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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
6df41af2 53=item Allocation too large: %lx
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous overloaded argument to %s resolved as %s
80
81(W ambiguous) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> on an object that had
82overloading of C<%{}> or C<@{}> or both. In such a case, the object is
83dereferenced according to its overloading, not its underlying reference type.
84The warning is issued when C<%{}> overloading exists on a blessed arrayref,
85when C<@{}> overloading exists on a blessed hashref, or when both overloadings
86are defined (in which case C<%{}> is used). You can force the interpretation
87of the object by explictly dereferencing it as an array or hash instead of
88passing the object itself to C<keys>, C<values> or C<each>.
89
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90=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
91
92(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
93all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
94first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
95C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
96
6df41af2 97=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 98
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99(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
100you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
101a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 102
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103=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
104
105(W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
106bitwise and, and multpication), and you said something like C<*foo *
107foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We assumed you
108meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more clear -- in
109the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you really meant
110to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
111
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112=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
113
114(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
115asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
116named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
117the varable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
118function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
119and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
120
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121=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s%s} resolved to %c%s%s
122
123(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}>, which might be
124looking for element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case
125please write C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous
126arrayref to the function named foo, then do a scalar deref on the
127value it returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
128
bdac9d71 129=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
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130
131(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
132string C<"-foo"> (outside of C<use strict 'subs'>), or a call to the
133function C<foo>, negated. If you meant the string, just write
134C<"-foo">, and please use strict. If you meant the function call,
135write C<-foo()>.
136
6df41af2 137=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 138
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139(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
140redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
141redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 142
6df41af2 143=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 144
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145(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
146redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
147into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
148though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
149which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 150
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151 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
152 while (<STDIN>) {
153 print;
154 print OUT;
155 }
156 close OUT;
c9f97d15 157
6df41af2 158=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 159
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160(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
161transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 162one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 163a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
164hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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165you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
166alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 167
6df41af2 168=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 169
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170(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
171with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
172impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
173for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 174
6df41af2 175=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 176
6df41af2 177(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 178
b0fdf69e 179=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 180
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181(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
182subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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183
184 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 185 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 186 &do_something
a0d0e21e 187
8ea97a1e 188=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 189
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190(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
191such as:
5f05dabc 192
193 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 194 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 195
8ea97a1e 196or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 197
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198 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
199 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 200
6df41af2 201=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 202
6df41af2 203(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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204name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
205error.
a0d0e21e 206
f86702cc 207=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 208
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209(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
210that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
211will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 212
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213=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
214
215(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
216forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
217data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
218the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
219If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
220the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
221
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222=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
223
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224(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
225spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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226
227=item assertion botched: %s
228
229(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
230
231=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
232
233(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
234
235=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
236
237(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
238must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
239know which context to supply to the right side.
240
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241=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
242
4447dfc1 243(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
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244thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
245Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
246created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
247thread. See L<threads>.
248
2393f1b9 249=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 250
49293501 251(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 252the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 253
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254=item Attempt to bless into a reference
255
256(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
257the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
258supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
259
260 bless $self, $proto;
261
262when you intended
263
264 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
265
266If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
267of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
268example by:
269
270 bless $self, "$proto";
271
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272=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
273
274(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
275which is not in its key set.
276
277=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
278
279(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
280declared readonly from a restricted hash.
281
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282=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
283
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284(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
285that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
286outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 287
54310121 288=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 289
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290(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
291strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
292strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
293of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 294
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295=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
296
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297(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
298free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
299SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
300free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
301try to free it.
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302
303=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
304
e476b1b5 305(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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306
307=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
308
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309(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
310see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
311earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
312This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
313that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
314mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
315corrupted.
a0d0e21e 316
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317=item Attempt to join self
318
319(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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320impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
321to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 322
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323=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
324
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325(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
326function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
327means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
328invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
329literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
330avoid this warning.
84902520 331
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332=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
333
334(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
335compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
336unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
337L<perlvar/%INC>.
338
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339=item Attempt to set length of freed array
340
341(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
342can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
343of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
344
345 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
346 $$r = 503
347
b7a902f4 348=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
349
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350(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
351used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
352dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 353
c32124fe
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354=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
355
356(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "locked"
357attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
358effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in the next major
359release of Perl 5.
360
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361=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
362
363(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "unique"
b7a2910f 364attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
259976bd 365had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in the next major
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366release of Perl 5.
367
fe13d51d 368=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
a0d0e21e 369
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370(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
371or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 372S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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373S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
374
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375=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
376
496a33f5 377(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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378substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
379most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
380
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381=item Bad filehandle: %s
382
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383(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
384symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
385open(), or did it in another package.
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386
387=item Bad free() ignored
388
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389(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
390been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 391setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 392
9ea8bc6d 393This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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394dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
395which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 396
aa689395 397=item Bad hash
398
399(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
400
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401=item Badly placed ()'s
402
403(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
404of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
405Perl yourself.
406
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407=item Bad name after %s::
408
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409(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
410didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
411of quotes, so
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412
413 $var = 'myvar';
414 $sym = mypack::$var;
415
416is not the same as
417
418 $var = 'myvar';
419 $sym = "mypack::$var";
420
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421=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
422
423(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
424plugin API.
425
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426=item Bad realloc() ignored
427
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428(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
429never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
430by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 431
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432=item Bad symbol for array
433
434(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
435wasn't a symbol table entry.
436
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437=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
438
439(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
440that wasn't a symbol table entry.
441
442
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443=item Bad symbol for filehandle
444
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445(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
446that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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447
448=item Bad symbol for hash
449
450(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
451wasn't a symbol table entry.
452
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453=item Bareword found in conditional
454
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455(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
456conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
457of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
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458
459 open FOO || die;
460
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461It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
462a bareword:
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463
464 use constant TYPO => 1;
465 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
466
467The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
468
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469=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
470
471(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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472subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
473symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
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474
475=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
476
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477(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
478compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
479you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 480
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481=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
482
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483(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
484subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
485exited.
a0d0e21e 486
68dc0745 487=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
488
489(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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490implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
491occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
492be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
493depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 494
6df41af2
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495=item \1 better written as $1
496
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497(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
498The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
499substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
500because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
501there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 502
252aa082
JH
503=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
504
e476b1b5 505(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
506(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
507L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 508
69282e91 509=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 510
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511(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
512check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 513
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514=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
515
516(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
517Check you control flow and number of arguments.
518
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519=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
520
e476b1b5 521(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 522
4633a7c4
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523=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
524
be771a83 525(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 526copyable.
4633a7c4 527
f675dbe5
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528=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
529
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530(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
531iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
532which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 533
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534=item Callback called exit
535
4929bf7b 536(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
537exited by calling exit.
538
6df41af2 539=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 540
be771a83
GS
541(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
542parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
543that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
544early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
545subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
546checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
547function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
548the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 549
49704364 550=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
551
552(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
553compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
554attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
555See L<perlfunc/pack>.
556
49704364 557=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
558
559(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
560format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
561
5c1f4d79
NC
562=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
563
564(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
565then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
566triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
567from that type of reference to a typeglob.
568
ba2fdce6
NC
569=item Cannot copy to %s in %s
570
571(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
572be directly assigned not.
573
b5d97229
RGS
574=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
575
576(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
577either with open() or binmode().
578
96ebfdd7
RK
579=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
580
581(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
582integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
583to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
584
a0d0e21e
LW
585=item Can't bless non-reference value
586
587(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
588encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
589
dc57907a
RGS
590=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
591
0d863452
RH
592(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
593a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
594
595=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 596
0d863452
RH
597(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
598
a0d0e21e
LW
599=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
600
601(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
602functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
603in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
604
6df41af2
GS
605=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
606
607(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
608object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
609like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
610
611 $BADREF = undef;
612 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
613 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
614
a0d0e21e
LW
615=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
616
54310121 617(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
618ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
619didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
620object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
621
622=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
623
624(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
625object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
626defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
627Something like this will reproduce the error:
628
629 $BADREF = 42;
630 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
631 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
632
a0d0e21e
LW
633=item Can't chdir to %s
634
635(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
636that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
637
0545a864 638=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 639
be771a83
GS
640(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
641nosuid.
104d25b7 642
6df41af2
GS
643=item Can't coerce array into hash
644
645(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
646information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
647only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
648
a0d0e21e
LW
649=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
650
651(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 652(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
653say things like:
654
655 *foo += 1;
656
657You CAN say
658
659 $foo = *foo;
660 $foo += 1;
661
662but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
663
664=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
665
666(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 667(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
668
669=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
670
671(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 672(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 673
0d863452 674=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 675
0d863452
RH
676(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
677or C<default> block.
678
a0d0e21e
LW
679=item Can't create pipe mailbox
680
be771a83
GS
681(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
682quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 683
eb64745e 684=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 685
2f7e735d 686(F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
30c282f6 687class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
2f7e735d 688extended for other types of variables in future.
eb64745e
GS
689
690=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
691
30c282f6
NC
692(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
693"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 694
6df41af2
GS
695=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
696
be771a83
GS
697(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
698a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 699
a0d0e21e
LW
700=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
701
be771a83
GS
702(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
703reason.
a0d0e21e 704
54310121 705=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 706
be771a83
GS
707(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
708reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
709C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 710
10f9c03d 711=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 712
e476b1b5 713(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
714characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
715inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 716
7253e4e3 717=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 718
b45f050a 719(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 720regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 721regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 722
a0d0e21e
LW
723=item Can't do waitpid with flags
724
be771a83
GS
725(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
726waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 727
a0d0e21e
LW
728=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
729
be771a83
GS
730(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
731point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
732line.
a0d0e21e 733
1109a392
MHM
734=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
735
736(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
737or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
738little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
739See L<perlfunc/pack>.
740
a0d0e21e
LW
741=item Can't exec "%s": %s
742
d1be9408 743(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
744named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
745permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
746C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
747architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
748can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
749#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
750
751=item Can't exec %s
752
be771a83
GS
753(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
754that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
755need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
756
757=item Can't execute %s
758
be771a83
GS
759(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
760found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 761
6df41af2 762=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 763
be771a83
GS
764(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
765is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 766
56ca2fc0
JH
767=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
768
769(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
e1b711da
KW
770could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
771See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
772for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 773
6df41af2
GS
774=item Can't find label %s
775
be771a83
GS
776(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
777possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
778
779=item Can't find %s on PATH
780
be771a83
GS
781(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
782found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 783
6df41af2 784=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 785
be771a83
GS
786(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
787found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
788script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
789
790=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
791
be771a83
GS
792(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
793that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
794nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 795
fb73857a 796 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
797
be771a83
GS
798If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
799unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
800editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 801
660a4616
TS
802=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
803
804(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
e1b711da
KW
805example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
806Unicode property, see
807L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
808for a complete list of available properties.
