3170=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
3171
3172(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 3173you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
3174with 'useperlio'.
3175
80cbd5ad
JH
3176=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
3177
3178(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 3179neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 3180
6e8a73f2 3181=item '%s' is an unknown bound type in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
64935bc6
KW
3182
3183(F) You used C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}> and the C<...> is not known to
3184Perl. The current valid ones are given in
3185L<perlrebackslash/\b{}, \b, \B{}, \B>.
3186
1972ac5c 3187=item %s() is deprecated on :utf8 handles. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30
74d1b2e4 3188
dd6d5da4 3189(D deprecated) The sysread(), recv(), syswrite() and send() operators are
74d1b2e4
FC
3190deprecated on handles that have the C<:utf8> layer, either explicitly, or
3191implicitly, eg., with the C<:encoding(UTF-16LE)> layer.
3192
3193Both sysread() and recv() currently use only the C<:utf8> flag for the stream,
3194ignoring the actual layers. Since sysread() and recv() do no UTF-8
3195validation they can end up creating invalidly encoded scalars.
3196
3197Similarly, syswrite() and send() use only the C<:utf8> flag, otherwise ignoring
3198any layers. If the flag is set, both write the value UTF-8 encoded, even if
3199the layer is some different encoding, such as the example above.
3200
3201Ideally, all of these operators would completely ignore the C<:utf8> state,
3202working only with bytes, but this would result in silently breaking existing
1972ac5c
A
3203code.
3204
3205In Perl 5.30, it will no longer be possible to use sysread(), recv(),
3206syswrite() or send() to read or send bytes from/to :utf8 handles.
74d1b2e4 3207
d4360efa 3208=item "%s" is more clearly written simply as "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
acdfc3b6 3209
d4360efa 3210(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
30b17cc1 3211
3f673807
FC
3212You specified a character that has the given plainer way of writing it, and
3213which is also portable to platforms running with different character sets.
acdfc3b6 3214
37398dc1 3215=item $* is no longer supported. Its use will be fatal in Perl 5.30
a678626e
A
3216
3217(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
3218perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. In
3219previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
3220matching within a string.
3221
3222Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
3223modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
3224with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
3225then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
3226
37398dc1
A
3227Use of this variable will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
3228
3229=item $# is no longer supported. Its use will be fatal in Perl 5.30
a678626e
A
3230
3231(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
3232perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. You
3233should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
3234
37398dc1
A
3235Use of this variable will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
3236
ccf3535a 3237=item '%s' is not a code reference
6ad11d81 3238
6903afa2
FC
3239(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
3240overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
3241an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
6ad11d81 3242
ccf3535a 3243=item '%s' is not an overloadable type
6ad11d81 3244
04a80ee0
RGS
3245(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
3246unaware of.
6ad11d81 3247
5a25739d
FC
3248=item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
3249
3250(S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
3251that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
3252given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
3253make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
3254it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
3255should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
3256line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
3257
aec0ef10 3258=item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
3259
3260(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
3261
3262=item Label not found for "last %s"
3263
be771a83
GS
3264(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
3265of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3266L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3267
3268=item Label not found for "next %s"
3269
3270(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
3271that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3272L<perlfunc/last>.
3273
3274=item Label not found for "redo %s"
3275
3276(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
3277that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3278L<perlfunc/last>.
3279
85ab1d1d 3280=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 3281
85ab1d1d 3282(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
3283effective uids or gids failed.
3284
49704364
WL
3285=item length/code after end of string in unpack
3286
d7f8936a 3287(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
6903afa2
FC
3288length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
3289an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 3290
25e26107 3291=item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
e508c8a4 3292
0d46a4e7
FC
3293(W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
3294probably wanted a count of the items.
e508c8a4
MH
3295
3296Array size can be obtained by doing:
3297
3298 scalar(@array);
3299
3300The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
3301
3302 scalar(keys %hash);
3303
f0e67a1d
Z
3304=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
3305
d4fe7078
RS
3306(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
3307(using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
3308couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
3309of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
6903afa2 3310it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
3311
3312=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
3313
3314(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
3315detectable way.
3316
69282e91 3317=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3318
be771a83
GS
3319(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
3320to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3321L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 3322
6651ba0b
FC
3323=item List form of piped open not implemented
3324
3325(F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
3326form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
3327Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
3328
dc6bb7ba
FC
3329=item %s: loadable library and perl binaries are mismatched (got handshake key %p, needed %p)
3330
3331(P) A dynamic loading library C<.so> or C<.dll> was being loaded into the
3332process that was built against a different build of perl than the
3333said library was compiled against. Reinstalling the XS module will
3334likely fix this error.
3335
8c6180a9
KW
3336=item Locale '%s' may not work well.%s
3337
780fcc9f 3338(W locale) You are using the named locale, which is a non-UTF-8 one, and
dae67c56
KW
3339which perl has determined is not fully compatible with what it can
3340handle. The second C<%s> gives a reason.
8c6180a9
KW
3341
3342By far the most common reason is that the locale has characters in it
3343that are represented by more than one byte. The only such locales that
3344Perl can handle are the UTF-8 locales. Most likely the specified locale
3345is a non-UTF-8 one for an East Asian language such as Chinese or
3346Japanese. If the locale is a superset of ASCII, the ASCII portion of it
780fcc9f 3347may work in Perl.
8c6180a9
KW
3348
3349Some essentially obsolete locales that aren't supersets of ASCII, mainly
3350those in ISO 646 or other 7-bit locales, such as ASMO 449, can also have
3351problems, depending on what portions of the ASCII character set get
3352changed by the locale and are also used by the program.
3353The warning message lists the determinable conflicting characters.
3354
780fcc9f
KW
3355Note that not all incompatibilities are found.
3356
3357If this happens to you, there's not much you can do except switch to use a
3358different locale or use L<Encode> to translate from the locale into
3359UTF-8; if that's impracticable, you have been warned that some things
3360may break.
3361
3362This message is output once each time a bad locale is switched into
3363within the scope of C<S<use locale>>, or on the first possibly-affected
3364operation if the C<S<use locale>> inherits a bad one. It is not raised
3365for any operations from the L<POSIX> module.
3366
a2162cd9
FC
3367=item localtime(%f) failed
3368
3369(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
3370too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
3371
3372=item localtime(%f) too large
3373
3374(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
3375than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3376wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
3377not-a-number value).
3378
3379=item localtime(%f) too small
3380
3381(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
3382than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3383wrong date.
3384
58e23c8d 3385=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3386
3387(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
6903afa2 3388handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 3389
b88df990
NC
3390=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
3391
e63e8a91
FC
3392(W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
3393is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
3394accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
3395warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
3396when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
3397insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
b88df990 3398
93fad930 3399=item lstat() on filehandle%s
2f7da168
RK
3400
3401(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
3402by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
3403instead on the filehandle.)
3404
345d70e3 3405=item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
bb3abb05 3406
345d70e3
FC
3407(W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
3408attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
3409does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
3410want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
3411details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
3412if you really know what you are doing.
bb3abb05 3413
885ef6f5
GG
3414=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
3415
345d70e3
FC
3416(W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
3417subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
3418not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
3419add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
3420foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
3421
3422See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
885ef6f5 3423
6f1b3ab0
FC
3424=item Magical list constants are not supported
3425
3426(F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
3427to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
3428something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
3429
2db62bbc 3430=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
49704364 3431
2db62bbc 3432(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
3433are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3434
3435=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
3436
2db62bbc 3437(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
49704364
WL
3438are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3439
6df41af2
GS
3440=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3441
3442(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3443
3444 prefix1;prefix2
3445
3446or
6df41af2
GS
3447 prefix1 prefix2
3448
be771a83
GS
3449with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
3450a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
3451appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 3452"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3453
2f758a16
ST
3454=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
3455
d37a9538
ST
3456(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
3457syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
3458obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
3459when the function is called.
30d9c59b
Z
3460Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
3461but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
3462so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2f758a16 3463
2b5e7bc2 3464=item Malformed UTF-8 character%s
ba210ebe 3465
7cf8d05d
KW
3466(S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that should be UTF-8, but didn't
3467comply with UTF-8 encoding rules, or represents a code point whose
3468ordinal integer value doesn't fit into the word size of the current
3469platform (overflows). Details as to the exact malformation are given in
3470the variable, C<%s>, part of the message.
ba210ebe 3471
2575c402 3472One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
3f673807
FC
3473you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit
3474data). To guard against this, you can use C<Encode::decode('UTF-8', ...)>.
2575c402
JW
3475
3476If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
3f673807
FC
3477sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is set
3478without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error message.
2575c402
JW
3479
3480See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 3481
bde9e88d 3482=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
ff3f963a
KW
3483
3484(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
3485
714f94d1
FC
3486=item Malformed UTF-8 string in "%s"
3487
3488(F) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl core or in XS
3489code. Such code was trying to find out if a character, allegedly
3490stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such as
3491being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded
3492in legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used
3493by knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked
3494against was.
3495
3496Passing malformed strings was deprecated in Perl 5.18, and
3497became fatal in Perl 5.26.
3498
4a5d3a93
FC
3499=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
3500
3501(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3502rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3503
f337b084
TH
3504=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
3505
3506(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3507rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3508
3509=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
3510
3511(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3512rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3513
4a5d3a93 3514=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
f337b084 3515
4a5d3a93
FC
3516(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
3517doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
3518
30d9c59b
Z
3519=item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
3520
3521(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
3522$b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
3523Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
3524caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
3525as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
3526optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
3527
2d88a86a
KW
3528=item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
3529not be portable
3530
3531(S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
3532Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
3533in an unsigned integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
3534other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3535containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3536the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3537C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3538so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3539in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3540unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3541given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3542L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3543
3544This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3545immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3546not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3547the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3548Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3549every code point except these 22.)
3550
3551Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3552should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3553that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3554category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3555off this category.
3556
3557See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3558
e0e4a6e3
FC
3559=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3560m/%s/
4a5d3a93
FC
3561
3562(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
e0e4a6e3 3563regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 3564shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4a5d3a93 3565See L<perlre>.
f337b084 3566
de42a5a9 3567=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 3568
6903afa2 3569(F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
3570usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3571too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3572resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
6903afa2 3573safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2563cec5 3574
25f58aea
PN
3575=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3576
3577(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3578interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3579"use" or "my".
3580
0d2487cd 3581=item '%' may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
3582
3583(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
3584checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3585See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 3586
a0d0e21e
LW
3587=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3588
3589(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 3590doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3591
3cdd684c
TP
3592=item Method %s not permitted
3593
3de20fbe 3594See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 3595
a0d0e21e
LW
3596=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3597
3598(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3599by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3600ended earlier on the current line.
3601
3602=item Misplaced _ in number
3603
d4ced10d
JH
3604(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3605separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 3606
0ea23158
DM
3607=item Missing argument for %n in %s
3608
3609(F) A C<%n> was used in a format string with no corresponding argument for
3610perl to write the current string length to.
3611
7baa4690
HS
3612=item Missing argument in %s
3613
3664866e
AB
3614(W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3615arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3616
3617Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3618arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3619other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3620functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
7baa4690 3621
9e81e6a1
RGS
3622=item Missing argument to -%c
3623
3624(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3625immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3626
ff3f963a 3627=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 3628
e0e4a6e3 3629=item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 3630
4a2d328f 3631(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
532cb70d
FC
3632double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3633(or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3634This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3635follow the C<\N>.
423cee85 3636
f0a2b745
KW
3637=item Missing braces on \o{}
3638
3639(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3640
a0d0e21e
LW
3641=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3642
3643(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3644"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3645
06eaf0bc
GS
3646=item Missing command in piped open
3647
be771a83
GS
3648(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3649C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3650blank.
06eaf0bc 3651
961ce445
RGS
3652=item Missing control char name in \c
3653
3654(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3655character name.
3656
591f5ca2
FC
3657=item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3658
bfe11873 3659(W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
591f5ca2 3660
8767b1ab 3661=item Missing name in "%s sub"
6df41af2 3662
87444db5 3663(F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
be771a83 3664they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
3665
3666=item Missing $ on loop variable
3667
be771a83
GS
3668(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3669are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3670can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 3671
cc507455 3672=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 3673
56da5a46
RGS
3674(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3675"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 3676
33fe1955 3677=item Missing or undefined argument to %s
f51551f7 3678
33fe1955 3679(F) You tried to call require or do with no argument or with an undefined
f51551f7 3680value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
33fe1955
LM
3681file-specification as an argument; do expects a filename. See
3682L<perlfunc/require EXPR> and L<perlfunc/do EXPR>.
f51551f7 3683
e0e4a6e3 3684=item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ab13f0c7 3685
ff3f963a
KW
3686(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3687
605eee60 3688=item Missing right brace on \N{}
faad849d 3689
4a68bf9d 3690=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 3691
d32207c9
FC
3692(F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3693
3694The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3695meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
fa816bf3 3696name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
d32207c9
FC
3697double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3698it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3699
3700Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3701in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3702for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3703
3704This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3705by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3706form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3707means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
37083; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3709C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3710
3711However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3712mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3713If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3714escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 3715
d98d5fff 3716=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 3717
be771a83
GS
3718(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3719ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3720were last editing.
a0d0e21e 3721
6df41af2
GS
3722=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3723
56da5a46
RGS
3724(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3725"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
3726the previous line just because you saw this message.
3727
a0d0e21e
LW
3728=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3729
3730(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 3731constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
3732catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3733
3734 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3735 mod(2);
3736
3737Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3738
c5674021
PDF
3739Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3740is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3741
b7e4ecc1
FC
3742 $x = 1;
3743 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3744 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3745 } # modify the 2
c5674021 3746
7a4340ed 3747=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
3748
3749(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3750subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3751backwards.
3752
7a4340ed 3753=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 3754
be771a83
GS
3755(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3756couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
3757
3758=item Module name must be constant
3759
3760(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3761
be98fb35 3762=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 3763
be98fb35
GS
3764(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3765you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3766about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 3767
fe13d51d 3768=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7 3769
6903afa2 3770(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
ed9aa3b7
SG
3771can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3772list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3773See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3774
85396b18
FC
3775=item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3776
3777(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3778L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3779could not be made read-only.
3780
92951bce
FC
3781=item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3782
85396b18
FC
3783(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3784but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3785
3786=item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3787
3788(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3789L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3790buffer could not be made mutable.
3791
92951bce
FC
3792=item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3793
3794(S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
85396b18
FC
3795L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3796mutable before freeing the ops.
92951bce 3797
a0d0e21e
LW
3798=item msg%s not implemented
3799
3800(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3801
3802=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3803
75b44862
GS
3804(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3805They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 3806
d3d9da4a
DM
3807=item Multiple slurpy parameters not allowed
3808
3809(F) In subroutine signatures, a slurpy parameter (C<@> or C<%>) must be
3810the last parameter, and there must not be more than one of them; for
3811example:
3812
3813 sub foo ($a, @b) {} # legal
3814 sub foo ($a, @b, %) {} # invalid
3815
49704364 3816=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 3817
49704364
WL
3818(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3819follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3820See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2 3821
c869951c 3822=item %s must not be a named sequence in transliteration operator
f4240379
KW
3823
3824(F) Transliteration (C<tr///> and C<y///>) transliterates individual
3825characters. But a named sequence by definition is more than an
3826individual charater, and hence doing this operation on it doesn't make
3827sense.
3828
6df41af2
GS
3829=item "my sub" not yet implemented
3830
be771a83
GS
3831(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3832that yet.
6df41af2 3833
a21eb52b
FC
3834=item "my" subroutine %s can't be in a package
3835
3836(F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3837sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
3838
5a25739d
FC
3839=item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3840
3841(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3842You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3843sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3844lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3845name, or rename the lexical variable.
3846
fd1b7234 3847=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 3848
be771a83
GS
3849(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3850sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3851local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 3852
8149aa9f
FC
3853=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3854
c59aba6c
FC
3855(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3856names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3857just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
08a33b6b 3858declaration is also provided for this purpose.
c59aba6c 3859
66a1f5ec
FC
3860NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3861only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3862warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3863%c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
c59aba6c
FC
3864format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3865but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3866Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3867identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
8149aa9f 3868
e0e4a6e3 3869=item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b
KW
3870
3871(F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3872exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3873constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3874
3875 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3876 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3877 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3878
3879The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
675fa9ff
FC
3880need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3881two separate things, you need to separate them:
0d0b4b3b
KW
3882
3883 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3884 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3885 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3886 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3887
49704364
WL
3888=item Negative '/' count in unpack
3889
3890(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3891negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3892
a0d0e21e
LW
3893=item Negative length
3894
be771a83
GS
3895(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3896length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 3897
ed9aa3b7
SG
3898=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3899
3900(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3901greater than or equal to zero.
3902
b3211734
KW
3903=item Negative repeat count does nothing
3904
3905(W numeric) You tried to execute the
3906L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3907times, which doesn't make sense.
3908
e0e4a6e3 3909=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3910
6903afa2 3911(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
e0e4a6e3 3912So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 3913whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 3914
7253e4e3 3915Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 3916C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3917
6df41af2 3918=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 3919
be771a83
GS
3920(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3921scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 3922
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3923=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3924
3925(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3926real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3927See L<mro>.
3928
5a25739d 3929=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
e0e4a6e3 3930marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5a25739d 3931
32a77fbe
FC
3932(F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
3933bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
3934class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
3935probably not what you want.
5a25739d 3936
022a330c 3937=item \N{} in inverted character class or as a range end-point is restricted to one character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
0b4ce96d 3938
f3ba6905
FC
3939(F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
3940multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
3941supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
3942whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>),
3943or the escape is the beginning or final end point of a range. The
3944mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
3945is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
3946forbid it. Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
3947C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
8f0cd35a
KW
3948
3949 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
3950
f3ba6905
FC
3951What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
3952of code points, so this is made an error.
0b4ce96d 3953
e0e4a6e3
FC
3954=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by
3955S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5a25739d
FC
3956
3957(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
3958sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
3959bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
3960backslash in double-quotish:
3961
3962 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
3963 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
3964 /$re/;
3965
3966Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
3967
3968 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
3969 /$re/;
3970
3971The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
3972components:
3973
3974 $re = '\N';
3975 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
3976
3977It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and
3978it doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
3979
3980Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
3981C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
3982
3983 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
3984 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
3985
a0d0e21e
LW
3986=item No %s allowed while running setuid
3987
be771a83
GS
3988(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3989setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3990will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3991securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 3992
6651ba0b
FC
3993=item No code specified for -%c
3994
3995(F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3996you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3997argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3998
3999 perl -e ""
4000 perl -e0
4001 perl -e1
4002
a0d0e21e
LW
4003=item No comma allowed after %s
4004
6903afa2
FC
4005(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
4006not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
a0d0e21e
LW
4007Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
4008
6903afa2
FC
4009One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
4010a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
4011importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
4012system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
4013use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
4014please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
4015explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
4016it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
4017still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
4018the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
4019constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
0a753a76 4020
748a9306
LW
4021=item No command into which to pipe on command line
4022
be771a83
GS
4023(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4024redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
4025doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 4026
a0d0e21e
LW
4027=item No DB::DB routine defined
4028
be771a83 4029(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
f7af5ce1 4030for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
ccafdc96
RGS
4031module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
4032statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
4033
4034=item No dbm on this machine
4035
4036(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 4037supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 4038
ccafdc96 4039=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 4040
ccafdc96
RGS
4041(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
4042for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
4043module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
4044of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 4045
6651ba0b
FC
4046=item No directory specified for -I
4047
4048(F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
4049I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
4050
c47ff5f1 4051=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 4052
be771a83
GS
4053(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4054redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
4055find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 4056
49704364
WL
4057=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
4058
4059(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
6903afa2 4060matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
49704364 4061
c47ff5f1 4062=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 4063
be771a83
GS
4064(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4065redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
4066name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 4067
2c7d6b9c
RGS
4068=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
4069
4070(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
4071in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
4072it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
fa816bf3 4073or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2c7d6b9c 4074
02a7a248
JH
4075=item Non-finite repeat count does nothing
4076
4077(W numeric) You tried to execute the
8a737443
FC
4078L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator C<Inf> (or
4079C<-Inf>) or C<NaN> times, which doesn't make sense.
02a7a248 4080
e0e4a6e3 4081=item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4082
4083(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
4084a hex one was expected, like
4085
4086 (?[ [ \xDG ] ])
4087 (?[ [ \x{DEKA} ] ])
4088
e0e4a6e3 4089=item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4090
4091(F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
4092an octal one was expected, like
4093
4094 (?[ [ \o{1278} ] ])
4095
4096=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
4097
4098(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
4099unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
4100is as indicated.
4101
6df41af2
GS
4102=item "no" not allowed in expression
4103
be771a83
GS
4104(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4105returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 4106
675fa9ff
FC
4107=item Non-string passed as bitmask
4108
4109(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
4110Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
4111select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4112
c47ff5f1 4113=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 4114
be771a83
GS
4115(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4116redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
4117doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 4118
c47ff5f1 4119=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 4120
be771a83
GS
4121(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4122redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
4123find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 4124
8d9d0498
FC
4125=item No package name allowed for subroutine %s in "our"
4126
1ec3e8de
GS
4127=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
4128
8d9d0498
FC
4129(F) Fully qualified subroutine and variable names are not allowed in "our"
4130declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing rules.
4131Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 4132
a0d0e21e
LW
4133=item No Perl script found in input
4134
4135(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
4136with #! and containing the word "perl".
4137
4138=item No setregid available
4139
4140(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
4141your system.
4142
4143=item No setreuid available
4144
4145(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
4146your system.
4147
5a25739d
FC
4148=item No such class %s
4149
4150(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
4151declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
4152
e75d1f10
RD
4153=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
4154
b7e4ecc1
FC
4155(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
4156variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
4157The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
4158L<fields> pragma.
e75d1f10 4159
3c20a832
SP
4160=item No such hook: %s
4161
dc7e5945
FC
4162(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
4163Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3c20a832 4164
6df41af2
GS
4165=item No such pipe open
4166
4167(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
4168close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
4169earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 4170
a0d0e21e
LW
4171=item No such signal: SIG%s
4172
be771a83
GS
4173(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
4174not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
4175names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
4176
4177=item Not a CODE reference
4178
4179(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4180subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
4181use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4182also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4183
a0d0e21e
LW
4184=item Not a GLOB reference
4185
be771a83
GS
4186(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
4187symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
4188something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
4189kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4190
4191=item Not a HASH reference
4192
be771a83
GS
4193(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
4194reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
4195find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4196
b913d0b8
FC
4197=item '#' not allowed immediately following a sigil in a subroutine signature
4198
4199(F) In a subroutine signature definition, a comment following a sigil
4200(C<$>, C<@> or C<%>), needs to be separated by whitespace or a commma etc., in
4201particular to avoid confusion with the C<$#> variable. For example:
4202
4203 # bad
4204 sub f ($# ignore first arg
4205 , $b) {}
4206 # good
4207 sub f ($, # ignore first arg
4208 $b) {}
4209
6df41af2
GS
4210=item Not an ARRAY reference
4211
be771a83
GS
4212(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
4213a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4214to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 4215
a0d0e21e
LW
4216=item Not a SCALAR reference
4217
be771a83
GS
4218(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
4219a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4220to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4221
4222=item Not a subroutine reference
4223
4224(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4225subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
4226use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4227also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 4228
e7ea3e70 4229=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
4230
4231(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 4232doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 4233
a0d0e21e
LW
4234=item Not enough arguments for %s
4235
4236(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
4237
6df41af2
GS
4238=item Not enough format arguments
4239
be771a83
GS
4240(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
4241supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
4242
4243=item %s: not found
4244
be771a83
GS
4245(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4246of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4247yourself.
6df41af2 4248
e0e4a6e3 4249=item (?[...]) not valid in locale in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
4250
4251(F) C<(?[...])> cannot be used within the scope of a C<S<use locale>> or with
4252an C</l> regular expression modifier, as that would require deferring
4253to run-time the calculation of what it should evaluate to, and it is
4254regex compile-time only.
4255
6df41af2 4256=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 4257
6df41af2
GS
4258(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
4259timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
4260to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
4261F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
4262need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 4263
6df41af2
GS
4264=item NULL OP IN RUN
4265
f84fe999 4266(S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
be771a83 4267pointer.
6df41af2 4268
55497cff 4269=item Null picture in formline
4270
4271(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
4272specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
4273supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
4274
a0d0e21e
LW
4275=item Null realloc
4276
4277(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
4278
4279=item NULL regexp argument
4280
5f05dabc 4281(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
4282
4283=item NULL regexp parameter
4284
4285(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
4286
fc36a67e 4287=item Number too long
4288
be771a83 4289(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 4290about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
4291versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
4292the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
4293"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 4294
f0a2b745
KW
4295=item Number with no digits
4296
1043934d 4297(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
6903afa2 4298a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
1043934d 4299the braces.
f0a2b745 4300
252aa082
JH
4301=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
4302
75b44862 4303(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
4304(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
4305L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 4306
ac7609e4 4307=item Odd name/value argument for subroutine '%s'
30d9c59b
Z
4308
4309(F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
4310received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
4311the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
35e5ce67 4312The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
30d9c59b 4313
ac7609e4
AC
4314The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
4315subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
4316regardless of what name the caller used.
4317
6ad11d81
JH
4318=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
4319
04a80ee0 4320(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
6903afa2 4321arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 4322
b21befc1
MG
4323=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
4324
4325(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4326which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4327
1930e939 4328=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 4329
be771a83
GS
4330(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4331which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 4332
bbce6d69 4333=item Offset outside string
4334
1fa582fa 4335(F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 4336with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
4337imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
4338take place when going past the end of the string when either
4339C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
0f44b2a5 4340for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behavior
1a7a2554 4341with real files).
bbce6d69 4342
2cb35ee0
FC
4343=item Old package separator used in string
4344
4345(W syntax) You used the old package separator, "'", in a variable
4346named inside a double-quoted string; e.g., C<"In $name's house">. This
4347is equivalent to C<"In $name::s house">. If you meant the former, put
4348a backslash before the apostrophe (C<"In $name\'s house">).
4349
c289d2f7 4350=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
4351
4352(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
4353never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
4354call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
4355
96ebfdd7
RK
4356=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
4357
4358(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
4359that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
4360
a0d0e21e
LW
4361=item oops: oopsAV
4362
e476b1b5 4363(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
4364
4365=item oops: oopsHV
4366
e476b1b5 4367(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 4368
e0e4a6e3
FC
4369=item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4370m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 4371
675fa9ff 4372(F) You wrote something like
0d0b4b3b
KW
4373
4374 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
4375
4376There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
4377them.