660a4616
TS
809If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
810by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
811possible C<\E>).
812
b3647a36 813=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 814
be771a83
GS
815(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
816pipeline.
a0d0e21e 817
b3647a36
SR
818=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
819
c973c02e 820(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
821after five seconds.
822
748a9306
LW
823=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
824
be771a83
GS
825(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
826between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
827Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
828the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
829account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
830the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
831the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
832the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
833if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
834because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
835appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
836and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
837routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
838shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
839only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 840
a0d0e21e
LW
841=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
842
be771a83
GS
843(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
844pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
845
846=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
847
748a9306
LW
848(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
849mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 850
6df41af2 851=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 852
be771a83
GS
853(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
854loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
855
856=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
857
be771a83
GS
858(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
859a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
860you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
861See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 862
9850bf21 863=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 864
9850bf21
RH
865(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
866comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
867as the reduce() function in List::Util).
868
c74ace89 869=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 870
be771a83 871(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 872"string" or block.
b150fb22 873
6df41af2
GS
874=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
875
be771a83
GS
876(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
877subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
878cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
879routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 880
0b5b802d
GS
881=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
882
be771a83
GS
883(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
884signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
885signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
886processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
887situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
888may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 889
e2c0f81f
DG
890=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
891
892(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
893attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
894process identifier.
895
6df41af2 896=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 897
6df41af2 898(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
899except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
900block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
901block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
902usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
903inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
904L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 905
2c7d6b9c
RGS
906=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
907
908(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
909package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
910
b8170e59
JB
911=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
912
913(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
914may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
915incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
916between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
16d98ec5 917extension was built against an older version of the library that is
b8170e59
JB
918installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
919extensions.
920
748a9306
LW
921=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
922
2ba9eb46 923(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
30c282f6 924lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
748a9306
LW
925localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
926package name.
927
6df41af2 928=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 929
6df41af2
GS
930(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
931handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 932pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 933that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 934
ea071790 935=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
936
937(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
938found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
939unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
940need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
941the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
942to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
943L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 944
6df41af2
GS
945=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
946
be771a83
GS
947(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
948autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
949are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
950the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 951
b8170e59
JB
952=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
953
954(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
955for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
956unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
957
a0d0e21e
LW
958=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
959
960(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
961functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 962method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
963
964=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
965
be771a83
GS
966(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
967doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 968
2f7da168
RK
969=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
970
971(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
972e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
973
3e3baf6d
TB
974=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
975
be771a83
GS
976(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
977VMS.
3e3baf6d 978
a0d0e21e
LW
979=item Can't modify %s in %s
980
be771a83
GS
981(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
982to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 983
54310121 984=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
985
986(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
987a NULL.
988
6df41af2
GS
989=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
990
991(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
992such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
993
5f05dabc 994=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 995
5f05dabc 996(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
997buffer.
998
6df41af2
GS
999=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1000
1001(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1002there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
1003count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1004grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1005though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1006once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 1007
a0d0e21e
LW
1008=item Can't open %s: %s
1009
c47ff5f1 1010(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
1011filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1012switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
1013is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1014the command line.
a0d0e21e 1015
9a869a14
RGS
1016=item Can't open a reference
1017
1018(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1019using the 3-arg open() syntax :
1020
1021 open FH, '>', $ref;
1022
1023but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1024open is not supported.
1025
a0d0e21e
LW
1026=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1027
be771a83
GS
1028(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1029You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1030as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1031">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1032
748a9306
LW
1033=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1034
be771a83
GS
1035(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1036redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1037the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1038
1039=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1040
be771a83
GS
1041(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1042redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1043command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1044
1045=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1046
be771a83
GS
1047(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1048redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1049the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1050
1051=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1052
be771a83
GS
1053(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1054redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1055for stdout.
748a9306 1056
2b8ca739 1057=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1058
1059(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1060
fa3aa65a
JC
1061If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1062shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1063you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1064
6df41af2
GS
1065=item Can't read CRTL environ
1066
1067(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1068from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1069missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1070or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1071searched.
6df41af2 1072
6df41af2
GS
1073=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1074
1075(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1076there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1077count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1078or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1079though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1080loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1081
64977eb6 1082=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1083
be771a83
GS
1084(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1085file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1086the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1087
a0d0e21e
LW
1088=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1089
e476b1b5 1090(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1091probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1092
748a9306
LW
1093=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1094
be771a83
GS
1095(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1096to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1097
fe13d51d 1098=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1099
be771a83
GS
1100(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1101to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1102method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1103
cd06dffe
GS
1104=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1105
be771a83
GS
1106(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1107temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1108is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1109
96ebfdd7
RK
1110=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1111
1112(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1113there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1114
78f9721b
SM
1115=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1116
1117(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1118but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1119to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1120the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1121list context.
1122
a0d0e21e
LW
1123=item Can't stat script "%s"
1124
be771a83
GS
1125(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1126open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1127
a0d0e21e
LW
1128=item Can't take log of %g
1129
fb73857a 1130(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1131negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1132standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1133negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1134
1135=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1136
1137(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1138negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1139with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1140
1141=item Can't undef active subroutine
1142
1143(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1144however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1145redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1146
1147=item Can't unshift
1148
1149(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1150as the main Perl stack.
1151
c81225bc 1152=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1153
be771a83
GS
1154(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1155into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1156specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1157indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1158
1db89ea5
BS
1159=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1160
e27ad1f2 1161(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1162table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1163for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1164
96ebfdd7
RK
1165=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1166
1167(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1168be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1169
6df41af2
GS
1170=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1171
be771a83
GS
1172(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1173references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1174
90b75b61 1175=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1176
1177(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1178Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1179provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1180
1109a392
MHM
1181=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1182
1183(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1184byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1185allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1186
6df41af2
GS
1187=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1188
be771a83
GS
1189(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1190foreach.
6df41af2 1191
aab6a793 1192=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1193
be771a83
GS
1194(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1195is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1196(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1197have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1198weren't.
1199
6d3b25aa
RGS
1200=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1201
1202(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1203that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1204For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1205is inside a big-endian group.
1206
c07a80fd 1207=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1208
1209(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1210You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1211and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1212Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1213lexical variable.
1214
a0d0e21e
LW
1215=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1216
1217(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1218reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1219test the type of the reference, if need be.
1220
748a9306 1221=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1222
be771a83
GS
1223(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1224references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1225
748a9306
LW
1226=item Can't use subscript on %s
1227
1228(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1229subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1230didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1231
6df41af2
GS
1232=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1233
75b44862
GS
1234(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1235creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1236backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1237expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1238value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1239instead.
6df41af2 1240
0d863452 1241=item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
dc57907a 1242
0d863452
RH
1243(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1244loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1245from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1246or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1247
810b8aa5
GS
1248=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1249
1250(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1251references can be weakened.
1252
5f05dabc 1253=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1254
be771a83
GS
1255(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1256with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1257Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1258
4a68bf9d 1259=item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
f9d13529
KW
1260
1261(F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1262
f337b084 1263=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1264
1265(W pack) You said
1266
1267 pack("C", $x)
1268
1269where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1270only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1271and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1272
1273 pack("C", $x & 255)
1274
1275If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1276instead.
1277
f337b084
TH
1278=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1279
1280(W pack) You said
1281
1282 pack("U0W", $x)
1283
1284where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1285all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1286meant:
1287
1288 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1289
1290=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1291
1292(W pack) You said
1293
1294 pack("c", $x)
1295
1296where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1297is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1298and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1299
1300 pack("c", $x & 255);
1301
1302If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1303instead.
1304
f337b084
TH
1305=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1306
1307(W unpack) You tried something like
1308
1309 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1310
1a147d38 1311where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
f337b084
TH
1312below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1313modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1314
1315 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1316
1317=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1318
1319(W pack) You tried something like
1320
1321 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1322
1a147d38
YO
1323where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1324value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1325uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1326
1327 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1328
1329=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1330
1331(W unpack) You tried something like
1332
1333 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1334
1a147d38
YO
1335where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1336value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1337uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1338
1339 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1340
96ebfdd7
RK
1341=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1342
1343(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1344
abc7ecad
SP
1345=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1346
1347(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1348a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1349
49704364
WL
1350=item Code missing after '/'
1351
1352(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1353template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1354
6df41af2
GS
1355=item %s: Command not found
1356
be771a83
GS
1357(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1358Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1359
7a2e2cd6 1360=item Compilation failed in require
1361
1362(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1363Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1364encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1365
c3464db5
DD
1366=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1367
be771a83
GS
1368(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1369situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1370to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1371arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1372recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1373under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1374in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1375that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1376on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1377
38875929
DM
1378=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1379
1380(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1381cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1382function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1383cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1384has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1385first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1386after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1387lock.
1388
38875929
DM
1389=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1390
1391(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1392cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1393function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1394cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1395has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1396first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1397after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1398lock.
1399
69282e91 1400=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1401
be771a83
GS
1402(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1403to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1404L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1405
41ab332f 1406=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1407
be771a83
GS
1408(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1409an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1410specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1411corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1412L<overload>.
6df41af2 1413
fc8cd66c
YO
1414=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1415
1a147d38
YO
1416(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1417the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1418forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1419See L<charnames>.
1420
1421
779c5bc9
GS
1422=item Constant is not %s reference
1423
1424(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1425is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1426The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1427usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1428See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1429
4cee8e80
CS
1430=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1431
bb028877 1432(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
be771a83
GS
1433eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1434commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1435
9607fc9c 1436=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1437
be771a83
GS
1438(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1439for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1440workarounds.
9607fc9c 1441
e7ea3e70
IZ
1442=item Copy method did not return a reference
1443
64977eb6 1444(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1445L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1446
6798c92b
GS
1447=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1448
1449(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1450
a0d0e21e
LW
1451=item corrupted regexp pointers
1452
1453(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1454expression compiler gave it.
1455
1456=item corrupted regexp program
1457
be771a83
GS
1458(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1459valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1460
6df41af2
GS
1461=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1462
1463(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1464
49704364
WL
1465=item Count after length/code in unpack
1466
1467(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1468you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1469L<perlfunc/pack>.