4378
a0288114 4379=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 4380
be771a83
GS
4381(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
4382handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
4383of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
e4aad80d 4384the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 4385
5ff1373f 4386=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
9ae3ac1a 4387
52d1f2c9 4388(S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode rules
b5af3ad2
FC
4389on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
4390defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
9ae3ac1a
KW
4391
4392If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4393matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4394
4395If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 4396C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
9ae3ac1a 4397
5ff1373f 4398=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
9ae3ac1a 4399
4c2e59a0 4400(S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
52d1f2c9 4401rules on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
ad94bb39 4402of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
52d1f2c9 4403rules are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
ad94bb39
FC
4404they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
4405surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
9ae3ac1a
KW
4406
4407If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4408matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4409
4410If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
8457b38f 4411C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9ae3ac1a 4412
748a9306
LW
4413=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
4414
be771a83
GS
4415(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
4416was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
4417use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
4418example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
4419"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 4420
30d9c59b
Z
4421=item Optional parameter lacks default expression
4422
4423(F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
4424named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
4425parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
4426have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
4427
6df41af2
GS
4428=item "our" variable %s redeclared
4429
52e3acf8 4430(W shadow) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
be771a83 4431in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 4432
a80b8354
GS
4433=item Out of memory!
4434
4435(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
4436remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
4437no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 4438
19a52907
JH
4439At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
4440process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
4441C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
4442the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
4443and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
4444
6d3b25aa
RGS
4445=item Out of memory during %s extend
4446
4447(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
4448the largest possible memory allocation.
4449
6df41af2 4450=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 4451
6df41af2 4452(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
6903afa2 4453remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
4454the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
4455possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 4456
1b979e0a 4457=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 4458
1fa582fa 4459(X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
be771a83
GS
4460insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
4461request.
eff9c6e2
CS
4462
4463The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
4464depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
4465However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
4466emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
4467is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
4468where the failed request happened.
55497cff 4469
1b979e0a
IZ
4470=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
4471
4472(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
4473is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
4474C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 4475
6df41af2
GS
4476=item Out of memory for yacc stack
4477
be771a83
GS
4478(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
4479parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
4480otherwise.
6df41af2 4481
28be1210
TH
4482=item '.' outside of string in pack
4483
4484(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
4485position to before the start of the packed string being built.
4486
49704364 4487=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 4488
49704364 4489(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
4490the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4491
f337b084
TH
4492=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
4493
4494(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6903afa2 4495the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
fa816bf3 4496UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
f337b084 4497
7778d804
FC
4498=item overload arg '%s' is invalid
4499
4500(W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
4501recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
4502
7cb0cfe6
BM
4503=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
4504
4505(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
6903afa2 4506but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
7cb0cfe6
BM
4507L<overload>.
4508
4509=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
4510
4511(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
6903afa2 4512overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
7cb0cfe6 4513
6df41af2
GS
4514=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
4515
be771a83
GS
4516(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
4517package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
4518some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
4519mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 4520
96ebfdd7
RK
4521=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
4522
4523(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
4524signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4525
a0d0e21e
LW
4526=item page overflow
4527
be771a83
GS
4528(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
4529page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 4530
6df41af2
GS
4531=item panic: %s
4532
4533(P) An internal error.
4534
c99a1475
NC
4535=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
4536
4537(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
4538an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
4539platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
4540enter this branch on this platform.
4541
d5e473ac
SH
4542=item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
4543
4544(P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
4545was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
4546able to initialize properly.
4547
5637ef5b 4548=item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4549
4550(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
4551
5637ef5b 4552=item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
a0d0e21e 4553
be771a83
GS
4554(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
4555there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 4556
810b8aa5
GS
4557=item panic: del_backref
4558
4559(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4560reference.
4561
a0d0e21e
LW
4562=item panic: do_subst
4563
be771a83
GS
4564(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4565data.
a0d0e21e 4566
2269b42e 4567=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 4568
2269b42e 4569(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 4570data.
a0d0e21e 4571
b7f7fd0b
NC
4572=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4573
10203f38 4574(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
4575failure was caught.
4576
255abbe7 4577=item panic: frexp: %f
c635e13b 4578
4579(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4580
5637ef5b 4581=item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
a0d0e21e
LW
4582
4583(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4584and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4585
b0d55c99
FC
4586=item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4587
4588(P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
6903afa2
FC
4589repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4590Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4591the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
b0d55c99 4592
5637ef5b 4593=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4594
4595(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4596
5637ef5b 4597=item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4598
4599(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4600
e446cec8
IZ
4601=item panic: kid popen errno read
4602
1f91b9f5 4603(F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
e446cec8 4604
5637ef5b 4605=item panic: last, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4606
4607(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4608it wasn't a block context.
4609
4610=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4611
be771a83
GS
4612(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4613scope.
a0d0e21e 4614
5637ef5b 4615=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
a0d0e21e
LW
4616
4617(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4618invalid enum on the top of it.
4619
810b8aa5
GS
4620=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4621
4622(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4623references to an object.
4624
5637ef5b 4625=item panic: malloc, %s
6df41af2
GS
4626
4627(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4628
27d5b266
JH
4629=item panic: memory wrap
4630
46f9c2c2
FC
4631(P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4632negative amount.
27d5b266 4633
5637ef5b 4634=item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4635
4636(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4637and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4638
5637ef5b 4639=item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4640
4641(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4642and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4643
4644=item panic: pad_free po
4645
c1bd5aaa 4646(P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. An attempt was
61a9f070 4647made to free a target that had not been allocated to begin with.
a0d0e21e 4648
5637ef5b 4649=item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4650
4651(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4652and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4653
4654=item panic: pad_sv po
4655
61a9f070
FC
4656(P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. Most likely
4657an operator needed a target but that target had not been allocated
4658for whatever reason.
a0d0e21e 4659
5637ef5b 4660=item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4661
4662(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4663and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4664
4665=item panic: pad_swipe po
4666
4667(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4668
5637ef5b 4669=item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4670
4671(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4672
96ebfdd7
RK
4673=item panic: pp_match%s
4674
4675(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4676data.
4677
5637ef5b 4678=item panic: realloc, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4679
4680(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4681
ccfb6d2e
FC
4682=item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4683
4684(P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4685reference count other than 1.
4686
5637ef5b 4687=item panic: restartop in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4688
4689(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4690didn't supply the destination.
4691
5637ef5b 4692=item panic: return, type=%u
a0d0e21e
LW
4693
4694(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4695then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4696
5637ef5b 4697=item panic: scan_num, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
4698
4699(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4700
4599db5f 4701=item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
d24ca0c5 4702
1f91b9f5 4703(P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
d24ca0c5
DM
4704blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4705seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4706
5a25739d
FC
4707=item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4708
4709(P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4710In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4711is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4712
6c65d5f9
NC
4713=item panic: sv_chop %s
4714
4715(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4716scalar's string buffer.
4717
5637ef5b 4718=item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
a0d0e21e
LW
4719
4720(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4721was string.
4722
4723=item panic: top_env
4724
6224f72b 4725(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 4726
65bca31a
NC
4727=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4728
a1efa96e
FC
4729(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4730permitted at run time.
65bca31a 4731
01bbc29f
FC
4732=item panic: unknown OA_*: %x
4733
4734(P) The internal routine that handles arguments to C<&CORE::foo()>
4735subroutine calls was unable to determine what type of arguments
4736were expected.
4737
dea0fc0b
JH
4738=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4739
4740(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 4741to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 4742
e0ea5e2d
NC
4743=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4744
4745(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4746to even) byte length.
4747
5637ef5b 4748=item panic: yylex, %s
2f7da168
RK
4749
4750(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4751
78181aa9
KW
4752=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4753
4754(W parenthesis) You said something like
4755
4756 my $foo, $bar = @_;
4757
4758when you meant
4759
4760 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4761
4762Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4763
28ac2b49
Z
4764=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4765
4766(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4767a detectable way.
4768
b9bd8d8c 4769=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
1a147d38
YO
4770
4771(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
6903afa2
FC
4772consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4773the nesting limit is exceeded.
1a147d38 4774
96ebfdd7
RK
4775=item C<-p> destination: %s
4776
4777(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4778command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4779redirected it with select().)
4780
0ae4a328
FC
4781=item Perl API version %s of %s does not match %s
4782
d792985a 4783(F) The XS module in question was compiled against a different incompatible
0ae4a328
FC
4784version of Perl than the one that has loaded the XS module.
4785
8954b91a 4786=item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
e0e4a6e3 4787utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
d50a4f90 4788
6014bd26
JK
4789(S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4790and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4791folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
4792Please report this as a bug using the L<perlbug> utility.
d50a4f90 4793
f51551f7
FC
4794=item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4795
4796(S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4797experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4798simply disable this warning:
4799
4800 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4801
1109a392
MHM
4802=item Perl_my_%s() not available
4803
4804(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4805so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4806conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4807'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4808
6651ba0b
FC
4809=item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4810
4811(F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4812Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4813of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4814interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4815decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4816is equivalent to v5.100.
4817
6903f24f 4818=item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
6d3b25aa
RGS
4819
4820(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4821recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4822you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4823
6df41af2
GS
4824=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4825
fa816bf3 4826(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 4827C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 4828
96ebfdd7
RK
4829=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4830
806b6d07 4831(X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
96ebfdd7 4832
6651ba0b
FC
4833=item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4834
4835(F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4836on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4837Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4838wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4839
675fa9ff
FC
4840=item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4841
ff9c1ae8 4842(S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
675fa9ff
FC
4843contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4844hash seed you think you are.
6a5b4183 4845
6df41af2
GS
4846=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4847
4848(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4849
4850 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4851 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4852 LC_ALL = "En_US",
4853 LANG = (unset)
4854 are supported and installed on your system.
4855 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4856
4857Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4858settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
4859This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4860system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4861locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4862dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4b07a369
FC
4863Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4864fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4865time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
0ea6b70f 4866L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 4867
6a5b4183
YO
4868=item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4869
ff9c1ae8 4870(S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
675fa9ff 4871but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
6a5b4183
YO
4872are as follows.
4873
4874 Numeric | String | Result
4875 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4876 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4877 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
555bd962
BG
4878 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4879 | | randomization
6a5b4183
YO
4880
4881Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
675fa9ff 4882case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
aac486f1 4883
bd3fa61c 4884=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 4885
be771a83
GS
4886(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4887process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4888fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 4889
49704364 4890=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
4891
4892(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4893
6e8a73f2 4894=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
96ebfdd7 4895
e0e4a6e3 4896(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
9e3ec65c 4897shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
96ebfdd7
RK
4898Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4899the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4900not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4901
4902=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4903
4904(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4905the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4906
46d34d0e 4907=item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes%s in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4908S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4909
46d34d0e
KW
4910(W regexp) Perl thinks that you intended to write a POSIX character
4911class, but didn't use enough brackets. These POSIX class constructs [:
4912:], [= =], and [. .] go I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of
4913the construct, for example: C<qr/[012[:alpha:]345]/>. What the regular
4914expression pattern compiled to is probably not what you were intending.
4915For example, C<qr/[:alpha:]/> compiles to a regular bracketed character
4916class consisting of the four characters C<":">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
4917C<"h">, and C<"p">. To specify the POSIX class, it should have been
4918written C<qr/[[:alpha:]]/>.
4919
4920Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
9e3ec65c 4921implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
e0e4a6e3 4922will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 4923expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4924
46d34d0e
KW
4925If the specification of the class was not completely valid, the message
4926indicates that.
4927
6fbc9859 4928=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4929S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4930
a125938c
FC
4931(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4932with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4933need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4934character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
e0e4a6e3 4935and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
a125938c 4936problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4937
6fbc9859 4938=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 4939S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 4940
7253e4e3
RK
4941(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4942with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4943need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4944character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
e0e4a6e3 4945and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
7253e4e3 4946problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 4947
bbce6d69 4948=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
4949
e476b1b5 4950(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 4951strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
4952literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
4953parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 4954
774d564b 4955You probably wrote something like this:
4956
54310121 4957 @list = qw(
774d564b 4958 a # a comment
bbce6d69 4959 b # another comment
774d564b 4960 );
bbce6d69 4961
4962when you should have written this:
4963
774d564b 4964 @list = qw(
54310121 4965 a
4966 b
774d564b 4967 );
4968
4969If you really want comments, build your list the
4970old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
4971
4972 @list = (
4973 'a', # a comment
4974 'b', # another comment
4975 );
bbce6d69 4976
4977=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
4978
be771a83
GS
4979(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
4980commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
4981different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
4982frequently used.)
bbce6d69 4983
54310121 4984You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 4985
774d564b 4986 qw! a, b, c !;
4987
4988which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
4989commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 4990
774d564b 4991 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 4992
a0d0e21e
LW
4993=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
4994
4995(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
4996Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
4997end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
4998Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
4999
9da2d046
NT
5000=item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
5001
5002(W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
5003flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
5004C<or>. Consider:
5005
5006 sub { return $a or $b; }
5007
5008This is parsed as:
5009
5010 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
5011
5012Which is effectively just:
5013
5014 sub { return $a; }
5015
5016Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
5017
5018Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
5019
5020 sub { 1 if die; }
5021
8823cb89 5022=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %s operator
a690c7c4
FC
5023
5024(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
5025with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
5026
5027 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
5028
5029This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
5030higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
5031really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
5032parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
5033
77772344
B
5034=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
5035
5036(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
5037The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 5038record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
5039followed by the word 'bar'.
5040
5041If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
5042C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
5043
5044If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
5045followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
5046C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
5047
e5035638
FC
5048=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
5049
ccf3535a 5050(W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
6903afa2 5051but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
e5035638
FC
5052literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
5053to the array you apparently lost track of.
5054
a0d0e21e
LW
5055=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
5056
e476b1b5 5057(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 5058
a0d0e21e
LW
5059 open FOO || die;
5060
5061is now misinterpreted as
5062
5063 open(FOO || die);
5064
be771a83
GS
5065because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
5066list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
5067parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
5068of "||".
a0d0e21e 5069
3cdd684c
TP
5070=item Premature end of script headers
5071
3de20fbe 5072See L</500 Server error>.
3cdd684c 5073
6df41af2
GS
5074=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
5075
be771a83 5076(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5077before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 5078
9a7dcd9c 5079=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5080
be771a83 5081(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5082before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5083
6df41af2 5084=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 5085
6df41af2
GS
5086(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
5087applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
5088port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
5089L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 5090in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 5091
327323c1
RGS
5092=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
5093
fa816bf3
FC
5094(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
5095useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
327323c1 5096
3fe9a6f1 5097=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 5098
9a0b3859 5099(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 5100declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 5101
ed9aa3b7
SG
5102=item Prototype not terminated
5103
2a6fd447 5104(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
5105definition.
5106
eedb00fa
PM
5107=item Prototype '%s' overridden by attribute 'prototype(%s)' in %s
5108
5109(W prototype) A prototype was declared in both the parentheses after
5110the sub name and via the prototype attribute. The prototype in
5111parentheses is useless, since it will be replaced by the prototype
5112from the attribute before it's ever used.
5113
6e8a73f2 5114=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
96ebfdd7 5115
6903afa2 5116(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
e0e4a6e3 5117you meant it literally. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5118expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
96ebfdd7 5119
6e8a73f2 5120=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9baa0206 5121
6903afa2 5122(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
e0e4a6e3 5123the {min,max} construct. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
9e3ec65c 5124expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 5125
675fa9ff
FC
5126=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex
5127
e0e4a6e3
FC
5128=item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex; marked by
5129S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
5130
5131(W regexp) Minima should be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
5132want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}.
5133
e1729dc6 5134=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression in regex m/%s/
9baa0206 5135
b45f050a
JF
5136(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
5137it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
5138quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
5139"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
5140C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 5141
89ea2908
GA
5142=item Range iterator outside integer range
5143
5144(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
5145are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
5146One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
5147by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 5148
ad513756 5149=item Ranges of ASCII printables should be some subset of "0-9", "A-Z", or
6e8a73f2 5150"a-z" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ad513756
FC
5151
5152(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
5153
5154Stricter rules help to find typos and other errors. Perhaps you didn't
5155even intend a range here, if the C<"-"> was meant to be some other
5156character, or should have been escaped (like C<"\-">). If you did
5157intend a range, the one that was used is not portable between ASCII and
5158EBCDIC platforms, and doesn't have an obvious meaning to a casual
5159reader.
5160
5161 [3-7] # OK; Obvious and portable
5162 [d-g] # OK; Obvious and portable
5163 [A-Y] # OK; Obvious and portable
5164 [A-z] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5165 [a-Z] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5166 [%-.] # WRONG; Not portable; not clear what is meant
5167 [\x41-Z] # WRONG; Not portable; not obvious to non-geek
5168
5169(You can force portability by specifying a Unicode range, which means that
5170the endpoints are specified by
5171L<C<\N{...}>|perlrecharclass/Character Ranges>, but the meaning may
5172still not be obvious.)
5173The stricter rules require that ranges that start or stop with an ASCII
5174character that is not a control have all their endpoints be the literal
5175character, and not some escape sequence (like C<"\x41">), and the ranges
5176must be all digits, or all uppercase letters, or all lowercase letters.
5177
5178=item Ranges of digits should be from the same group in regex; marked by
6e8a73f2 5179S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ad513756
FC
5180
5181(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
5182
5183Stricter rules help to find typos and other errors. You included a
5184range, and at least one of the end points is a decimal digit. Under the
5185stricter rules, when this happens, both end points should be digits in
5186the same group of 10 consecutive digits.
5187
3b7fbd4a
SP
5188=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5189
1a147d38 5190(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
5191a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5192
96ebfdd7
RK
5193=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
5194
5195(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
5196before now. Check your control flow.
5197
b5fe5ca2
SR
5198=item read() on closed filehandle %s
5199
5200(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
5201
5202=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
5203
5204(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
5205
de42a5a9 5206=item Reallocation too large: %x
6df41af2
GS
5207
5208(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
5209
4ad56ec9
IZ
5210=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
5211
be771a83
GS
5212(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
5213already been freed.
4ad56ec9 5214
a0d0e21e
LW
5215=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
5216
19b29141 5217(S debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
be771a83 5218the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
5219which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
5220
6651ba0b
FC
5221=item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
5222
5223(P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
5224a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
5225$fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
5226loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
5227
3e0ccd42 5228=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 5229
2c7d6b9c
RGS
5230(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
5231believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
5232crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 5233
f51551f7
FC
5234=item Redundant argument in %s
5235
5236(W redundant) You called a function with more arguments than other
3617dbb6 5237arguments you supplied indicated would be needed. Currently only
f51551f7
FC
5238emitted when a printf-type format required fewer arguments than were
5239supplied, but might be used in the future for e.g. L<perlfunc/pack>.
5240
12605ff9
FC
5241=item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
5242
2e0cfa16
FC
5243=item refcnt: fd %d%s
5244
12605ff9
FC
5245=item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
5246
fa816bf3 5247(P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
2e0cfa16
FC
5248you see this message, something is very wrong.
5249
1930e939
TP
5250=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
5251
be771a83 5252(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
6903afa2
FC
5253with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
5254usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
5255to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
5256
5257 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
5258 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
5259 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
5260 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
5261
810b8aa5
GS
5262=item Reference is already weak
5263
e476b1b5 5264(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
5265Doing so has no effect.
5266
ae2cf9f6
DIM
5267=item Reference is not weak
5268
5269(W misc) You have attempted to unweaken a reference that is not weak.
5270Doing so has no effect.
5271
e0e4a6e3 5272=item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b72d83b2 5273
6903afa2
FC
5274(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
5275to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
5276(normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
5277backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
b72d83b2 5278
e0e4a6e3
FC
5279=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5280m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
5281
5282(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
6903afa2 5283not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
bbaee129
FC
5284you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
5285expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 5286
6e8a73f2 5287The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
b45f050a 5288discovered.
9baa0206 5289
e0e4a6e3
FC
5290=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
5291in m/%s/
1a147d38
YO
5292
5293(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
9381611c 5294expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
6903afa2 5295such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
9381611c 5296spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
1a147d38 5297
6e8a73f2 5298The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
5299discovered.
5300
e0e4a6e3
FC
5301=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by
5302S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1a147d38 5303
bcb95744
FC
5304(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
5305are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
5306expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
1a147d38 5307
6e8a73f2 5308The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1a147d38
YO
5309discovered.
5310
a0d0e21e
LW
5311=item regexp memory corruption
5312
5313(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
5314expression compiler gave it.
5315
ff3f26d2
KW
5316=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
5317
4d910168 5318=item Regexp modifier "%c" may appear a maximum of twice in regex; marked
e0e4a6e3 5319by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 5320
ce170e67 5321(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
ff3f26d2 5322of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
3955e1a9 5323
6fbc9859
MH
5324=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <--
5325HERE in m/%s/
9442e3b8 5326
f8b5bc72
FC
5327(F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
5328another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
9442e3b8
KW
5329expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
5330the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
5331
591f5ca2
FC
5332=item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
5333
4d910168
FC
5334=item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear twice in regex; marked by <--
5335HERE in m/%s/
5336
ce170e67 5337(F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
591f5ca2
FC
5338of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
5339
3955e1a9
KW
5340=item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
5341
4d910168 5342=item Regexp modifiers "%c" and "%c" are mutually exclusive in regex;
e0e4a6e3 5343marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4d910168 5344
ce170e67 5345(F) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
3955e1a9
KW
5346mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
5347supposed to be there.
5348
aec0ef10 5349=item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5350
be771a83
GS
5351(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
5352earlier.
a0d0e21e 5353
a7f533cb 5354=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @#)
a1b95068 5355
d7f8936a 5356(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068 5357numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
6903afa2 5358terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
a1b95068 5359
b08e453b
RB
5360=item Replacement list is longer than search list
5361
5362(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
fa816bf3 5363search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
b08e453b
RB
5364are meaningless.
5365
5e0a247b
KW
5366=item '%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'
5367
5368(W misc, regexp) You wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179> in a
5369double-quotish string. All but the last digit is treated as a single
5370character, specified in octal. The last digit is the next character in
5371the string. To tell Perl that this is indeed what you want, you can use
5372the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use exactly three digits to specify the octal
5373for the character.
5374
a0d0e21e
LW
5375=item Reversed %s= operator
5376
be771a83 5377(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
964742a1 5378always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 5379
abc7ecad
SP
5380=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5381
1b303a7d
FC
5382(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed
5383or not really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
abc7ecad 5384
96ebfdd7
RK
5385=item Scalars leaked: %d
5386
7bd1381d 5387(S internal) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping
4f5966a5
FC
5388of scalars: not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time
5389Perl exited. What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which
5390is of course bad, especially if the Perl program is intended to be
5391long-running.
96ebfdd7 5392
a0d0e21e
LW
5393=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
5394
be771a83
GS
5395(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
5396single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
5397value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
5398behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
5399argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
5400and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
5401if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 5402
748a9306 5403On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 5404element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
5405Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
5406L<perlref>.
5407
a6006777 5408=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
5409
75b44862 5410(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
5411element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
5412(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
5413like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
5414argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
5415and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
5416if you're expecting only one subscript.
5417
5418On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
5419as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
5420not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 5421L<perlref>.
5422
a0d0e21e
LW
5423=item Search pattern not terminated
5424
5425(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
5426construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5427Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 5428
ea9d9ebc 5429Note that since Perl 5.10.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd 5430construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
ea9d9ebc
FC
5431in Perl 5.10.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
5432misparsed by pre-5.10.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
5d9c98cd 5433
abc7ecad
SP
5434=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5435
5436(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
5437really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5438
3257ea4f
FC
5439=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
5440
5441(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
5442filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
5443
a0d0e21e
LW
5444=item select not implemented
5445
5446(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
5447
ae21d580 5448=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 5449
ae21d580
JH
5450(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
5451the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 5452
6df41af2 5453=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 5454
75b44862
GS
5455(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
5456semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
5457
5458=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
5459
be771a83
GS
5460(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
5461scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 5462
6df41af2 5463=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 5464
6df41af2 5465(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 5466
69282e91 5467=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5468
be771a83 5469(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5470before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5471
0ae4a328
FC
5472=item Sequence "\c{" invalid
5473
5474(F) These three characters may not appear in sequence in a
5475double-quotish context. This message is raised only on non-ASCII
5476platforms (a different error message is output on ASCII ones). If you
5477were intending to specify a control character with this sequence, you'll
5478have to use a different way to specify it.
5479
e0e4a6e3 5480=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
7b8d334a 5481
6903afa2 5482(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
e0e4a6e3 5483S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6903afa2 5484discovered. See L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 5485
e0e4a6e3
FC
5486=item Sequence (?%c...) not implemented in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5487m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5488
6903afa2 5489(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
e0e4a6e3 5490but has not yet been written. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 5491regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5492
e0e4a6e3
FC
5493=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5494m/%s/
a0d0e21e 5495
d921c7bf 5496(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
e0e4a6e3 5497The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
d921c7bf 5498discovered. This may happen when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
fb85c044 5499Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9442e3b8 5500redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
9de15fec 5501causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 5502
aec0ef10 5503=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
5504
5505(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
aec0ef10 5506parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See
7253e4e3 5507L<perlre>.
6df41af2 5508
07ea66ee
FC
5509=item Sequence (?&... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5510m/%s/
5511
5512(F) A named reference of the form C<(?&...)> was missing the final
5513closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
5514in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5515
e0e4a6e3 5516=item Sequence (?%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
5517in m/%s/
5518
5519(F) A named group of the form C<(?'...')> or C<< (?<...>) >> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 5520closing quote or angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
4599db5f
FC
5521regular expression the problem was discovered.
5522
e0e4a6e3 5523=item Sequence (?(%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4599db5f
FC
5524in m/%s/
5525
5526(F) A named reference of the form C<(?('...')...)> or C<< (?(<...>)...) >> was
5527missing the final closing quote or angle bracket after the name. The
e0e4a6e3 5528S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4599db5f
FC
5529discovered.
5530
5b9ce456
KW
5531=item Sequence (?... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5532m/%s/
5533
5534(F) There was no matching closing parenthesis for the '('. The
5535S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
5536discovered.
5537
e0e4a6e3
FC
5538=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5539m/%s/
5a25739d
FC
5540
5541(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
5542sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
5543
9da1dd8f
DM
5544=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
5545
be149b43
DM
5546(F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
5547followed immediately by a ')'.
9da1dd8f 5548
74d1b2e4 5549=item Sequence (?PE<gt>... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4599db5f 5550
74d1b2e4 5551(F) A named reference of the form C<(?PE<gt>...)> was missing the final
cfbef7dc
KW
5552closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
5553in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5554
5555=item Sequence (?PE<lt>... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5556
5557(F) A named group of the form C<(?PE<lt>...E<gt>')> was missing the final
5558closing angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
5559regular expression the problem was discovered.
5560
74d1b2e4
FC
5561=item Sequence ?P=... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5562m/%s/
cfbef7dc 5563
74d1b2e4 5564(F) A named reference of the form C<(?P=...)> was missing the final
e0e4a6e3 5565closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
4599db5f
FC
5566in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
5567
5568=item Sequence (?R) not terminated in regex m/%s/
5569
5570(F) An C<(?R)> or C<(?0)> sequence in a regular expression was missing the
5571final parenthesis.
5572
3de20fbe 5573=item Z<>500 Server error
a5f75d66 5574
6903afa2
FC
5575(A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
5576when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
5577actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
5578frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
5579not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
5580headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 5581
5582B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
5583
6903afa2
FC
5584You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
5585the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
5586user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
5587variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
5588in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
5589less. Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 5590
06a5f41f
JH
5591 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
5592 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
5593 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 5594
be94a901
GS
5595You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
5596
a0d0e21e
LW
5597=item setegid() not implemented
5598
be771a83
GS
5599(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
5600support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5601didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5602
5603=item seteuid() not implemented
5604
be771a83
GS
5605(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
5606support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5607didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5608
81777298
GS
5609=item setpgrp can't take arguments
5610
be771a83
GS
5611(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
5612arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
5613group ID.