1470
1408fb84 1471=item "\c%c" more clearly written simply as "%s"
f9d13529
KW
1472
1473(D deprecated) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1474non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1408fb84
KW
1475written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1476characters. This message may not remain as Deprecated beyond 5.13.
f9d13529 1477
a0d0e21e
LW
1478=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1479
be771a83
GS
1480(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1481100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1482infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1483which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1484
aad1d01f
NC
1485This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1486setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1487
f10b0346 1488=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1489
be771a83
GS
1490(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1491checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1492array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1493
f10b0346 1494=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1495
be771a83
GS
1496(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1497checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1498is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1499
62658f4d
PM
1500=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1501
1502(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1503there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1504
fc36a67e 1505=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1506
be771a83
GS
1507(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1508long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1509that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1510
4a68bf9d 1511=item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1512
1513(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1514But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names are
1515deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character and
1516continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or
1517colons.
1518
6d3b25aa
RGS
1519=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1520
1521(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1522There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1523not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1524conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1525static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1526relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1527declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1528
6d3b25aa
RGS
1529 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1530
1531becomes
1532
1533 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1534
36fb85f3
RGS
1535Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1536have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1537
1538 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1539
500ab966
RGS
1540=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1541
1542(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1543just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1544to create a dangling reference.
1545
3cdd684c
TP
1546=item Did not produce a valid header
1547
1548See Server error.
1549
6df41af2
GS
1550=item %s did not return a true value
1551
1552(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1553it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1554traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1555do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1556
cc507455 1557=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1558
413ff9f6
FC
1559(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1560some such.
4633a7c4 1561
cc507455 1562=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1563
be771a83
GS
1564(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1565variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1566seems superfluous.
33633739 1567
cc507455 1568=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1569
be771a83
GS
1570(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1571@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1572carried away.
748a9306 1573
7e1af8bc 1574=item Died
5f05dabc 1575
1576(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1577you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1578
3cdd684c
TP
1579=item Document contains no data
1580
1581See Server error.
1582
62658f4d
PM
1583=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1584
1585(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1586define a C<$VERSION.>
1587
49704364
WL
1588=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1589
1590(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1591See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1592
a0d0e21e
LW
1593=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1594
1595(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1596
1597=item do_study: out of memory
1598
1599(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1600
6df41af2
GS
1601=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1602
56da5a46
RGS
1603(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1604"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1605name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1606because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1607"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1608something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1609subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1610"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1611
ac206dc8
RGS
1612=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1613
1614(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1615qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1616
84d78eb7
YO
1617=item dump is not supported
1618
1619(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1620
a0d0e21e
LW
1621=item Duplicate free() ignored
1622
be771a83
GS
1623(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1624already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1625
1109a392
MHM
1626=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1627
1628(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1629in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1630
4633a7c4
LW
1631=item elseif should be elsif
1632
56da5a46
RGS
1633(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1634ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1635"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1636unlikely to be what you want.
1637
ab13f0c7
JH
1638=item Empty %s
1639
af6f566e
HS
1640(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1641described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1642a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1643
85ab1d1d 1644=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1645
85ab1d1d 1646(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1647effective uids or gids failed.
1648
c038024b
RGS
1649=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1650
1651(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1652aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1653program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1654
748a9306
LW
1655=item Error converting file specification %s
1656
5f05dabc 1657(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1658specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1659single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1660an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1661conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1662
e4d48cc9
GS
1663=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1664
be771a83
GS
1665(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1666expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1667is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1668
fc8f615e 1669=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
e4d48cc9 1670
be771a83
GS
1671(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1672C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1673pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1674is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1675building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1676that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1677
6df41af2
GS
1678=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1679
be771a83
GS
1680(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1681assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1682pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1683
1a147d38
YO
1684=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1685
1686(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1687any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1688
1689The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1690discovered.
1691
fc36a67e 1692=item Excessively long <> operator
1693
1694(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1695Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1696filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1697variable and glob that.
1698
ed9aa3b7
SG
1699=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1700
1701(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1702
fe13d51d 1703=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1704
1705(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1706
1707=item Exiting eval via %s
1708
be771a83
GS
1709(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1710goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1711
1712=item Exiting format via %s
1713
9a2ff54b 1714(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1715goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1716
0a753a76 1717=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1718
be771a83
GS
1719(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1720sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1721loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1722
a0d0e21e
LW
1723=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1724
be771a83
GS
1725(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1726as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1727
1728=item Exiting substitution via %s
1729
be771a83
GS
1730(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1731as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1732
7b8d334a
GS
1733=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1734
be771a83
GS
1735(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1736the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1737usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1738e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1739
6df41af2
GS
1740=item %s: Expression syntax
1741
be771a83
GS
1742(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1743Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1744
1745=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1746
3c10abe3
AG
1747(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1748CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1749queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1750
7253e4e3 1751=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1752
be771a83 1753(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1754character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1755in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1756"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1757problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1758
1b1ee2ef 1759=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1760
be771a83
GS
1761(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1762system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1763details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1764you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1765
1766=item fcntl is not implemented
1767
1768(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1769PDP-11 or something?
1770
22846ab4
AB
1771=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1772
1773(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1774is not possible.
1775
f337b084
TH
1776=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1777
1778(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1779which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1780a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1781C<u63> as format.
1782
af8c498a 1783=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1784
6c8d78fb
HS
1785(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1786it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1787"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1788write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1789
af8c498a 1790=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1791
6c8d78fb
HS
1792(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1793you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
be771a83
GS
1794with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1795intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
6c8d78fb
HS
1796Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1797(also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1798
1799=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1800
1801(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1802as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1803previously.
1804
1805=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1806
1807(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1808as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1809
1810=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1811
1812(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1813a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1814happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1815name.
a0d0e21e 1816
56e90b21
GS
1817=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1818
be771a83 1819(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1820some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1821filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1822same name?
56e90b21 1823
6df41af2
GS
1824=item Format not terminated
1825
1826(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1827to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1828
a0d0e21e
LW
1829=item Format %s redefined
1830
e476b1b5 1831(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1832
1833 {
271595cc 1834 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1835 eval "format NAME =...";
1836 }
1837
a0d0e21e
LW
1838=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1839
e476b1b5 1840(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1841
1842 if ($foo = 123)
1843
1844when you meant
1845
1846 if ($foo == 123)
1847
1848(or something like that).
1849
6df41af2
GS
1850=item %s found where operator expected
1851
56da5a46
RGS
1852(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1853If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1854operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1855operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1856
a0d0e21e
LW
1857=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1858
1859(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1860
1861=item gethostent not implemented
1862
1863(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1864because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1865on the Internet.
1866
69282e91 1867=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1868
be771a83
GS
1869(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1870socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1871
748a9306
LW
1872=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1873
1874(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1875C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1876
6df41af2
GS
1877=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1878
be771a83
GS
1879(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1880forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1881L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1882
1883=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1884
a4edf47d 1885(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1886that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1887declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1888which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1889
e476b1b5
GS
1890=item glob failed (%s)
1891
be771a83
GS
1892(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1893C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1894C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1895nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1896resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1897broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1898config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1899were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1900empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1901think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1902C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1903
a0d0e21e
LW
1904=item Glob not terminated
1905
1906(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1907a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1908not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1909earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1910
8b56d6ff
FC
1911=item gmtime(%.0f) too large
1912
fc003d4b
MS
1913(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was larger than
1914it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1915date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1916not-a-number value).
1917
1918=item gmtime(%.0f) too small
1919
1920(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was smaller than
1921it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1922date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1923not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 1924
6df41af2 1925=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1926
6df41af2
GS
1927(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1928version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1929
1930=item goto must have label
1931
1932(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1933unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1934
49704364 1935=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 1936
49704364 1937(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
18529408 1938supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
49704364 1939 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 1940
fe13d51d 1941=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
1942
1943(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1944
a0d0e21e
LW
1945=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1946
be771a83
GS
1947(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1948to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1949created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1950
1951=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1952
be771a83
GS
1953(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1954spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1955
6df41af2
GS
1956=item %s has too many errors
1957
1958(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1959Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1960
e6897b1a
KW
1961=item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
1962
1963(D syntax)
1964
1965You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following a pattern
1966without an intervening space. For example, the two constructs:
1967
1968 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
1969 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
1970
1971both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow the first form
1972in Perl 5.16. And,
1973
1974 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
1975
1976will be disallowed too.
1977
252aa082
JH
1978=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1979
e476b1b5 1980(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1981(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1982L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1983
8903cb82 1984=item Identifier too long
1985
1986(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1987about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1988names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1989of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1990
c3c41406 1991=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 1992
ff3f963a
KW
1993(W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
1994zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1a147d38 1995its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
1996been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1997
6df41af2 1998=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1999
6df41af2 2000(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2001
6df41af2 2002=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2003
be771a83
GS
2004(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2005binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2006offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2007
4fdae800 2008=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
2009
d5898338 2010(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2011would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2012when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2013version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2014to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2015
d37a9538
ST
2016=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2017
197afce1
MT
2018(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2019Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
d37a9538 2020
904d85c5
RGS
2021=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2022
2023(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2024you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2025
8e742a20
MHM
2026=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2027
2028(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2029
a0d0e21e
LW
2030=item Illegal division by zero
2031
be771a83
GS
2032(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2033your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2034meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2035
6df41af2
GS
2036=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2037
be771a83
GS
2038(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2039A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2040number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2041
a0d0e21e
LW
2042=item Illegal modulus zero
2043
be771a83
GS
2044(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2045numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2046
6df41af2 2047=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2048
6df41af2
GS
2049(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2050two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2051
2052=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2053
d1be9408 2054(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2055
399388f4 2056=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2057
d1be9408 2058(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2059Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2060
fe13d51d 2061=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2062
6df41af2 2063(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2064following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2065
6df41af2 2066=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2067
75b44862 2068(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2069internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2070delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2071
6df41af2 2072=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2073
be771a83
GS
2074(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2075name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2076didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2077ignored.
54310121 2078
6df41af2 2079=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2080
be771a83
GS
2081(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2082the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2083system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2084times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2085would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2086
be771a83
GS
2087Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2088also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2089
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2090=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2091
2092(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2093C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2094documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2095
979699d9
JH
2096=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2097
2098(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2099Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2100encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2101
1a147d38
YO
2102=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2103
2104(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2105text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2106either consume text or fail.
2107
2108The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2109discovered.