81777298 5614
a0d0e21e
LW
5615=item setrgid() not implemented
5616
be771a83
GS
5617(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
5618support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5619didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
5620
5621=item setruid() not implemented
5622
be771a83
GS
5623(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
5624support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5625didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 5626
6df41af2
GS
5627=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
5628
be771a83
GS
5629(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
5630forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
5631L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
5632
520b6fb6 5633=item Setting $/ to a reference to %s is forbidden
6da34ecb 5634
3f673807
FC
5635(F) You assigned a reference to a scalar to C<$/> where the referenced item is
5636not a positive integer. In older perls this B<appeared> to work the same as
5637setting it to C<undef> but was in fact internally different, less efficient
5638and with very bad luck could have resulted in your file being split by a
5639stringified form of the reference.
6da34ecb 5640
ea9d9ebc 5641In Perl 5.20.0 this was changed so that it would be B<exactly> the same as
3f673807 5642setting C<$/> to undef, with the exception that this warning would be thrown.
6da34ecb 5643
3f673807
FC
5644You are recommended to change your code to set C<$/> to C<undef> explicitly if
5645you wish to slurp the file. As of Perl 5.28 assigning C<$/> to a reference
5646to an integer which isn't positive is a fatal error.
6da34ecb 5647
ee0ba734 5648=item Setting $/ to %s reference is forbidden
a48e4205
FC
5649
5650(F) You tried to assign a reference to a non integer to C<$/>. In older
5651Perls this would have behaved similarly to setting it to a reference to
5652a positive integer, where the integer was the address of the reference.
5653As of Perl 5.20.0 this is a fatal error, to allow future versions of Perl
5654to use non-integer refs for more interesting purposes.
5655
a0d0e21e
LW
5656=item shm%s not implemented
5657
5658(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
5659
984200d0
YST
5660=item !=~ should be !~
5661
5662(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
5663interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
5664operators: probably not what you intended.
5665
6df41af2
GS
5666=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
5667
5668(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
5669as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
5670result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
5671probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 5672
69282e91 5673=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 5674
75b44862
GS
5675(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
5676superfluous.
a0d0e21e 5677
f86702cc 5678=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 5679
be771a83
GS
5680(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
5681Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 5682
efc859fb
FC
5683=item Slab leaked from cv %p
5684
5685(S) If you see this message, then something is seriously wrong with the
5686internal bookkeeping of op trees. An op tree needed to be freed after
5687a compilation error, but could not be found, so it was leaked instead.
5688
3b9aea04
SH
5689=item sleep(%u) too large
5690
5691(W overflow) You called C<sleep> with a number that was larger than
5692it can reliably handle and C<sleep> probably slept for less time than
5693requested.
5694
30d9c59b
Z
5695=item Slurpy parameter not last
5696
5697(F) In a subroutine signature, you put something after a slurpy (array or
5698hash) parameter. The slurpy parameter takes all the available arguments,
5699so there can't be any left to fill later parameters.
5700
675fa9ff
FC
5701=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
5702
5703(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
5704overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure
5705for the smart match.
5706
0f539b13
BF
5707=item Smartmatch is experimental
5708
5709(S experimental::smartmatch) This warning is emitted if you
5710use the smartmatch (C<~~>) operator. This is currently an experimental
5711feature, and its details are subject to change in future releases of
5712Perl. Particularly, its current behavior is noticed for being
5713unnecessarily complex and unintuitive, and is very likely to be
5714overhauled.
5715
b02f3645
AC
5716=item Sorry, hash keys must be smaller than 2**31 bytes
5717
5718(F) You tried to create a hash containing a very large key, where "very
5719large" means that it needs at least 2 gigabytes to store. Unfortunately,
5720Perl doesn't yet handle such large hash keys. You should
5721reconsider your design to avoid hashing such a long string directly.
5722
714f94d1
FC
5723=item sort is now a reserved word
5724
5725(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
5726But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
5727
f1c31c52
FC
5728=item Source filters apply only to byte streams
5729
5730(F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
5731source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
5732not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
5733C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
5734
8cbc2e3b
JH
5735=item splice() offset past end of array
5736
5737(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
fa816bf3
FC
5738the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
5739end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
5740try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
5741See L<perlfunc/splice>.
8cbc2e3b 5742
a0d0e21e
LW
5743=item Split loop
5744
be771a83
GS
5745(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
5746iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
6903afa2 5747happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 5748
a0d0e21e
LW
5749=item Statement unlikely to be reached
5750
be771a83
GS
5751(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
5752die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
5753unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
5754instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
5755a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 5756
a21eb52b
FC
5757=item "state" subroutine %s can't be in a package
5758
5759(F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5760sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
5761
a2e39214
FC
5762=item "state %s" used in sort comparison
5763
5764(W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
5765You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
5766sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
5767lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
5768name, or rename the lexical variable.
5769
5a25739d
FC
5770=item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
5771
5772(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5773sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
5774local() if you want to localize a package variable.
5775
9ddeeac9 5776=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 5777
355b1299
JH
5778(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
5779was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 5780
5a25739d
FC
5781=item Strings with code points over 0xFF may not be mapped into in-memory file handles
5782
5783(W utf8) You tried to open a reference to a scalar for read or append
5784where the scalar contained code points over 0xFF. In-memory files
5785model on-disk files and can only contain bytes.
5786
fe13d51d 5787=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 5788
be771a83
GS
5789(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
5790stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
5791C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 5792
4e85e1b4
FC
5793=item Subroutine "&%s" is not available
5794
5795(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5796attempting to capture an outer lexical subroutine that is not currently
5797available. This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the lexical
c387a7d0
FC
5798subroutine may be declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has
5799not yet been created. (Remember that named subs are created at compile
5800time, while anonymous subs are created at run-time.) For example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5801
5802 sub { my sub a {...} sub f { \&a } }
5803
c387a7d0 5804At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current "a" sub,
4e85e1b4
FC
5805since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely, the
5806following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by now
5807been created and is live:
5808
5809 sub { my sub a {...} eval 'sub f { \&a }' }->();
5810
c387a7d0
FC
5811The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a lexical subroutine
5812that has gone out of scope, for example,
4e85e1b4
FC
5813
5814 sub f {
5815 my sub a {...}
5816 sub { eval '\&a' }
5817 }
5818 f()->();
5819
5820Here, when the '\&a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
5821being executed, so its &a is not available for capture.
5822
4eb94d7c
FC
5823=item "%s" subroutine &%s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5824
52e3acf8 5825(W shadow) A "my" or "state" subroutine has been redeclared in the
4eb94d7c
FC
5826current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to
5827the previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error.
5828Note that the earlier subroutine will still exist until the end of
20d33786 5829the scope or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
4eb94d7c 5830
9d92fedb
FC
5831=item Subroutine %s redefined
5832
5833(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
5834
5835 {
5836 no warnings 'redefine';
5837 eval "sub name { ... }";
5838 }
5839
2a9203e9
FC
5840=item Subroutine "%s" will not stay shared
5841
5842(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a "my"
5843subroutine defined in an outer named subroutine.
5844
5845When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of the outer
5846subroutine's lexical subroutine as it was before and during the *first*
5847call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5848outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5849longer share a common value for the lexical subroutine. In other words,
5850it will no longer be shared. This will especially make a difference
5851if the lexical subroutines accesses lexical variables declared in its
5852surrounding scope.
5853
5854This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5855anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5856reference lexical subroutines in outer subroutines are created, they
5857are automatically rebound to the current values of such lexical subs.
5858
a0d0e21e
LW
5859=item Substitution loop
5860
be771a83
GS
5861(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
5862shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
5863is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 5864L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
5865
5866=item Substitution pattern not terminated
5867
d1be9408 5868(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5869construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5870Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5871
5872=item Substitution replacement not terminated
5873
d1be9408 5874(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 5875construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 5876Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
5877
5878=item substr outside of string
5879
8a9eb13d 5880(W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
be771a83
GS
5881a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
5882length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
5883substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
5884assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 5885
bf1320bf
RGS
5886=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
5887
9d277376 5888(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
bf1320bf
RGS
5889inferior to its current type.
5890
05a40652
FC
5891=item SWASHNEW didn't return an HV ref
5892
5893(P) Something went wrong internally when Perl was trying to look up
5894Unicode characters.
5895
6fbc9859 5896=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by
e0e4a6e3 5897S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
b45f050a 5898
fa816bf3
FC
5899(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
5900two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
5901both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
5902it in clustering parentheses:
b45f050a
JF
5903
5904 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
5905
e0e4a6e3 5906The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem
fa816bf3 5907was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5908
e0e4a6e3
FC
5909=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5910m/%s/
b45f050a 5911
9f57786a
FC
5912(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
5913is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5914
5915 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
5916 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
5917 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
5918 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
5919 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
5920 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
5921 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
5922 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
5923 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
5924
6e8a73f2 5925The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9f57786a 5926discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 5927
a1244175
FC
5928=item Switch (?(condition)... not terminated in regex; marked by
5929S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5930
99775d13
FC
5931(F) You omitted to close a (?(condition)...) block somewhere
5932in the pattern. Add a closing parenthesis in the appropriate
5933position. See L<perlre>.
a1244175 5934
85ab1d1d
JH
5935=item switching effective %s is not implemented
5936
be771a83
GS
5937(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
5938and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 5939
a0d0e21e
LW
5940=item syntax error
5941
5942(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
5943
5944 A keyword is misspelled.
5945 A semicolon is missing.
5946 A comma is missing.
5947 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
5948 An opening or closing brace is missing.
5949 A closing quote is missing.
5950
5951Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
5952error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
5953The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
5954it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 5955before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
5956Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
5957the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
5958C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
524e9188 5959if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
a0d0e21e 5960
ccf3535a 5961=item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
cb1a09d0 5962
be771a83
GS
5963(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
5964of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
5965yourself.
cb1a09d0 5966
25f58aea
PN
5967=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
5968
5969(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
5970a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
5971or "my $var" or "our $var".
5972
19a498a4 5973=item Syntax error in (?[...]) in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
5974
5975(F) Perl could not figure out what you meant inside this construct; this
5976notifies you that it is giving up trying.
5977
591f5ca2
FC
5978=item %s syntax OK
5979
5980(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
5981
b5fe5ca2
SR
5982=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
5983
5984(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
5985
5986=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
5987
5988(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
5989
6087ac44 5990=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 5991
6087ac44
JH
5992(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
5993"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
5994machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
5995unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 5996
69282e91 5997=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5998
be771a83 5999(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 6000before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 6001
96ebfdd7
RK
6002=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
6003
6004(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
6005know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
6006
fc36a67e 6007=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
6008
be771a83
GS
6009(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
6010for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 6011
abc7ecad
SP
6012=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
6013
6014(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
6015a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
6016
c2771421
FC
6017=item tell() on unopened filehandle
6018
6019(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
6020was either never opened or has since been closed.
6021
b82b06b8
FC
6022=item That use of $[ is unsupported
6023
6024(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
6025as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
6026
6027 $[ = 0;
6028 $[ = 1;
6029 ...
6030 local $[ = 0;
6031 local $[ = 1;
6032 ...
6033
6034This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
6035from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[> and L<arybase>.
6036
a6eb74ec
FC
6037=item The bitwise feature is experimental
6038
6039(S experimental::bitwise) This warning is emitted if you use bitwise
6040operators (C<& | ^ ~ &. |. ^. ~.>) with the "bitwise" feature enabled.
6041Simply suppress the warning if you want to use the feature, but know
6042that in doing so you are taking the risk of using an experimental
6043feature which may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
6044
6045 no warnings "experimental::bitwise";
6046 use feature "bitwise";
6047 $x |.= $y;
6048
67b16946 6049=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
a0d0e21e
LW
6050
6051(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
6052probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 6053think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
6054will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
6055will deny it.
6056
3f645a4e
FC
6057=item The experimental declared_refs feature is not enabled
6058
6059(F) To declare references to variables, as in C<my \%x>, you must first enable
6060the feature:
6061
6062 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
6063 use feature "declared_refs";
6064
675fa9ff
FC
6065=item The %s function is unimplemented
6066
6067(F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture,
6068according to the probings of Configure.
6069
0d0b4b3b
KW
6070=item The regex_sets feature is experimental
6071
6072(S experimental::regex_sets) This warning is emitted if you
6073use the syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression.
6074The details of this feature are subject to change.
6075if you want to use it, but know that in doing so you
6076are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which may
6077change in a future Perl version, you can do this to silence the
6078warning:
6079
6080 no warnings "experimental::regex_sets";
6081
30d9c59b
Z
6082=item The signatures feature is experimental
6083
6084(S experimental::signatures) This warning is emitted if you unwrap a
6085subroutine's arguments using a signature. Simply suppress the warning
6086if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
6087the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be removed
6088in a future Perl version:
6089
6090 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
6091 use feature "signatures";
6092 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
6093
5e1c7ca2 6094=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 6095
be771a83
GS
6096(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
6097linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
6098past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
6099instead.
a0d0e21e 6100
371fce9b
DM
6101=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
6102
1108974d 6103(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 6104
437784d6 6105=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
6106
6107=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
6108
75b44862 6109(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
6110element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
6111wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
6112need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
6113F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
6114target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
6115%ENV which produced the warning.
6116
6a5b4183
YO
6117=item This Perl has not been built with support for randomized hash key traversal but something called Perl_hv_rand_set().
6118
6119(F) Something has attempted to use an internal API call which
6120depends on Perl being compiled with the default support for randomized hash
f26c79ba 6121key traversal, but this Perl has been compiled without it. You should
6a5b4183
YO
6122report this warning to the relevant upstream party, or recompile perl
6123with default options.
6124
a0d0e21e
LW
6125=item times not implemented
6126
be771a83
GS
6127(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
6128suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 6129
6d3b25aa
RGS
6130=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
6131
b7e4ecc1
FC
6132(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
6133the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
6134B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
6135Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
6136everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
6d3b25aa
RGS
6137
6138If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
b7e4ecc1
FC
6139mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
6140fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
6141Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
6142
6143If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 6144B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 6145
3a2263fe
RGS
6146=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
6147
6148(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
6149uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
6150specified an illegal mapping.
6151See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
6152
49704364
WL
6153=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
6154
1a147d38 6155(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 6156
a0d0e21e
LW
6157=item Too few args to syscall
6158
6159(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
6160system call to call, silly dilly.
6161
ac7609e4 6162=item Too few arguments for subroutine '%s'
bb6b75cd 6163
3f673807
FC
6164(F) A subroutine using a signature fewer arguments than required by the
6165signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
bb6b75cd 6166
3f673807
FC
6167The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If
6168the subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be
6169shown, regardless of what name the caller used.
ac7609e4 6170
96ebfdd7
RK
6171=item Too late for "-%s" option
6172
6173(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
6174B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
6175
6903afa2
FC
6176In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
6177are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4ba71d51 6178
6903afa2
FC
6179The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
6180well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
6181specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
6182it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
6183it to perl.
96ebfdd7 6184
ddda08b7
GS
6185=item Too late to run %s block
6186
6187(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
6188when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
6189loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
6190instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
6191BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 6192
a0d0e21e
LW
6193=item Too many args to syscall
6194
5f05dabc 6195(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
6196
6197=item Too many arguments for %s
6198
6199(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
6200
ac7609e4 6201=item Too many arguments for subroutine '%s'
bb6b75cd 6202
3f673807
FC
6203(F) A subroutine using a signature received more arguments than permitted
6204by the signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
bb6b75cd 6205
ac7609e4
AC
6206The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
6207subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
6208regardless of what name the caller used.
bb6b75cd 6209
6df41af2
GS
6210=item Too many )'s
6211
49704364
WL
6212(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6213Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6214
8c40cb74
NC
6215=item Too many ('s
6216
be771a83
GS
6217(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6218Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 6219
7253e4e3 6220=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 6221
be771a83
GS
6222(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
6223Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 6224
2c268ad5 6225=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
6226
6227(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 6228or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
6229C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 6230
2c268ad5 6231=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 6232
6a36df5d
YST
6233(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
6234y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 6235
96ebfdd7
RK
6236=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
6237
6238(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
6903afa2 6239disallowed. See L<Safe>.
96ebfdd7 6240
a0d0e21e
LW
6241=item truncate not implemented
6242
6243(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
6244Configure knows about.
6245
19c481f4
FC
6246=item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
6247
6248(F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
6249to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
6250ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
6251nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
6252
a0d0e21e
LW
6253=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
6254
6255(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 6256certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
6257%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
6258{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
6259
eec2d3df
GS
6260=item umask not implemented
6261
be771a83
GS
6262(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
6263use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e
LW
6264
6265=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
6266
c632e777 6267(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6268many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
6269
6270=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
6271
4a983e45 6272(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6273many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
6274
6275=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
6276
090cebb2 6277(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6278many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e 6279
6651ba0b
FC
6280=item Unbalanced string table refcount: (%d) for "%s"
6281
31ff3bd2 6282(S internal) On exit, Perl found some strings remaining in the shared
6651ba0b
FC
6283string table used for copy on write and for hash keys. The entries
6284should have been freed, so this indicates a bug somewhere.
6285
a0d0e21e
LW
6286=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
6287
2092d7c1 6288(S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
be771a83 6289many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
6290
6291=item Undefined format "%s" called
6292
6293(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
6294another package? See L<perlform>.
6295
6296=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
6297
be771a83
GS
6298(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
6299Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6300
6301=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
6302
be771a83
GS
6303(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
6304since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
6305
6306=item Undefined subroutine called
6307
6308(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
6309or if it was, it has since been undefined.
6310
6311=item Undefined subroutine in sort
6312
be771a83
GS
6313(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
6314to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 6315
4633a7c4
LW
6316=item Undefined top format "%s" called
6317
6318(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
6319another package? See L<perlform>.
6320
20408e3c
GS
6321=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
6322
be771a83
GS
6323(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
6324C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
6325C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 6326
6df41af2
GS
6327=item %s: Undefined variable
6328
be771a83
GS
6329(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
6330Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 6331
286c9456 6332=item Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated here (and will be fatal in Perl 5.30), passed through in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
8e84dec2
KW
6333
6334(D deprecated, regexp) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
286c9456 6335match a literal C<{> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
8e84dec2
KW
6336regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6337some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
286c9456
A
6338C<\{> or enclose it in square brackets (C<[{]>). If the pattern
6339delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<}>) should
8e84dec2
KW
6340also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6341
6342 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6343
286c9456 6344Forcing literal C<{> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
8e84dec2
KW
6345language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6346needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6347contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
286c9456 6348conflict with the use there of C<{> as a literal.
8e84dec2 6349
286c9456 6350In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<{> are fatal, and some
8e84dec2 6351still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
286c9456 6352literal C<{> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
8e84dec2
KW
6353v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6354now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
286c9456 6355The cases which are still allowed will be fatal in Perl 5.30.
8e84dec2
KW
6356
6357The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6358
6359=over 4
6360
6361=item *
6362
286c9456 6363as the first character in a pattern, or following C<^> indicating to
8e84dec2
KW
6364anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6365
6366=item *
6367
286c9456 6368as the first character following a C<|> indicating alternation.
8e84dec2
KW
6369
6370=item *
6371
6372as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6373
6374 /foo({bar)/
6375 /foo(?:{bar)/
6376
6377=item *
6378
6379as the first character following a quantifier
6380
6381 /\s*{/
6382
6383=back
6384
6385=for comment
6386The text of the message above is duplicated below to allow splain (and
6387'use diagnostics') to work. Since one is fatal, and one not, they can't
6388be combined as one message. And since the non-fatal one is temporary,
6389there's no real need to enhance perldiag to handle this transient case.
6390
6391=item Unescaped left brace in regex is illegal here in regex;
6e8a73f2 6392marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
412f55bb 6393
8e84dec2
KW
6394(F) The simple rule to remember, if you want to
6395match a literal C<"{"> character (U+007B C<LEFT CURLY BRACKET>) in a
6396regular expression pattern, is to escape each literal instance of it in
6397some way. Generally easiest is to precede it with a backslash, like
6398C<"\{"> or enclose it in square brackets (C<"[{]">). If the pattern
6399delimiters are also braces, any matching right brace (C<"}">) should
6400also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser, for example,
6401
6402 qr{abc\{def\}ghi}
6403
6404Forcing literal C<"{"> characters to be escaped will enable the Perl
6405language to be extended in various ways in future releases. To avoid
6406needlessly breaking existing code, the restriction is is not enforced in
6407contexts where there are unlikely to ever be extensions that could
6408conflict with the use there of C<"{"> as a literal.
6409
6410In this release of Perl, some literal uses of C<"{"> are fatal, and some
6411still just deprecated. This is because of an oversight: some uses of a
6412literal C<"{"> that should have raised a deprecation warning starting in
6413v5.20 did not warn until v5.26. By making the already-warned uses fatal
6414now, some of the planned extensions can be made to the language sooner.
6415
6416The contexts where no warnings or errors are raised are:
6417
6418=over 4
6419
6420=item *
6421
6422as the first character in a pattern, or following C<"^"> indicating to
6423anchor the match to the beginning of a line.
6424
6425=item *
6426
6427as the first character following a C<"|"> indicating alternation.
6428
6429=item *
6430
6431as the first character in a parenthesized grouping like
6432
6433 /foo({bar)/
6434 /foo(?:{bar)/
6435
6436=item *
6437
6438as the first character following a quantifier
412f55bb 6439
8e84dec2 6440 /\s*{/
412f55bb 6441
8e84dec2 6442=back
1656665e 6443
a4368cc3
KW
6444=item Unescaped literal '%c' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6445
6446(W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>>)
6447
6448Within the scope of C<S<use re 'strict'>> in a regular expression
6449pattern, you included an unescaped C<}> or C<]> which was interpreted
6450literally. These two characters are sometimes metacharacters, and
6451sometimes literals, depending on what precedes them in the
6452pattern. This is unlike the similar C<)> which is always a
6453metacharacter unless escaped.
6454
6455This action at a distance, perhaps a large distance, can lead to Perl
6456silently misinterpreting what you meant, so when you specify that you
6457want extra checking by C<S<use re 'strict'>>, this warning is generated.
6458If you meant the character as a literal, simply confirm that to Perl by
6459preceding the character with a backslash, or make it into a bracketed
6460character class (like C<[}]>). If you meant it as closing a
6461corresponding C<[> or C<{>, you'll need to look back through the pattern
6462to find out why that isn't happening.
6463
a0d0e21e
LW
6464=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
6465
6466(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
6467representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
6468
e0e4a6e3
FC
6469=item Unexpected binary operator '%c' with no preceding operand in regex;
6470marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6471
675fa9ff 6472(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
6473
6474 (?[ | \p{Digit} ])
6475
6476where the C<"|"> is a binary operator with an operand on the right, but
6477no operand on the left.
6478
e0e4a6e3 6479=item Unexpected character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6480
675fa9ff 6481(F) You had something like this:
0d0b4b3b
KW
6482
6483 (?[ z ])
6484
6485Within C<(?[ ])>, no literal characters are allowed unless they are
6486within an inner pair of square brackets, like
6487
6488 (?[ [ z ] ])
6489
6490Another possibility is that you forgot a backslash. Perl isn't smart
6491enough to figure out what you really meant.
6492
6651ba0b
FC
6493=item Unexpected constant lvalue entersub entry via type/targ %d:%d
6494
6495(P) When compiling a subroutine call in lvalue context, Perl failed an
6496internal consistency check. It encountered a malformed op tree.
6497
6c341f67
TC
6498=item Unexpected exit %u
6499
6500(S) exit() was called or the script otherwise finished gracefully when
6501C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in C<PL_exit_flags>.
6502
878ce265 6503=item Unexpected exit failure %d
6c341f67
TC
6504
6505(S) An uncaught die() was called when C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in
6506C<PL_exit_flags>.
6507
e0e4a6e3 6508=item Unexpected ')' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6509
6510(F) You had something like this:
6511
6512 (?[ ( \p{Digit} + ) ])
6513
6514The C<")"> is out-of-place. Something apparently was supposed to
6515be combined with the digits, or the C<"+"> shouldn't be there, or
6516something like that. Perl can't figure out what was intended.
6517
c9ffefcc
FC
6518=item Unexpected ']' with no following ')' in (?[... in regex; marked by
6519<-- HERE in m/%s/
6520
6521(F) While parsing an extended character class a ']' character was
6522encountered at a point in the definition where the only legal use of
6523']' is to close the character class definition as part of a '])', you
6524may have forgotten the close paren, or otherwise confused the parser.
6525
e0e4a6e3
FC
6526=item Unexpected '(' with no preceding operator in regex; marked by
6527S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6528
6529(F) You had something like this:
6530
6531 (?[ \p{Digit} ( \p{Lao} + \p{Thai} ) ])
6532
6533There should be an operator before the C<"(">, as there's
6534no indication as to how the digits are to be combined
6535with the characters in the Lao and Thai scripts.
6536
ba707cdc 6537=item Unicode non-character U+%X is not recommended for open interchange
0876b9a0 6538
4c2e59a0 6539(S nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
66a1f5ec
FC
6540defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those
6541are legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so,
6542applications shouldn't attempt to exchange them. An application
6543may not be expecting any of these characters at all, and receiving
6544them may lead to bugs. If you know what you are doing you can
6545turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
6546
6547This is not really a "severe" error, but it is supposed to be
6548raised by default even if warnings are not enabled, and currently
6549the only way to do that in Perl is to mark it as serious.
6a807e21 6550
c794c51b
FC
6551=item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
6552
4c2e59a0 6553(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
c794c51b
FC
6554not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
6555U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
6556internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
6557available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
6558problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
6559came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 6560off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
c794c51b 6561
dcfe9e74
KW
6562=item Unknown charname '%s'
6563
6564(F) The name you used inside C<\N{}> is unknown to Perl. Check the
6565spelling. You can say C<use charnames ":loose"> to not have to be
6566so precise about spaces, hyphens, and capitalization on standard Unicode
6567names. (Any custom aliases that have been created must be specified
6568exactly, regardless of whether C<:loose> is used or not.) This error may
6569also happen if the C<\N{}> is not in the scope of the corresponding
6570C<S<use charnames>>.
6571
04177465
FC
6572=item Unknown error
6573
6574(P) Perl was about to print an error message in C<$@>, but the C<$@> variable
6575did not exist, even after an attempt to create it.
6576
6170680b
IZ
6577=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
6578
437784d6 6579(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 6580of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 6581C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 6582
b4581f09
JH
6583=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
6584
6585(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
6586system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
6587internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
6588are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
6589explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
6590value of the environment variable PERLIO.