2110
6dbe9451
NC
2111=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2112
2113(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2114of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2115C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2116as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2117
a0d0e21e
LW
2118=item Insecure dependency in %s
2119
8b1a09fc 2120(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2121The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2122setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2123tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2124from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2125such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2126L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2127
2128=item Insecure directory in %s
2129
be771a83
GS
2130(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2131setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2132the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2133See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2134
62f468fc 2135=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2136
2137(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2138setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2139C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2140supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2141the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2142
a7ae9550
GS
2143=item Integer overflow in %s number
2144
75b44862 2145(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2146either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2147your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2148On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2149representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
21500b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2151transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2152internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2153operations.
bbce6d69 2154
2fba7546
GA
2155=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2156
0be96356
AL
2157(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2158or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2fba7546
GA
2159integers for your architecture.
2160
46314c13
JP
2161=item Integer overflow in version
2162
2163(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2164size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2165because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2166element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2167trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2168100/9.
2169
7253e4e3 2170=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2171
2172(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2173The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2174discovered.
2175
748a9306
LW
2176=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2177
be771a83
GS
2178(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2179you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2180to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2181L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2182Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2183terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2184
7253e4e3 2185=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2186
7253e4e3
RK
2187(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2188<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2189discovered.
a0d0e21e 2190
6df41af2
GS
2191=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2192
75b44862 2193(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2194followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2195operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2196L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2197
09bef843
SB
2198=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2199
2200The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2201by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2202
2203=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2204
be771a83
GS
2205The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2206recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2207
c635e13b 2208=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2209
be771a83
GS
2210(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2211L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2212
9e08bc66
TS
2213=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2214
2215(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2216didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2217from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2218The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2219The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2220escape was discovered.
2221
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2222=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2223
2224(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2225or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2226(Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2227
7253e4e3 2228=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2229
2230(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2231greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2232C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2233up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2234problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2235
d1573ac7 2236=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2237
2238(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2239character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2240
09bef843
SB
2241=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2242
0120eecf 2243(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2244elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2245parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2246See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2247
b4581f09
JH
2248=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2249
2250(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2251colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2252If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2253list was terminated too soon.
2254
2c86d456
DG
2255=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2256
2257(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2258A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2259decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2260v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2261The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2262See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2263
49704364 2264=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2265
49704364
WL
2266(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2267See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2268(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2269silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2270
2c86d456
DG
2271=item Invalid version format (%s)
2272
2273(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2274A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2275decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2276v-string. If the v-string has less than three components, it must have a
2277leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional. Both
2278decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2279component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2280dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
a6485a24 2281criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2c86d456 2282allowed version formats.
46314c13 2283
798ae1b7
DG
2284=item Invalid version object
2285
2286(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2287the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2288was blessed into the "version" class.
2289
a0d0e21e
LW
2290=item ioctl is not implemented
2291
2292(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2293strange for a machine that supports C.
2294
c289d2f7
JH
2295=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2296
2297(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2298Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2299
fe13d51d 2300=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2301
2302(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2303you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2304with 'useperlio'.
2305
80cbd5ad
JH
2306=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2307
2308(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2309neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2310
b4581f09
JH
2311=item $* is no longer supported
2312
d1d15184 2313(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
4fd19576
B
2314been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In previous versions of perl the use of
2315C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line matching within a string.
2316
2317Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2318modifiers. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value then all regular
2319expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2320
8ae1fe26
RGS
2321=item $# is no longer supported
2322
d1d15184 2323(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
8ae1fe26
RGS
2324been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2325printf/sprintf functions instead.
2326
6ad11d81
JH
2327=item `%s' is not a code reference
2328
04a80ee0
RGS
2329(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2330needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
2331to a subroutine.
2332
2333=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2334
04a80ee0
RGS
2335(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2336unaware of.
6ad11d81 2337
a0d0e21e
LW
2338=item junk on end of regexp
2339
2340(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2341
2342=item Label not found for "last %s"
2343
be771a83
GS
2344(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2345of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2346L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2347
2348=item Label not found for "next %s"
2349
2350(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2351that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2352L<perlfunc/last>.
2353
2354=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2355
2356(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2357that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2358L<perlfunc/last>.
2359
85ab1d1d 2360=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2361
85ab1d1d 2362(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2363effective uids or gids failed.
2364
49704364
WL
2365=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2366
d7f8936a 2367(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
49704364
WL
2368length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2369an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2370
f0e67a1d
Z
2371=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2372
2373(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2374(using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but
2375tried to insert a character that couldn't be part of the current input.
2376This is an inherent pitfall of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the
2377reasons to avoid it. Where it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only
2378plain ASCII is recommended.
2379
2380=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2381
2382(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2383detectable way.
2384
69282e91 2385=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2386
be771a83
GS
2387(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2388to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2389L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2390
8b56d6ff
FC
2391=item localtime(%.0f) too large
2392
fc003d4b
MS
2393(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was larger
2394than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2395wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2396not-a-number value).
2397
2398=item localtime(%.0f) too small
2399
2400(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was smaller
2401than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2402wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2403not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 2404
58e23c8d 2405=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2406
2407(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
58e23c8d 2408handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2409
b88df990
NC
2410=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2411
2412(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2413for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2414hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2415because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2416are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2417You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2418
2f7da168
RK
2419=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2420
2421(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2422by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2423instead on the filehandle.)
2424
885ef6f5
GG
2425=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2426
963d9ce9 2427(W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
d9159685
RS
2428by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute is not
2429possible. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine add the
e2bd2e2b 2430lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the declaration before
885ef6f5
GG
2431the definition.
2432
96ebfdd7
RK
2433=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2434
2435(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2436values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2437L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2438
49704364
WL
2439=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2440
2441(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2442are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2443
2444=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2445
2446(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2447are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2448
6df41af2
GS
2449=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2450
2451(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2452
2453 prefix1;prefix2
2454
2455or
6df41af2
GS
2456 prefix1 prefix2
2457
be771a83
GS
2458with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2459a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2460appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2461"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2462
2f758a16
ST
2463=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2464
d37a9538
ST
2465(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2466syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2467obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2468when the function is called.
2f758a16 2469
ba210ebe
JH
2470=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2471
2575c402
JW
2472(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2473encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2474
2575c402
JW
2475One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2476you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
24778-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2478
2479If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2480sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2481set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2482message.
2483
2484See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2485
dea0fc0b
JH
2486=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2487
183097aa 2488(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
dea0fc0b
JH
2489doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2490
ff3f963a
KW
2491=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2492
2493(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2494
f337b084
TH
2495=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2496
2497(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2498rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2499
2500=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2501
2502(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2503rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2504
2505=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2506
2507(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2508rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2509
fe13d51d 2510=item Maximal count of pending signals (%d) exceeded
2563cec5 2511
fe13d51d 2512(F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2513usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2514too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2515resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2516safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2517
49704364 2518=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2519
2520(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
7253e4e3
RK
2521regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2522shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2523See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2524
25f58aea
PN
2525=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2526
2527(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2528interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2529"use" or "my".
2530
49704364 2531=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2532
2533(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2534checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2535See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2536
a0d0e21e
LW
2537=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2538
2539(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2540doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2541
3cdd684c
TP
2542=item Method %s not permitted
2543
2544See Server error.
2545
a0d0e21e
LW
2546=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2547
2548(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2549by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2550ended earlier on the current line.
2551
2552=item Misplaced _ in number
2553
d4ced10d
JH
2554(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2555separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2556
7baa4690
HS
2557=item Missing argument in %s
2558
2559(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2560supplied.
2561
9e81e6a1
RGS
2562=item Missing argument to -%c
2563
2564(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2565immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2566
ff3f963a 2567=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2568
4a2d328f 2569(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
c3c41406
KW
2570double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2571comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2572This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2573the C<\N>.
423cee85 2574
f0a2b745
KW
2575=item Missing braces on \o{}
2576
2577(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2578
a0d0e21e
LW
2579=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2580
2581(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2582"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2583
06eaf0bc
GS
2584=item Missing command in piped open
2585
be771a83
GS
2586(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2587C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2588blank.
06eaf0bc 2589
961ce445
RGS
2590=item Missing control char name in \c
2591
2592(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2593character name.
2594
6df41af2
GS
2595=item Missing name in "my sub"
2596
be771a83
GS
2597(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2598they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2599
2600=item Missing $ on loop variable
2601
be771a83
GS
2602(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2603are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2604can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2605
cc507455 2606=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2607
56da5a46
RGS
2608(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2609"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2610
ab13f0c7
JH
2611=item Missing right brace on %s
2612
ff3f963a
KW
2613(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2614
4a68bf9d 2615=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 2616
0a96133f
KW
2617(F)
2618C<\N> has two meanings.
2619
2620The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2621in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
ff3f963a 2622Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
0a96133f
KW
2623double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2624have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
ff3f963a 2625
0a96133f 2626Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
c3c41406
KW
2627patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2628C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
ff3f963a
KW
2629
2630This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
c3c41406 2631left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
ff3f963a
KW
2632the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2633that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
0a96133f 26343; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
ff3f963a
KW
2635and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2636
2637However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
c3c41406 2638omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
0a96133f
KW
2639raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2640the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2641
d98d5fff 2642=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2643
be771a83
GS
2644(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2645ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2646were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2647
6df41af2
GS
2648=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2649
56da5a46
RGS
2650(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2651"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2652the previous line just because you saw this message.
2653
a0d0e21e
LW
2654=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2655
2656(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2657constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2658catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2659
2660 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2661 mod(2);
2662
2663Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2664
c5674021
PDF
2665Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2666is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2667
2668 $x = 1;
2669 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2670 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2671 }
c5674021 2672
7a4340ed 2673=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2674
2675(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2676subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2677backwards.
2678
7a4340ed 2679=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2680
be771a83
GS
2681(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2682couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2683
2684=item Module name must be constant
2685
2686(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2687
be98fb35 2688=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2689
be98fb35
GS
2690(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2691you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2692about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2693
fe13d51d 2694=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7
SG
2695
2696(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2697can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2698list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2699See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2700
a0d0e21e
LW
2701=item msg%s not implemented
2702
2703(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2704
2705=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2706
75b44862
GS
2707(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2708They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2709
49704364 2710=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2711
49704364
WL
2712(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2713follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2714See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2715
2716=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2717
be771a83
GS
2718(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2719that yet.
6df41af2 2720
30c282f6 2721=item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2722
be771a83
GS
2723(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2724sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2725local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2726
4a68bf9d 2727=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
ff3f963a 2728
c3c41406
KW
2729(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2730character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2731specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2732
4a68bf9d 2733=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
c3c41406
KW
2734
2735(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2736was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
b09c05e6 2737such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2738
2739 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2740 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2741 /$re/;
2742
b09c05e6 2743Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2744
2745 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2746 /$re/;
2747
2748The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2749components:
2750
2751 $re = '\N';
2752 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2753
2754It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2755doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2756
2757Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2758C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2759
2760 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2761 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2762
8b1a09fc 2763=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2764
e476b1b5 2765(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
2766If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2767again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 2768provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e 2769
64b374f4
FD
2770NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2771%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2772the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2773will not trigger this warning.
2774
4a68bf9d 2775=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
ff3f963a
KW
2776
2777(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
c3c41406
KW
2778number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2779or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
ff3f963a 2780
49704364
WL
2781=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2782
2783(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2784negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2785
a0d0e21e
LW
2786=item Negative length
2787
be771a83
GS
2788(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2789length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2790
ed9aa3b7
SG
2791=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2792
2793(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2794greater than or equal to zero.
2795
7253e4e3 2796=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2797
b45f050a 2798(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2799things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2800expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2801
7253e4e3 2802Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2803C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2804
6df41af2 2805=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2806
be771a83
GS
2807(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2808scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2809
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2810=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2811
2812(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2813real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2814See L<mro>.
2815
a0d0e21e
LW
2816=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2817
be771a83
GS
2818(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2819setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2820will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2821securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2822
a0d0e21e
LW
2823=item No comma allowed after %s
2824
2825(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2826allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2827Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2828
0a753a76 2829One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2830constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2831importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2832does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2833explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2834L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2835would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2836remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2837constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2838list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2839this error was triggered?
2840
748a9306
LW
2841=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2842
be771a83
GS
2843(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2844redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2845doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2846
a0d0e21e
LW
2847=item No DB::DB routine defined
2848
be771a83 2849(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
ccafdc96
RGS
2850for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2851module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2852statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2853
2854=item No dbm on this machine
2855
2856(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2857supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2858
ccafdc96 2859=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2860
ccafdc96
RGS
2861(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2862for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2863module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2864of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2865
96ebfdd7
RK
2866=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2867
2868(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2869
c47ff5f1 2870=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2871
be771a83
GS
2872(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2873redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2874find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2875
49704364
WL
2876=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2877
2878(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2879matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2880
c47ff5f1 2881=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2882
be771a83
GS
2883(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2884redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2885name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2886
6df41af2
GS
2887=item No #! line
2888
2889(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2890even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2891
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2892=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2893
2894(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2895in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2896it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2897or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2898
6df41af2
GS
2899=item "no" not allowed in expression
2900
be771a83
GS
2901(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2902returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2903
c47ff5f1 2904=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2905
be771a83
GS
2906(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2907redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2908doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2909
c47ff5f1 2910=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2911
be771a83
GS
2912(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2913redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2914find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2915
1ec3e8de
GS
2916=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2917
be771a83
GS
2918(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2919declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2920semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2921
a0d0e21e
LW
2922=item No Perl script found in input
2923
2924(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2925with #! and containing the word "perl".
2926
2927=item No setregid available
2928
2929(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2930your system.
2931
2932=item No setreuid available
2933
2934(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2935your system.
2936
6df41af2
GS
2937=item No %s specified for -%c
2938
2939(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2940you haven't specified one.
e75d1f10
RD
2941=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2942
2943(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2944but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2945package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2946
2c692339
RGS
2947=item No such class %s
2948
30c282f6 2949(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2c692339
RGS
2950this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2951
3c20a832
SP
2952=item No such hook: %s
2953
2954(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2955accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2956
6df41af2
GS
2957=item No such pipe open
2958
2959(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2960close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2961earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2962
a0d0e21e
LW
2963=item No such signal: SIG%s
2964
be771a83
GS
2965(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2966not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2967names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2968
2969=item Not a CODE reference
2970
2971(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2972subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2973use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2974also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2975
2976=item Not a format reference
2977
2978(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2979format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2980
2981=item Not a GLOB reference
2982
be771a83
GS
2983(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2984symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2985something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2986kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2987
2988=item Not a HASH reference
2989
be771a83
GS
2990(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2991reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2992find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2993
6df41af2
GS
2994=item Not an ARRAY reference
2995
be771a83
GS
2996(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2997a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2998to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2999
a0d0e21e
LW
3000=item Not a perl script
3001
3002(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
3003even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
3004mention perl.
3005
3006=item Not a SCALAR reference
3007
be771a83
GS
3008(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3009a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3010to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3011
3012=item Not a subroutine reference
3013
3014(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3015subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3016use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3017also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3018
e7ea3e70 3019=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3020
3021(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3022doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3023
a0d0e21e
LW
3024=item Not enough arguments for %s
3025
3026(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3027
6df41af2
GS
3028=item Not enough format arguments
3029
be771a83
GS
3030(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3031supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3032
3033=item %s: not found
3034
be771a83
GS
3035(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3036of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3037yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3038
3039=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3040
6df41af2
GS
3041(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3042timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3043to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3044F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3045need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3046
f0a2b745
KW
3047=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3048
3049(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was unexpectedly
3050encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as indicated.
3051
4ef2275c
GA
3052=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3053
3054(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3055Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3056select. See L<perlfunc/select>
3057
a0d0e21e
LW
3058=item Null filename used
3059
be771a83
GS
3060(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3061machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 3062
6df41af2
GS
3063=item NULL OP IN RUN
3064
be771a83
GS
3065(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3066pointer.
6df41af2 3067
55497cff 3068=item Null picture in formline
3069
3070(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3071specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3072supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3073
a0d0e21e
LW
3074=item Null realloc
3075
3076(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3077
3078=item NULL regexp argument
3079
5f05dabc 3080(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3081
3082=item NULL regexp parameter
3083
3084(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3085
fc36a67e 3086=item Number too long
3087
be771a83 3088(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3089about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3090versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3091the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3092"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3093
f0a2b745
KW
3094=item Number with no digits
3095
3096(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like a number.
3097This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between the braces.
3098
6df41af2
GS
3099=item Octal number in vector unsupported
3100
be771a83
GS
3101(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3102The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3103future version.
6df41af2 3104
252aa082
JH
3105=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3106
75b44862 3107(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3108(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3109L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
3110
3111See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3112
6ad11d81
JH
3113=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3114
04a80ee0
RGS
3115(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3116arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3117
b21befc1
MG
3118=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3119
3120(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3121which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3122
1930e939 3123=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3124
be771a83
GS
3125(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3126which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3127
bbce6d69 3128=item Offset outside string
3129
42bc49da
JH
3130(F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3131with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3132imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3133take place when going past the end of the string when either
3134C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3135for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3136with real files).
bbce6d69 3137
c289d2f7 3138=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3139
3140(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3141never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3142call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3143
96ebfdd7
RK
3144=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3145
3146(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3147that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3148
a0d0e21e
LW
3149=item oops: oopsAV
3150
e476b1b5 3151(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3152
3153=item oops: oopsHV
3154
e476b1b5 3155(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3156
abc718f2
RGS
3157=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3158
3159(W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3160a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3161Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3162and is deprecated.
3163
3164=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3165
3166(W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3167a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3168Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3169and is deprecated.
3170
a0288114 3171=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3172
be771a83
GS
3173(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3174handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3175of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3176C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3177
748a9306
LW
3178=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3179
be771a83
GS
3180(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3181was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3182use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3183example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3184"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3185
6df41af2
GS
3186=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3187
be771a83
GS
3188(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3189in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3190
a80b8354
GS
3191=item Out of memory!
3192
3193(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3194remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3195no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3196
19a52907
JH
3197At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3198process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3199C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3200the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3201and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3202
6d3b25aa
RGS
3203=item Out of memory during %s extend
3204
3205(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3206the largest possible memory allocation.
3207
6df41af2 3208=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 3209
6df41af2
GS
3210(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3211remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
3212the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3213possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 3214
1b979e0a 3215=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 3216
be771a83
GS
3217(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3218insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3219request.
eff9c6e2
CS
3220
3221The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3222depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
3223However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3224emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
3225is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3226where the failed request happened.
55497cff 3227
1b979e0a
IZ
3228=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3229
3230(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
3231is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3232C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 3233
6df41af2
GS
3234=item Out of memory for yacc stack
3235
be771a83
GS
3236(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3237parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3238otherwise.
6df41af2 3239
28be1210
TH
3240=item '.' outside of string in pack
3241
3242(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3243position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3244
49704364 3245=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 3246
49704364 3247(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
3248the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3249
f337b084
TH
3250=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3251
3252(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3253the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3254UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3255
7cb0cfe6
BM
3256=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3257
3258(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3259but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3260L<overload>.
3261
3262=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3263
3264(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3265overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3266
6df41af2
GS
3267=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3268
be771a83
GS
3269(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3270package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3271some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3272mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 3273
96ebfdd7
RK
3274=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3275
3276(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3277signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3278
a0d0e21e
LW
3279=item page overflow
3280
be771a83
GS
3281(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3282page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 3283
6df41af2
GS
3284=item panic: %s
3285
3286(P) An internal error.
3287
c99a1475
NC
3288=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3289
3290(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3291an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3292platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3293enter this branch on this platform.
3294
a0d0e21e
LW
3295=item panic: ck_grep
3296
3297(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3298
3299=item panic: ck_split
3300
3301(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3302
3303=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3304
be771a83
GS
3305(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3306there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 3307
810b8aa5
GS
3308=item panic: del_backref
3309
3310(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3311reference.
3312
7619c85e
RG
3313=item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3314
3315(P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3316last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3317an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3318a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3319
a0d0e21e
LW
3320=item panic: die %s
3321
3322(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3323it wasn't an eval context.
3324
a0d0e21e
LW
3325=item panic: do_subst
3326
be771a83
GS
3327(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3328data.
a0d0e21e 3329
2269b42e 3330=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 3331
2269b42e 3332(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 3333data.
a0d0e21e 3334
b7f7fd0b
NC
3335=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3336
10203f38 3337(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
3338failure was caught.
3339
c635e13b 3340=item panic: frexp
3341
3342(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3343
a0d0e21e
LW
3344=item panic: goto
3345
3346(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3347and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3348
23976bdd
NC
3349=item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3350
3351(P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3352but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3353contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3354adds a new object to the hash.
3355
a0d0e21e
LW
3356=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3357
3358(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3359
3360=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3361
3362(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3363
e446cec8
IZ
3364=item panic: kid popen errno read
3365
3366(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3367
a0d0e21e
LW
3368=item panic: last
3369
3370(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3371it wasn't a block context.
3372
3373=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3374
be771a83
GS
3375(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3376scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
3377
3378=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3379
3380(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3381invalid enum on the top of it.