6591
f675dbe5
CB
6592=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
6593
6594(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
6595iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
6596data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
6597subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 6598
283151b7 6599=item Unknown regexp modifier "/%s"
0da72d5e
KW
6600
6601(F) Alphanumerics immediately following the closing delimiter
6602of a regular expression pattern are interpreted by Perl as modifier
6603flags for the regex. One of the ones you specified is invalid. One way
6604this can happen is if you didn't put in white space between the end of
6605the regex and a following alphanumeric operator:
6606
6607 if ($a =~ /foo/and $bar == 3) { ... }
6608
6609The C<"a"> is a valid modifier flag, but the C<"n"> is not, and raises
6610this error. Likely what was meant instead was:
6611
6612 if ($a =~ /foo/ and $bar == 3) { ... }
6613
5a25739d
FC
6614=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
6615
6616(W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
6617
e0e4a6e3
FC
6618=item Unknown switch condition (?(...)) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6619m/%s/
96ebfdd7
RK
6620
6621(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
6903afa2 6622is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5fecf430 6623
674f6ed9
FC
6624 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
6625 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
6626 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
6627 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
6628 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
6629 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
6630 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
6631 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
6632 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
96ebfdd7 6633
6e8a73f2 6634The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
96ebfdd7
RK
6635discovered. See L<perlre>.
6636
a05d7ebb
JH
6637=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
6638
a4a4c9e2 6639(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb
JH
6640of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
6641
64187737 6642=item Unknown Unicode option value %d
a05d7ebb 6643
a4a4c9e2 6644(F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
a05d7ebb 6645of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 6646
e0e4a6e3 6647=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1
YO
6648
6649(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
6650after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
6651L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
6652
c2771421
FC
6653=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
6654
6903afa2 6655(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
c2771421
FC
6656category that is unknown to perl at this point.
6657
14ef4c80
FC
6658Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
6659module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
6660module first.
c2771421 6661
e0e4a6e3 6662=item Unmatched [ in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6663
6903afa2 6664(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 6665include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
e0e4a6e3 6666first. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
6903afa2 6667problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 6668
e0e4a6e3 6669=item Unmatched ( in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
aec0ef10 6670
e0e4a6e3 6671=item Unmatched ) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
6672
6673(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
6903afa2 6674expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
e0e4a6e3 6675the matching parenthesis. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
9e3ec65c 6676regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 6677
d98d5fff 6678=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 6679
be771a83
GS
6680(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
6681ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
6682general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
6683you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 6684
a0d0e21e
LW
6685=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
6686
be771a83
GS
6687(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
6688reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
6689somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
6690subroutine.
a0d0e21e 6691
e0e4a6e3
FC
6692=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by S<<-- HERE> after %s near column
6693%d
a0d0e21e 6694
54310121 6695(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
1b303a7d
FC
6696in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you
6697tried to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as
6698a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 6699
e0e4a6e3
FC
6700=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class in regex; marked by
6701S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
0d0b4b3b 6702
675fa9ff
FC
6703(F) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6704recognized by Perl inside character classes. This is a fatal
6705error when the character class is used within C<(?[ ])>.
0d0b4b3b 6706
6fbc9859 6707=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex;
e0e4a6e3 6708marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6709
be771a83
GS
6710(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6711recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 6712understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
e0e4a6e3 6713The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2628b4e0 6714escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6715
4a68bf9d 6716=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 6717
2628b4e0 6718(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
6719recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
6720change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 6721
e0e4a6e3
FC
6722=item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by
6723S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6df41af2 6724
be771a83 6725(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b7e4ecc1 6726recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
e0e4a6e3 6727this may change in a future version of Perl. The S<<-- HERE> shows
9e3ec65c 6728whereabouts in the regular expression the escape was discovered.
6df41af2 6729
a0d0e21e
LW
6730=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
6731
be771a83
GS
6732(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
6733recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
6734on your system.
a0d0e21e 6735
90248788 6736=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 6737
be771a83
GS
6738(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
6739think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
6740bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
6741
6742=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
6743
be771a83
GS
6744(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
6745operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 6746PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
6747
6748=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
6749
6750(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
6751
6df41af2
GS
6752=item Unsupported function %s
6753
6754(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
6755At least, Configure doesn't think so.
6756
54310121 6757=item Unsupported function fork
6758
6759(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
6760
be771a83 6761Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6903afa2 6762of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
be771a83 6763changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 6764
7aa207d6 6765=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
6766
6767(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 6768declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 6769
a0d0e21e
LW
6770=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
6771
6772(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
6773least that's what Configure thought.
6774
6df41af2 6775=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 6776
be771a83
GS
6777(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
6778start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
6779block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
6780attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 6781
09bef843
SB
6782=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
6783
be771a83
GS
6784(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
6785an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
6786character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
6787character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
6788
f1991046
GS
6789=item Unterminated compressed integer
6790
6791(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
6792compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
6793See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6794
6f2d7fc9
FC
6795=item Unterminated delimiter for here document
6796
6797(F) This message occurs when a here document label has an initial
6798quotation mark but the final quotation mark is missing. Perhaps
6799you wrote:
6800
6801 <<"foo
6802
6803instead of:
6804
6805 <<"foo"
6806
e0e4a6e3 6807=item Unterminated \g... pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
779fedd7 6808
e0e4a6e3 6809=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2bf803e2 6810
5364049c
KW
6811(F) In a regular expression, you had a C<\g> that wasn't followed by a
6812proper group reference. In the case of C<\g{>, the closing brace is
6813missing; otherwise the C<\g> must be followed by an integer. Fix the
6814pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 6815
6df41af2 6816=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 6817
6df41af2 6818(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
6819a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
6820not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
6821earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 6822
e0e4a6e3
FC
6823=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6824m/%s/
905fe053
FC
6825
6826(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 6827the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 6828
e0e4a6e3 6829=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
905fe053
FC
6830
6831(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6903afa2 6832the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
905fe053 6833
6df41af2 6834=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 6835
be771a83
GS
6836(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
6837still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 6838
8e11cd2b
JC
6839=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
6840
6841(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
6842See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
6843
6844=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
6845
6846(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
6847See L<Win32> for more information.
6848
89474f50
FC
6849=item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
6850
6851(W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
6852
6853 if ($[ > 5.006) {
6854 ...
6855 }
6856
6857You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
6858arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
6859
6da34ecb
FC
6860=item Use "%s" instead of "%s"
6861
6862(F) The second listed construct is no longer legal. Use the first one
6863instead.
6864
8fe85e3f
FC
6865=item Useless assignment to a temporary
6866
6867(W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
6868the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
6869be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
6870
e0e4a6e3
FC
6871=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by
6872S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 6873
96ebfdd7
RK
6874(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
6875meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 6876
96ebfdd7 6877 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
6878
6879must be written as
6880
96ebfdd7 6881 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5 6882
6e8a73f2 6883The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9e3ec65c 6884discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 6885
b4581f09
JH
6886=item Useless localization of %s
6887
6903afa2
FC
6888(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
6889but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
b4581f09
JH
6890some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
6891
e0e4a6e3
FC
6892=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6893m/%s/
9d1d55b5 6894
96ebfdd7
RK
6895(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
6896meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 6897
96ebfdd7 6898 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
6899
6900must be written as
6901
96ebfdd7 6902 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5 6903
6e8a73f2 6904The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
9e3ec65c 6905discovered. See L<perlre>.
9d1d55b5 6906
3108f4df
FC
6907=item Useless use of attribute "const"
6908
796b6530 6909(W misc) The C<const> attribute has no effect except
3108f4df
FC
6910on anonymous closure prototypes. You applied it to
6911a subroutine via L<attributes.pm|attributes>. This is only useful
6912inside an attribute handler for an anonymous subroutine.
6913
b08e453b
RB
6914=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
6915
6916(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6903afa2 6917same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
b08e453b
RB
6918about the /d modifier.
6919
820438b1
FC
6920=item Useless use of \E
6921
6922(W misc) You have a \E in a double-quotish string without a C<\U>,
6923C<\L> or C<\Q> preceding it.
6924
4fa6dd16
KW
6925=item Useless use of greediness modifier '%c' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6926
6927(W regexp) You specified something like these:
6928
6929 qr/a{3}?/
6930 qr/b{1,1}+/
6931
6932The C<"?"> and C<"+"> don't have any effect, as they modify whether to
6933match more or fewer when there is a choice, and by specifying to match
6934exactly a given numer, there is no room left for a choice.
6935
6df41af2 6936=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 6937
75b44862 6938(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
6939nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
6940value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
6941often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
6942to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
6943get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
6944said
a0d0e21e 6945
6df41af2 6946 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 6947
6df41af2
GS
6948when you meant to say
6949
6950 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
6951
6952Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
6953reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
6954example, if you say
6955
6956 $array = (1,2);
6957
6958when you should have said
6959
6960 $array = [1,2];
6961
6962The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
6963while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
6964a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
6965throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
6966L<perlref> for more on this.
6967
65191a1e
BS
6968This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
6969since they are often used in statements like
6970
4358a253 6971 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
6972
6973String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
6974about.
6975
e0e4a6e3 6976=item Useless use of (?-p) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
6977
6978(W regexp) The C<p> modifier cannot be turned off once set. Trying to do
6979so is futile.
6980
6df41af2
GS
6981=item Useless use of "re" pragma
6982
6903afa2 6983(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6df41af2 6984
a801c63c
RGS
6985=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
6986
6987(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
6988
6989 my $x = sort @y;
6990
6991This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
6992
de4864e4
JH
6993=item Useless use of %s with no values
6994
f87c3213 6995(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6903afa2
FC
6996apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
6997usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
de4864e4 6998possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6903afa2 6999if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
de4864e4
JH
7000you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
7001
6df41af2
GS
7002=item "use" not allowed in expression
7003
be771a83
GS
7004(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
7005returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 7006
8e796115 7007=item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated, and will be fatal in 5.30
36b2db7e
FC
7008
7009(D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
8e796115
DIM
7010is deprecated since Perl 5.12, and setting it to a non-zero value will be
7011fatal as of Perl 5.30.
7012See L<perlvar/"$[">.
36b2db7e 7013
c6e25b09 7014=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is forbidden
4633a7c4 7015
3f673807
FC
7016(F) You are now required to use the explicitly quoted form if you wish
7017to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
83ce3e12 7018
3f673807
FC
7019Use of a bare terminator was deprecated in Perl 5.000, and is a fatal
7020error as of Perl 5.28.
e5aa3f0b 7021
64e578a2
MJD
7022=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
7023
7024(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
7025modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
7026
4ac733c9
MJD
7027=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
7028
7029(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
7030use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
7031used. (This may change in the future.)
7032
113b8661
A
7033=item Use of code point 0x%s is not allowed; the permissible max is 0x%s.
7034
7035(F) You used a code point that is not allowed, because it is too large.
7036Unicode only allows code points up to 0x10FFFF, but Perl allows much
7037larger ones. Earlier versions of Perl allowed code points above IV_MAX
7038(0x7FFFFFF on 32-bit platforms, 0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF on 64-bit platforms),
7039however, this could possibly break the perl interpreter in some constructs,
7040including causing it to hang in a few cases.
2d212e86
KW
7041
7042If your code is to run on various platforms, keep in mind that the upper
7043limit depends on the platform. It is much larger on 64-bit word sizes
7044than 32-bit ones.
7045
fcdb3ac1 7046The use of out of range code points was deprecated in Perl 5.24, and
113b8661 7047became a fatal error in Perl 5.28.
fcdb3ac1 7048
675fa9ff
FC
7049=item Use of each() on hash after insertion without resetting hash iterator results in undefined behavior
7050
f26c79ba
FC
7051(S internal) The behavior of C<each()> after insertion is undefined;
7052it may skip items, or visit items more than once. Consider using
7053C<keys()> instead of C<each()>.
675fa9ff 7054
2dc78664 7055=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
036e1e65 7056
2dc78664
NC
7057(F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
7058C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
7059This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
7060error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
7061
7062If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
7063a space before the C<=>.
036e1e65 7064
fafdadbd
KW
7065=item Use of %s for non-UTF-8 locale is wrong. Assuming a UTF-8 locale
7066
7067(W locale) You are matching a regular expression using locale rules,
7068and the specified construct was encountered. This construct is only
7069valid for UTF-8 locales, which the current locale isn't. This doesn't
7070make sense. Perl will continue, assuming a Unicode (UTF-8) locale, but
7071the results are likely to be wrong.
7072
b6c83531 7073=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 7074
b6c83531
JH
7075(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
7076This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
7077
7078 @a = (3,4);
7079 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
7080
7081You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
7082For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
7083reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
7084middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
7085
96ebfdd7 7086=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 7087
96ebfdd7
RK
7088(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
7089operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
7090repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 7091
dc6e8de0 7092=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
0b98bec9
RGS
7093
7094(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
7095scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
7096
dc6e8de0 7097This was deprecated in Perl 5.12.
9fc8eee0 7098
64278e8c
A
7099=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s::%s() is no longer allowed
7100
7101(F) As an accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines were looked up as
7102methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy), even when the subroutines to be
7103autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as
7104methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<< $obj->bar() >>).
7105
7106This was deprecated in Perl 5.004, and was made fatal in Perl 5.28.
d9d53e86 7107
6df41af2
GS
7108=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
7109
7110(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
7111only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
7112
5840701a 7113=item Use of -l on filehandle%s
5a7abfcc
FC
7114
7115(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
7116it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
7117The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
7118
1f1cc344 7119=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 7120
77b96956 7121(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
7122isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
7123to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 7124
64977eb6 7125If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344 7126C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
54e0f05c 7127however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
c69ca1d4 7128operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 7129
87e05d1a 7130=item Use of strings with code points over 0xFF as arguments to %s
5d09ee1c 7131operator is not allowed
87e05d1a 7132
3f673807
FC
7133(F) You tried to use one of the string bitwise operators (C<&> or C<|> or C<^> or
7134C<~>) on a string containing a code point over 0xFF. The string bitwise
7135operators treat their operands as strings of bytes, and values beyond
71360xFF are nonsensical in this context.