3382
810b8aa5
GS
3383=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3384
3385(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3386references to an object.
3387
6df41af2
GS
3388=item panic: malloc
3389
3390(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3391
27d5b266
JH
3392=item panic: memory wrap
3393
3394(P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3395
a0d0e21e
LW
3396=item panic: pad_alloc
3397
3398(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3399and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3400
3401=item panic: pad_free curpad
3402
3403(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3404and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3405
3406=item panic: pad_free po
3407
3408(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3409
3410=item panic: pad_reset curpad
3411
3412(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3413and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3414
3415=item panic: pad_sv po
3416
3417(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3418
3419=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3420
3421(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3422and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3423
3424=item panic: pad_swipe po
3425
3426(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3427
3428=item panic: pp_iter
3429
3430(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3431
96ebfdd7
RK
3432=item panic: pp_match%s
3433
3434(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3435data.
3436
2269b42e
JH
3437=item panic: pp_split
3438
3439(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3440
a0d0e21e
LW
3441=item panic: realloc
3442
3443(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3444
3445=item panic: restartop
3446
3447(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3448didn't supply the destination.
3449
3450=item panic: return
3451
3452(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3453then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3454
3455=item panic: scan_num
3456
3457(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3458
6c65d5f9
NC
3459=item panic: sv_chop %s
3460
3461(P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3462scalar's string buffer.
3463
a0d0e21e
LW
3464=item panic: sv_insert
3465
3466(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3467was string.
3468
3469=item panic: top_env
3470
6224f72b 3471(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 3472
65bca31a
NC
3473=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3474
3475(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3476at run time.
3477
dea0fc0b
JH
3478=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3479
3480(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 3481to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 3482
e0ea5e2d
NC
3483=item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3484
3485(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3486to even) byte length.
3487
2f7da168
RK
3488=item panic: yylex
3489
3490(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3491
28ac2b49
Z
3492=item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3493
3494(F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3495a detectable way.
3496
1a147d38
YO
3497=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3498
3499(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3500consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3501nesting limit is exceeded.
3502
3503The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3504discovered.
3505
7b8d334a 3506=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 3507
e476b1b5 3508(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
3509
3510 my $foo, $bar = @_;
3511
3512when you meant
3513
3514 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3515
30c282f6 3516Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 3517
96ebfdd7
RK
3518=item C<-p> destination: %s
3519
3520(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3521command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3522redirected it with select().)
3523
3524=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3525
3526(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3527"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3528that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3529
1109a392
MHM
3530=item Perl_my_%s() not available
3531
3532(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3533so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3534conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3535'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3536
6d3b25aa
RGS
3537=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3538
3539(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3540recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3541you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3542
6df41af2
GS
3543=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3544
3545(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 3546C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3547
96ebfdd7
RK
3548=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3549
3550See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3551
6df41af2
GS
3552=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3553
3554(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3555
3556 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3557 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3558 LC_ALL = "En_US",
3559 LANG = (unset)
3560 are supported and installed on your system.
3561 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3562
3563Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3564settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
3565This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3566system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3567locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3568dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3569Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3570the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3571you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3572L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 3573
bd3fa61c 3574=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 3575
be771a83
GS
3576(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3577process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3578fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 3579
49704364 3580=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
3581
3582(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3583
96ebfdd7
RK
3584=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3585
3586(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3587shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3588Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3589the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3590not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3591
3592=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3593
3594(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3595the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3596
49704364 3597=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3598
9a0b3859 3599(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
3600I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3601/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3602implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3603cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3604where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3605
49704364 3606=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3607
3608(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
3609beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3610If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3611expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3612backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3613about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3614
49704364 3615=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3616
7253e4e3
RK
3617(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3618with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3619need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3620character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3621and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3622problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3623
bbce6d69 3624=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3625
e476b1b5 3626(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 3627strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
3628literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3629parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3630
774d564b 3631You probably wrote something like this:
3632
54310121 3633 @list = qw(
774d564b 3634 a # a comment
bbce6d69 3635 b # another comment
774d564b 3636 );
bbce6d69 3637
3638when you should have written this:
3639
774d564b 3640 @list = qw(
54310121 3641 a
3642 b
774d564b 3643 );
3644
3645If you really want comments, build your list the
3646old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3647
3648 @list = (
3649 'a', # a comment
3650 'b', # another comment
3651 );
bbce6d69 3652
3653=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3654
be771a83
GS
3655(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3656commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3657different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3658frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3659
54310121 3660You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 3661
774d564b 3662 qw! a, b, c !;
3663
3664which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3665commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 3666
774d564b 3667 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 3668
a0d0e21e
LW
3669=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3670
3671(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3672Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3673end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3674Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3675
276b2a0c
RGS
3676=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3677
3678(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3679with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3680
3681 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3682
3683This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3684higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
96a925ab
YST
3685really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3686parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
276b2a0c 3687
18623440
PS
3688=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3689
3690(W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
32b0a12e
AMS
3691but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3692literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3693to the array you apparently lost track of.
18623440 3694
77772344
B
3695=item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3696
3697(W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3698The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
8ddb446c 3699record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
77772344
B
3700followed by the word 'bar'.
3701
3702If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3703C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3704
3705If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3706followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3707C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3708
a0d0e21e
LW
3709=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3710
e476b1b5 3711(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 3712
a0d0e21e
LW
3713 open FOO || die;
3714
3715is now misinterpreted as
3716
3717 open(FOO || die);
3718
be771a83
GS
3719because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3720list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3721parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3722of "||".
a0d0e21e 3723
3cdd684c
TP
3724=item Premature end of script headers
3725
3726See Server error.
3727
6df41af2
GS
3728=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3729
be771a83 3730(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3731before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 3732
9a7dcd9c 3733=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3734
be771a83 3735(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3736before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3737
6df41af2 3738=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 3739
6df41af2
GS
3740(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3741applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3742port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3743L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 3744in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 3745
327323c1
RGS
3746=item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3747
197afce1 3748(W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
327323c1
RGS
3749since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3750
3fe9a6f1 3751=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 3752
9a0b3859 3753(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 3754declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 3755
ed9aa3b7
SG
3756=item Prototype not terminated
3757
2a6fd447 3758(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
3759definition.
3760
96ebfdd7
RK
3761=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3762
3763(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3764meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3765where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3766
49704364 3767=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3768
b45f050a 3769(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
7253e4e3 3770{min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 3771the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 3772
49704364 3773=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3774
b45f050a
JF
3775(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3776it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3777quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3778"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3779C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 3780
7253e4e3
RK
3781The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3782discovered.
3783
89ea2908
GA
3784=item Range iterator outside integer range
3785
3786(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3787are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
3788One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3789by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 3790
3b7fbd4a
SP
3791=item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3792
1a147d38 3793(W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3b7fbd4a
SP
3794a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3795
96ebfdd7
RK
3796=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3797
3798(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3799before now. Check your control flow.
3800
b5fe5ca2
SR
3801=item read() on closed filehandle %s
3802
3803(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3804
3805=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3806
3807(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3808
6df41af2
GS
3809=item Reallocation too large: %lx
3810
3811(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3812
4ad56ec9
IZ
3813=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3814
be771a83
GS
3815(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3816already been freed.
4ad56ec9 3817
a0d0e21e
LW
3818=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3819
be771a83
GS
3820(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3821the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
3822which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3823
3e0ccd42 3824=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e 3825
2c7d6b9c
RGS
3826(F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3827believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3828crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
a0d0e21e 3829
7a4340ed 3830=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 3831
be771a83
GS
3832(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3833a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3834hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 3835
1930e939
TP
3836=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3837
be771a83
GS
3838(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3839with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3840means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3841parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
3842
3843 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3844 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3845 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3846 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3847
810b8aa5
GS
3848=item Reference is already weak
3849
e476b1b5 3850(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
3851Doing so has no effect.
3852
a0d0e21e
LW
3853=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3854
be771a83
GS
3855(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3856a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 3857
b72d83b2
RGS
3858=item Reference to invalid group 0
3859
3860(F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3861capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
353c6505 3862backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
b72d83b2
RGS
3863backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3864
49704364 3865=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3866
3867(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3868not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
e1f120a9
KW
3869wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3870prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
9baa0206 3871
7253e4e3 3872The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 3873discovered.
9baa0206 3874
c74340f9
YO
3875=item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3876
2bf803e2 3877(F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
c74340f9 3878not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
2bf803e2 3879where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
c74340f9
YO
3880
3881The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3882discovered.
3883
1a147d38
YO
3884=item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3885
3886(F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3887expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3888as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3889correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3890
3891The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3892discovered.
3893
3894=item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3895
3896(F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3897most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3898of the C<....> part.
3899
3900The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3901discovered.
3902
a0d0e21e
LW
3903=item regexp memory corruption
3904
3905(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3906expression compiler gave it.
3907
b45f050a 3908=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 3909
be771a83
GS
3910(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3911earlier.
a0d0e21e 3912
a1b95068
WL
3913=item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3914
d7f8936a 3915(F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
a1b95068
WL
3916numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3917terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3918
b08e453b
RB
3919=item Replacement list is longer than search list
3920
3921(W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
3922search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
3923are meaningless.
3924
a0d0e21e
LW
3925=item Reversed %s= operator
3926
be771a83
GS
3927(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3928always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e 3929
abc7ecad
SP
3930=item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3931
3932(W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3933really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3934
96ebfdd7
RK
3935=item Scalars leaked: %d
3936
3937(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3938not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3939What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3940especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3941
a0d0e21e
LW
3942=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3943
be771a83
GS
3944(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3945single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3946value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3947behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3948argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3949and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3950if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 3951
748a9306 3952On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 3953element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
3954Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3955L<perlref>.
3956
a6006777 3957=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3958
75b44862 3959(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
3960element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3961(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3962like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3963argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3964and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3965if you're expecting only one subscript.
3966
3967On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3968as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3969not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 3970L<perlref>.
3971
a0d0e21e
LW
3972=item Search pattern not terminated
3973
3974(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3975construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3976Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3977
0cb1bcd7 3978Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd
JH
3979construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3980in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3981misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3982
25c09cbf
SF
3983=item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3984
3985(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3986construct.
3987
3988The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3989C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3990parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3991the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3992
9ddeeac9 3993=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3994
be771a83
GS
3995(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3996filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 3997
abc7ecad
SP
3998=item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3999
4000(W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4001really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4002
a0d0e21e
LW
4003=item select not implemented
4004
4005(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4006
ae21d580 4007=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 4008
ae21d580
JH
4009(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4010the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 4011
6df41af2 4012=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 4013
75b44862
GS
4014(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4015semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
4016
4017=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4018
be771a83
GS
4019(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4020scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 4021
6df41af2 4022=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 4023
6df41af2 4024(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 4025
69282e91 4026=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4027
be771a83 4028(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4029before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4030
7253e4e3 4031=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 4032
7253e4e3 4033(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
b45f050a 4034shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 4035L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 4036
49704364 4037=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4038
b45f050a 4039(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
7253e4e3 4040has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
4041where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4042
49704364 4043=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4044
7253e4e3
RK
4045(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4046<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
fb85c044
KW
4047discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4048Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
9de15fec
KW
4049redundantly specify a default modifier; or having a modifier that can't
4050be turned off (such as C<"p"> or C<"l">) after a minus; or specifying
4051more than one of the C<"d">, C<"l">, or C<"u"> modifiers. For other
4052causes, see L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4053
4a68bf9d 4054=item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1f1031fe
YO
4055
4056(F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4057sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4058
49704364 4059=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
4060
4061(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
7253e4e3
RK
4062parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
4063the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4064L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4065
96ebfdd7
RK
4066=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4067
4068(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
4069for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
4070the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4071L<perlre>.
4072
6df41af2
GS
4073=item 500 Server error
4074
4075See Server error.
4076
a5f75d66
AD
4077=item Server error
4078
3cdd684c 4079This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
4080to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
4081varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
4082are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
4083contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
4084produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 4085
4086B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4087
be771a83
GS
4088You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
4089user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
4090account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
4091(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
4092location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
4093Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 4094
06a5f41f
JH
4095 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4096 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4097 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 4098
be94a901
GS
4099You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4100
a0d0e21e
LW
4101=item setegid() not implemented
4102
be771a83
GS
4103(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4104support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4105didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4106
4107=item seteuid() not implemented
4108
be771a83
GS
4109(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4110support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4111didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4112
81777298
GS
4113=item setpgrp can't take arguments
4114
be771a83
GS
4115(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4116arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4117group ID.
81777298 4118
a0d0e21e
LW
4119=item setrgid() not implemented
4120
be771a83
GS
4121(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4122support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4123didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
4124
4125=item setruid() not implemented
4126
be771a83
GS
4127(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4128support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4129didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 4130
6df41af2
GS
4131=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4132
be771a83
GS
4133(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4134forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
4135L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4136
a0d0e21e
LW
4137=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
4138
be771a83
GS
4139(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
4140world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e 4141
d504a7a1
RGS
4142=item Setuid script not plain file
4143
4144(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
4145but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
4146
a0d0e21e
LW
4147=item shm%s not implemented
4148
4149(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4150
984200d0
YST
4151=item !=~ should be !~
4152
4153(W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4154interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4155operators: probably not what you intended.
4156
6df41af2
GS
4157=item <> should be quotes
4158
4159(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4160C<require 'file'>.
4161
4162=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4163
4164(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
4165as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4166result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4167probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 4168
69282e91 4169=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 4170
75b44862
GS
4171(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4172superfluous.
a0d0e21e 4173
f86702cc 4174=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 4175
be771a83
GS
4176(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4177Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e 4178
229c18ce
RGS
4179=item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4180
4181(F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4182overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4183the smart match.
4184
a0d0e21e
LW
4185=item sort is now a reserved word
4186
4187(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4188But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4189
a0d0e21e
LW
4190=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4191
4192(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4193or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4194
8cbc2e3b
JH
4195=item splice() offset past end of array
4196
4197(W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4198the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4199of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4200explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4201L<perlfunc/splice>.
4202
a0d0e21e
LW
4203=item Split loop
4204
be771a83
GS
4205(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4206iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4207happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
a0d0e21e 4208
a0d0e21e
LW
4209=item Statement unlikely to be reached
4210
be771a83
GS
4211(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4212die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4213unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4214instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4215a block by itself.
a0d0e21e 4216
9ddeeac9 4217=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
6df41af2 4218
355b1299
JH
4219(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4220was either never opened or has since been closed.
6df41af2 4221
fe13d51d 4222=item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
e7ea3e70 4223
be771a83
GS
4224(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4225stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4226C<can> may break this.
e7ea3e70 4227
a0d0e21e
LW
4228=item Subroutine %s redefined
4229
e476b1b5 4230(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
4231
4232 {
271595cc 4233 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
4234 eval "sub name { ... }";
4235 }
4236
4237=item Substitution loop
4238
be771a83
GS
4239(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4240shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4241is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5d44bfff 4242L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
a0d0e21e
LW
4243
4244=item Substitution pattern not terminated
4245
d1be9408 4246(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4247construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4248Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4249
4250=item Substitution replacement not terminated
4251
d1be9408 4252(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
a0d0e21e 4253construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 4254Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e
LW
4255
4256=item substr outside of string
4257
be771a83
GS
4258(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4259a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4260length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4261substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4262assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
a0d0e21e 4263
bf1320bf
RGS
4264=item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4265
4266(P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4267inferior to its current type.
4268
49704364 4269=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4270
4271(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4272branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4273contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4274clustering parentheses:
4275
4276 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4277
7253e4e3 4278The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
4279discovered. See L<perlre>.
4280
49704364 4281=item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
4282
4283(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
7253e4e3 4284number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
b45f050a
JF
4285about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4286
85ab1d1d
JH
4287=item switching effective %s is not implemented
4288
be771a83
GS
4289(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4290and effective uids or gids.
85ab1d1d 4291
2f7da168
RK
4292=item %s syntax
4293
4294(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4295
a0d0e21e
LW
4296=item syntax error
4297
4298(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4299
4300 A keyword is misspelled.
4301 A semicolon is missing.
4302 A comma is missing.
4303 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4304 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4305 A closing quote is missing.
4306
4307Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4308error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4309The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4310it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5f05dabc 4311before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
a0d0e21e
LW
4312Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4313the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4314C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
be771a83
GS
4315if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4316questions>.
a0d0e21e 4317
cb1a09d0
AD
4318=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4319
be771a83
GS
4320(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4321of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4322yourself.
cb1a09d0 4323
25f58aea
PN
4324=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4325
4326(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4327a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4328or "my $var" or "our $var".
4329
b5fe5ca2
SR
4330=item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4331
4332(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4333
4334=item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4335
4336(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4337
6087ac44 4338=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
a0d0e21e 4339
6087ac44
JH
4340(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4341"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4342machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4343unconfigured. Consult your system support.
a0d0e21e 4344
69282e91 4345=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 4346
be771a83 4347(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 4348before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 4349
96ebfdd7
RK
4350=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4351
4352(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4353know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4354
fc36a67e 4355=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4356
be771a83
GS
4357(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4358for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
fc36a67e 4359
9ddeeac9 4360=item tell() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 4361
be771a83
GS
4362(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4363was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e 4364
abc7ecad
SP
4365=item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4366
4367(W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4368a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4369
a0d0e21e
LW
4370=item That use of $[ is unsupported
4371
be771a83
GS
4372(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4373as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
a0d0e21e
LW
4374
4375 $[ = 0;
4376 $[ = 1;
4377 ...
4378 local $[ = 0;
4379 local $[ = 1;
4380 ...
4381
be771a83
GS
4382This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4383from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
a0d0e21e 4384
f86702cc 4385=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
a0d0e21e
LW
4386
4387(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4388probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
8b1a09fc 4389think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
a0d0e21e
LW
4390will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4391will deny it.
4392
6df41af2
GS
4393=item The %s function is unimplemented
4394
4395The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4396to the probings of Configure.
4397
5e1c7ca2 4398=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
a0d0e21e 4399
be771a83
GS
4400(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4401linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4402past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4403instead.
a0d0e21e 4404
371fce9b
DM
4405=item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4406
1108974d 4407(F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
371fce9b 4408
437784d6 4409=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
f675dbe5
CB
4410
4411=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4412
75b44862 4413(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
be771a83
GS
4414element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4415wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4416need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4417F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4418target of the change to
f675dbe5
CB
4419%ENV which produced the warning.
4420
6b3c7930
JH
4421=item thread failed to start: %s
4422
4447dfc1 4423(W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
6b3c7930 4424
a0d0e21e
LW
4425=item times not implemented
4426
be771a83
GS
4427(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4428suspect you're not running on Unix.
a0d0e21e 4429
6d3b25aa
RGS
4430=item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4431
4432(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
fe13d51d 4433B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4434This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4435script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4436So Perl gives up.
4437
4438If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4439mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
fe13d51d
JM
4440editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4441argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
6d3b25aa
RGS
4442
4443If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
fe13d51d 4444B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
6d3b25aa 4445
3a2263fe
RGS
4446=item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4447
4448(F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4449uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4450specified an illegal mapping.
4451See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4452
49704364
WL
4453=item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4454
1a147d38 4455(F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
49704364 4456
a0d0e21e
LW
4457=item Too few args to syscall
4458
4459(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4460system call to call, silly dilly.
4461
96ebfdd7
RK
4462=item Too late for "-%s" option
4463
4464(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4ba71d51
FC
4465B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4466
4467In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4468not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4469
4470The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4471(with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4472this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4473script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
96ebfdd7 4474
ddda08b7
GS
4475=item Too late to run %s block
4476
4477(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4478when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
be771a83
GS
4479loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4480instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4481BEGIN block.
ddda08b7 4482
a0d0e21e
LW
4483=item Too many args to syscall
4484
5f05dabc 4485(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
a0d0e21e
LW
4486
4487=item Too many arguments for %s
4488
4489(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4490
6df41af2
GS
4491=item Too many )'s
4492
49704364
WL
4493(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4494Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4495
8c40cb74
NC
4496=item Too many ('s
4497
be771a83
GS
4498(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4499Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4500
7253e4e3 4501=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
a0d0e21e 4502
be771a83
GS
4503(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4504Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4505
2c268ad5 4506=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
a0d0e21e
LW
4507
4508(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
fb73857a 4509or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4510C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 4511
2c268ad5 4512=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
a0d0e21e 4513
6a36df5d
YST
4514(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4515y/// or y[][] construct.
a0d0e21e 4516
96ebfdd7
RK
4517=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4518
4519(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4520disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4521
a0d0e21e
LW
4522=item truncate not implemented
4523
4524(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4525Configure knows about.
4526
4527=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4528
4529(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
8b1a09fc 4530certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4531%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
a0d0e21e
LW
4532{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4533
cba5a3b0
DG
4534=item Type of argument to %s must be hashref or arrayref
4535
4536(F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with an argument that was
4537expected to be a reference to a hash or a reference to an array.