87e05d1a 7137
5d09ee1c 7138This became fatal in Perl 5.28.
ecbcbef0 7139
315f3fc1
KW
7140=item Use of strings with code points over 0xFF as arguments to C<vec>
7141is deprecated. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.32
7142
7143(D deprecated) You tried to use L<C<vec>|perlfunc/vec EXPR,OFFSET,BITS>
7144on a string containing a code point over 0xFF, which is nonsensical here.
7145
7146Such usage will be a fatal error in Perl 5.32.
7147
bbd7eb8a
RD
7148=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
7149
159f47d9 7150(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
7151arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
7152but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
7153arguments. See L<perlsec>.
7154
94749a5e 7155=item Use of unassigned code point or non-standalone grapheme for a
7cb258c1 7156delimiter will be a fatal error starting in Perl 5.30
94749a5e
KW
7157
7158(D deprecated)
7159A grapheme is what appears to a native-speaker of a language to be a
7160character. In Unicode (and hence Perl) a grapheme may actually be
7161several adjacent characters that together form a complete grapheme. For
7162example, there can be a base character, like "R" and an accent, like a
7163circumflex "^", that appear when displayed to be a single character with
7164the circumflex hovering over the "R". Perl currently allows things like
7165that circumflex to be delimiters of strings, patterns, I<etc>. When
7166displayed, the circumflex would look like it belongs to the character
7167just to the left of it. In order to move the language to be able to
7168accept graphemes as delimiters, we have to deprecate the use of
7169delimiters which aren't graphemes by themselves. Also, a delimiter must
7170already be assigned (or known to be never going to be assigned) to try
7171to future-proof code, for otherwise code that works today would fail to
7172compile if the currently unassigned delimiter ends up being something
7173that isn't a stand-alone grapheme. Because Unicode is never going to
7174assign
7175L<non-character code points|perlunicode/Noncharacter code points>, nor
7176L<code points that are above the legal Unicode maximum|
7177perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points>, those can be delimiters, and
7178their use won't raise this warning.
7179
cc95b072 7180=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 7181
be771a83
GS
7182(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
7183defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
7184To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 7185
6903afa2
FC
7186To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
7187the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
7188it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
7189undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
50a39ba4 7190and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
6903afa2
FC
7191literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
7192optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
7193C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
7194your program.
e5be4a53 7195
67cdf558
KW
7196=item "use re 'strict'" is experimental
7197
7198(S experimental::re_strict) The things that are different when a regular
7199expression pattern is compiled under C<'strict'> are subject to change
7200in future Perl releases in incompatible ways. This means that a pattern
7201that compiles today may not in a future Perl release. This warning is
7202to alert you to that risk.
7203
e0e4a6e3
FC
7204=item Use \x{...} for more than two hex characters in regex; marked by
7205S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
675fa9ff
FC
7206
7207(F) In a regular expression, you said something like
7208
7209 (?[ [ \xBEEF ] ])
7210
7211Perl isn't sure if you meant this
7212
7213 (?[ [ \x{BEEF} ] ])
7214
7215or if you meant this
7216
7217 (?[ [ \x{BE} E F ] ])
7218
7219You need to add either braces or blanks to disambiguate.
7220
6fbc9859 7221=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class in
e0e4a6e3 7222regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
ff3f963a 7223
f3ba6905
FC
7224(W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return
7225a multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
7226supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match
7227the whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted
7228(C<[^...]>), or the escape is the beginning or final end point of
7229a range. For these, what should happen isn't clear at all. In
7230these circumstances, Perl discards all but the first character
7231of the returned sequence, which is not likely what you want.
ff3f963a 7232
6e8a73f2 7233=item Using /u for '%s' instead of /%s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
64935bc6
KW
7234
7235(W regexp) You used a Unicode boundary (C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}>) in a
7236portion of a regular expression where the character set modifiers C</a>
7237or C</aa> are in effect. These two modifiers indicate an ASCII
0308b42c 7238interpretation, and this doesn't make sense for a Unicode defintion.
64935bc6
KW
7239The generated regular expression will compile so that the boundary uses
7240all of Unicode. No other portion of the regular expression is affected.
7241
c794c51b
FC
7242=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
7243
7244(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
0f44b2a5 7245currently reserved for future use, as the exact behavior has not
6903afa2 7246been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
c794c51b 7247modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
0876b9a0 7248
949cf498
KW
7249=item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
7250
4c2e59a0 7251(S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
949cf498
KW
7252not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
7253U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
7254internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
7255available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
7256problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
7257came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
8457b38f 7258off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
9466bab6 7259
68dc0745 7260=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 7261
75b44862 7262(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
7263C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
7264can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
7265false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
7266constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
7267C<defined> operator.
a6006777 7268
f675dbe5
CB
7269=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
7270
be771a83
GS
7271(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
7272%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
7273longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
72741024 characters.
f675dbe5 7275
b5c19bd7 7276=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 7277
b5c19bd7
DM
7278(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
7279attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6903afa2 7280This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
7281declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
7282(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6903afa2 7283subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 7284
b5c19bd7 7285 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 7286
b5c19bd7 7287At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6903afa2 7288since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
b5c19bd7
DM
7289the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
7290now been created and is live:
be771a83 7291
b5c19bd7
DM
7292 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
7293
7294The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
7295gone out of scope, for example,
7296
7297 sub f {
7298 my $a;
7299 sub { eval '$a' }
7300 }
7301 f()->();
7302
1b303a7d
FC
7303Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
7304being executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 7305
b4581f09
JH
7306=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
7307
120b0f81 7308(S misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
413ff9f6 7309that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
7310something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
7311that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
7312front of your variable.
7313
aec0ef10 7314=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
7315
7316(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
d0a29c36
KW
7317known at compile time. For positive lookbehind, you can use the C<\K>
7318regex construct as a way to get the equivalent functionality. See
a8f2f5fa 7319L<(?<=pattern) and \K in perlre|perlre/\K>.
d0a29c36 7320
754dd754
KW
7321Starting in Perl 5.18, there are non-obvious Unicode rules under C</i>
7322that can match variably, but which you might not think could. For
7323example, the substring C<"ss"> can match the single character LATIN
7324SMALL LETTER SHARP S. Here's a complete list of the current ones
7325affecting ASCII characters:
7326
7327 ASCII
7328 sequence Matches single letter under /i
7329 FF U+FB00 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF
7330 FFI U+FB03 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFI
7331 FFL U+FB04 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFL
7332 FI U+FB01 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FI
7333 FL U+FB02 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FL
7334 SS U+00DF LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S
7335 U+1E9E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S
7336 ST U+FB06 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE ST
7337 U+FB05 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE LONG S T
7338
7339This list is subject to change, but is quite unlikely to.
7340Each ASCII sequence can be any combination of upper- and lowercase.
7341
7342You can avoid this by using a bracketed character class in the
7343lookbehind assertion, like
7344
7345 (?<![sS]t)
7346 (?<![fF]f[iI])
7347
7348This fools Perl into not matching the ligatures.
7349
7350Another option for Perls starting with 5.16, if you only care about
7351ASCII matches, is to add the C</aa> modifier to the regex. This will
7352exclude all these non-obvious matches, thus getting rid of this message.
7353You can also say
7354
7355 use if $] ge 5.016, re => '/aa';
7356
d0a29c36
KW
7357to apply C</aa> to all regular expressions compiled within its scope.
7358See L<re>.
b4581f09
JH
7359
7360=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
7361
52e3acf8 7362(W shadow) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
b9cc85ad
FC
7363current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
7364previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
7365that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
20d33786 7366or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
b4581f09 7367
6df41af2
GS
7368=item Variable syntax
7369
7370(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
7371of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
7372Perl yourself.
7373
44a8e56a 7374=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
7375
be771a83 7376(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 7377lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 7378
b5c19bd7 7379When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
7380the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
7381call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
7382outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
7383longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
7384variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 7385
44a8e56a 7386This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
7387anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 7388reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 7389are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 7390
6651ba0b
FC
7391=item vector argument not supported with alpha versions
7392
8b6051f1 7393(S printf) The %vd (s)printf format does not support version objects
6651ba0b
FC
7394with alpha parts.
7395
e0e4a6e3
FC
7396=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by
7397S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 7398
6903afa2
FC
7399(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
7400argument or check that you are using the right verb.
e2e6a0f1 7401
e0e4a6e3
FC
7402=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by
7403S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
e2e6a0f1 7404
6903afa2 7405(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
e2e6a0f1
YO
7406argument or check that you are using the right verb.
7407
9c88bb56 7408=item Version control conflict marker
397c43d8
LM
7409
7410(F) The parser found a line starting with C<E<lt><<<<<<>,
d4e5761f 7411C<E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>E<gt>>, or C<=======>. These may be left by a
397c43d8
LM
7412version control system to mark conflicts after a failed merge operation.
7413
084610c0
GS
7414=item Version number must be a constant number
7415
7416(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
7417its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
7418the version number.
7419
808ee47e
SP
7420=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
7421
32e998fd
RGS
7422(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
7423are being ignored.
808ee47e 7424
7e1af8bc 7425=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 7426
7427(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 7428you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 7429
f86702cc 7430=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 7431
be771a83
GS
7432(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
7433the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
7434space.
a0d0e21e 7435
96d7c888
FC
7436=item Warning: unable to close filehandle properly: %s
7437
7438=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly: %s
7439
ab7ca7ed
AP
7440(S io) There were errors during the implicit close() done on a filehandle
7441when its reference count reached zero while it was still open, e.g.:
cc4d3128
DM
7442
7443 {
7444 open my $fh, '>', $file or die "open: '$file': $!\n";
7445 print $fh $data or die "print: $!";
7446 } # implicit close here
7447
95032a5b
AP
7448Because various errors may only be detected by close() (e.g. buffering could
7449allow the C<print> in this example to return true even when the disk is full),
d4e5761f
FC
7450it is dangerous to ignore its result. So when it happens implicitly, perl
7451will signal errors by warning.
cc4d3128 7452
ab7ca7ed
AP
7453B<Prior to version 5.22.0, perl ignored such errors>, so the common idiom shown
7454above was liable to cause B<silent data loss>.
96d7c888 7455
5f05dabc 7456=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 7457
be771a83
GS
7458(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
7459looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
7460term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
7461function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
7462
7463 rand + 5;
7464
7465you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
7466
7467 rand() + 5;
7468
7469but in actual fact, you got
7470
7471 rand(+5);
7472
5f05dabc 7473So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 7474
0f539b13
BF
7475=item when is experimental
7476
7477(S experimental::smartmatch) C<when> depends on smartmatch, which is
7478experimental. Additionally, it has several special cases that may
7479not be immediately obvious, and their behavior may change or
675fa9ff
FC
7480even be removed in any future release of perl. See the explanation
7481under L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
0f539b13 7482
4b3603a4
JH
7483=item Wide character in %s
7484
c8f79457 7485(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
7486one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
7487way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
7488output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
7489warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
7490cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
7491filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 7492
613abc6d
KW
7493=item Wide character (U+%X) in %s
7494
7495(W locale) While in a single-byte locale (I<i.e.>, a non-UTF-8
7496one), a multi-byte character was encountered. Perl considers this
50ea4745 7497character to be the specified Unicode code point. Combining non-UTF-8
613abc6d
KW
7498locales and Unicode is dangerous. Almost certainly some characters
7499will have two different representations. For example, in the ISO 8859-7
7500(Greek) locale, the code point 0xC3 represents a Capital Gamma. But so
7501also does 0x393. This will make string comparisons unreliable.
7502
7503You likely need to figure out how this multi-byte character got mixed up
7504with your single-byte locale (or perhaps you thought you had a UTF-8
7505locale, but Perl disagrees).
7506
49704364
WL
7507=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
7508
fa816bf3
FC
7509(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]>
7510only if C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that
7511can be determined from the template alone. This is not possible if
7512it contains any of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign
7513the template.
49704364 7514
74d1b2e4
FC
7515=item %s() with negative argument
7516
7517(S misc) Certain operations make no sense with negative arguments.
7518Warning is given and the operation is not done.
7519
9a7dcd9c 7520=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 7521
be771a83 7522(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 7523before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 7524
9ae3ac1a 7525=item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
b4581f09 7526
27f95370
FC
7527(S utf8) When reading in different encodings, Perl tries to
7528map everything into Unicode characters. The bytes you read
7529in are not legal in this encoding. For example
b4581f09
JH
7530
7531 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
7532
7533if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
7534
49704364 7535=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 7536
49704364
WL
7537(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
7538the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 7539
49704364 7540=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
7541
7542(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
7543the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7544
a0d0e21e
LW
7545=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
7546
5f05dabc 7547(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 7548sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 7549about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 7550your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
7551
7552=item You need to quote "%s"
7553
be771a83
GS
7554(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
7555Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
7556which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
7557assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
7558what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 7559
6cfd5ea7
JH
7560=item Your random numbers are not that random
7561
50a39ba4 7562(F) When trying to initialize the random seed for hashes, Perl could
6cfd5ea7
JH
7563not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
7564Something Very Wrong.
7565
e0e4a6e3 7566=item Zero length \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
8a5a438d 7567
f3ba6905 7568(F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a zero-length
8a5a438d 7569sequence. Such an escape was used in an extended character class, i.e.
fe0a3646
KW
7570C<(?[...])>, or under C<use re 'strict'>, which is not permitted. Check
7571that the correct escape has been used, and the correct charnames handler
7572is in scope. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
7573expression the problem was discovered.
8a5a438d 7574
a0d0e21e
LW
7575=back
7576
00eb3f2b
RGS
7577=head1 SEE ALSO
7578
44ecbbd8 7579L<warnings>, L<diagnostics>.
00eb3f2b 7580
56e90b21 7581=cut