4538
eec2d3df
GS
4539=item umask not implemented
4540
be771a83
GS
4541(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4542use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
a0d0e21e 4543
4633a7c4
LW
4544=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4545
4546(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4547
a0d0e21e
LW
4548=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4549
be771a83
GS
4550(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4551many execution contexts were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4552
4553=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4554
be771a83
GS
4555(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4556many values were temporarily localized.
a0d0e21e
LW
4557
4558=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4559
be771a83
GS
4560(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4561many blocks were entered and left.
a0d0e21e
LW
4562
4563=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4564
be771a83
GS
4565(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4566many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
a0d0e21e
LW
4567
4568=item Undefined format "%s" called
4569
4570(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4571another package? See L<perlform>.
4572
4573=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4574
be771a83
GS
4575(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4576Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4577
4578=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4579
be771a83
GS
4580(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4581since been undefined.
a0d0e21e
LW
4582
4583=item Undefined subroutine called
4584
4585(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4586or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4587
4588=item Undefined subroutine in sort
4589
be771a83
GS
4590(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4591to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
a0d0e21e 4592
4633a7c4
LW
4593=item Undefined top format "%s" called
4594
4595(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4596another package? See L<perlform>.
4597
20408e3c
GS
4598=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4599
be771a83
GS
4600(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4601C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4602C<undef *foo>.
20408e3c 4603
6df41af2
GS
4604=item %s: Undefined variable
4605
be771a83
GS
4606(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4607Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 4608
a0d0e21e
LW
4609=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4610
4611(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4612representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4613
6f6ac1de 4614=item Unicode non-character %s is illegal for interchange
3d401ffb 4615
6f6ac1de
RGS
4616(W utf8) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are defined by the
4617Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4618reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
5b311467
KW
4619them. In some cases, this message is also given if you use a codepoint that
4620isn't in Unicode--that is it is above the legal maximum of U+10FFFF. These
4621aren't legal at all in Unicode, so they are illegal for interchange, but can be
4622used internally in a Perl program. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4623off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
b45f050a 4624
a0d0e21e
LW
4625=item Unknown BYTEORDER
4626
be771a83
GS
4627(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4628order.
a0d0e21e 4629
6170680b
IZ
4630=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4631
437784d6 4632(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
c47ff5f1 4633of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
488dad83 4634C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
6170680b 4635
b4581f09
JH
4636=item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4637
4638(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4639system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4640internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4641are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4642explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4643value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4644
f675dbe5
CB
4645=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4646
4647(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4648iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4649data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4650subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
a05d7ebb 4651
2f7da168
RK
4652=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4653
4654You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4655
96ebfdd7
RK
4656=item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4657
4658(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4659is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4660is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4661condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4662condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4663matched).
4664
4665The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4666discovered. See L<perlre>.
4667
a05d7ebb
JH
4668=item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4669
4670You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4671of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4672
4673=item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4674
4675You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4676of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
f675dbe5 4677
3d1a39c8
RGS
4678=item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4679
4680(F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4681category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4682
4683Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4684(e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
e2e6a0f1
YO
4685
4686=item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4687
4688(F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4689after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4690L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4691
3d1a39c8
RGS
4692first.
4693
7253e4e3 4694=item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4695
380a0633 4696(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
be771a83 4697include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
7253e4e3
RK
4698first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4699was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 4700
7253e4e3 4701=item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e
LW
4702
4703(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
7253e4e3
RK
4704expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4705matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4706where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 4707
d98d5fff 4708=item Unmatched right %s bracket
a0d0e21e 4709
be771a83
GS
4710(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4711ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4712general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4713you were last editing.
a0d0e21e 4714
a0d0e21e
LW
4715=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4716
be771a83
GS
4717(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4718reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4719somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4720subroutine.
a0d0e21e 4721
b1fc3636 4722=item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
a0d0e21e 4723
54310121 4724(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
b1fc3636 4725in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
356c7adf 4726to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
a0d0e21e 4727
4a68bf9d 4728=item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4729
be771a83
GS
4730(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4731recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
b224edc1 4732understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
2628b4e0
TS
4733The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4734escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4735
4a68bf9d 4736=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
2f7da168 4737
2628b4e0 4738(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
4739recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4740change in a future version of Perl.
2f7da168 4741
4a68bf9d 4742=item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 4743
be771a83 4744(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
b224edc1
KW
4745recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4746change in a future version of Perl.
2628b4e0 4747The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
7253e4e3 4748escape was discovered.
6df41af2 4749
a0d0e21e
LW
4750=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4751
be771a83
GS
4752(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4753recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4754on your system.
a0d0e21e 4755
90248788 4756=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
a0d0e21e 4757
be771a83
GS
4758(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4759think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4760bad switch on your behalf.)
a0d0e21e
LW
4761
4762=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4763
be771a83
GS
4764(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4765operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
5b3eff12 4766PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
a0d0e21e
LW
4767
4768=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4769
4770(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4771
6df41af2
GS
4772=item Unsupported function %s
4773
4774(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4775At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4776
54310121 4777=item Unsupported function fork
4778
4779(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4780
be771a83
GS
4781Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4782of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4783changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
54310121 4784
7aa207d6 4785=item Unsupported script encoding %s
b250498f
GS
4786
4787(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
7aa207d6 4788declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
b250498f 4789
a0d0e21e
LW
4790=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4791
4792(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4793least that's what Configure thought.
4794
6df41af2 4795=item Unterminated attribute list
a0d0e21e 4796
be771a83
GS
4797(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4798start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4799block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4800attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
a0d0e21e 4801
09bef843
SB
4802=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4803
be771a83
GS
4804(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4805an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
09bef843
SB
4806character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4807character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4808
f1991046
GS
4809=item Unterminated compressed integer
4810
4811(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4812compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4813See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4814
e2e6a0f1
YO
4815=item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4816
4817(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4818the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4819
4820=item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4821
4822(F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4823the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4824
2bf803e2
YO
4825=item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4826
4827(F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4828a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
e2e6a0f1 4829
6df41af2 4830=item Unterminated <> operator
09bef843 4831
6df41af2 4832(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
4833a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4834not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4835earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
09bef843 4836
6df41af2 4837=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
a0d0e21e 4838
be771a83
GS
4839(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4840still valid when C<untie> was called.
a0d0e21e 4841
8e11cd2b
JC
4842=item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4843
4844(F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4845See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4846
4847=item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4848
4849(F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4850See L<Win32> for more information.
4851
96ebfdd7 4852=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 4853
96ebfdd7
RK
4854(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4855meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 4856
96ebfdd7 4857 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4858
4859must be written as
4860
96ebfdd7 4861 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4862
4863The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4864where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4865
b4581f09
JH
4866=item Useless localization of %s
4867
4868(W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4869legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4870some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4871
96ebfdd7 4872=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9d1d55b5 4873
96ebfdd7
RK
4874(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4875meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
9d1d55b5 4876
96ebfdd7 4877 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4878
4879must be written as
4880
96ebfdd7 4881 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
9d1d55b5
JP
4882
4883The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4884where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4885
b08e453b
RB
4886=item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
4887
4888(W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
4889same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
4890about the /d modifier.
4891
6df41af2 4892=item Useless use of %s in void context
a0d0e21e 4893
75b44862 4894(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
be771a83
GS
4895nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4896value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4897often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4898to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4899get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4900said
a0d0e21e 4901
6df41af2 4902 $one, $two = 1, 2;
748a9306 4903
6df41af2
GS
4904when you meant to say
4905
4906 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4907
4908Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4909reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4910example, if you say
4911
4912 $array = (1,2);
4913
4914when you should have said
4915
4916 $array = [1,2];
4917
4918The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4919while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4920a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4921throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4922L<perlref> for more on this.
4923
65191a1e
BS
4924This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4925since they are often used in statements like
4926
4358a253 4927 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
65191a1e
BS
4928
4929String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4930about.
4931
6df41af2
GS
4932=item Useless use of "re" pragma
4933
4934(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4935
a801c63c
RGS
4936=item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4937
4938(W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4939
4940 my $x = sort @y;
4941
4942This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4943
de4864e4
JH
4944=item Useless use of %s with no values
4945
f87c3213 4946(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
de4864e4
JH
4947apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4948usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4949possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4950if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4951you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4952
6df41af2
GS
4953=item "use" not allowed in expression
4954
be771a83
GS
4955(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4956returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
748a9306 4957
55b67815
RGS
4958=item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
4959
4960(D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
4961is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
4962
c47ff5f1 4963=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4633a7c4 4964
8ab8f082 4965(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
83ce3e12
RGS
4966form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4967
4968=item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
4969
8ab8f082 4970(D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
83ce3e12 4971separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4633a7c4 4972
96ebfdd7
RK
4973=item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4974
4975(D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4976$ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4977behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4978will simply fail.
4979
4980Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4981blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4982
64e578a2
MJD
4983=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4984
4985(W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4986modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4987
4ac733c9
MJD
4988=item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4989
4990(W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4991use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4992used. (This may change in the future.)
4993
036e1e65
RGS
4994=item Use of := for an empty attribute list is deprecated
4995
4996(D deprecated) The construction C<my $x := 42> currently
4997parses correctly in perl, being equivalent to C<my $x : = 42>
4998(applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>). This useless
4999construct is now deprecated, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new
5000operator in the future.
5001
725a61d7
Z
5002=item Use of ?PATTERN? without explicit operator is deprecated
5003
5004(D deprecated) You have written something like C<?\w?>, for a regular
5005expression that matches only once. Starting this term directly with
5006the question mark delimiter is now deprecated, so that the question mark
5007will be available for use in new operators in the future. Write C<m?\w?>
5008instead, explicitly using the C<m> operator: the question mark delimiter
5009still invokes match-once behaviour.
5010
b6c83531 5011=item Use of freed value in iteration
2f7da168 5012
b6c83531
JH
5013(F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
5014This error is typically caused by code like the following:
2f7da168
RK
5015
5016 @a = (3,4);
5017 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
5018
5019You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
5020For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
5021reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
5022middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
5023
39b99f21 5024=item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
5025
5026(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
5027to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
5028
96ebfdd7 5029=item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
35ae6b54 5030
96ebfdd7
RK
5031(W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
5032operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
5033repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
35ae6b54 5034
0b98bec9
RGS
5035=item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
5036
5037(D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
5038scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
5039
dc848c6f 5040=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
5041
be771a83
GS
5042(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
5043are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
5044subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
5045C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
5046$obj->bar() >>).
dc848c6f 5047
be771a83
GS
5048This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
5049methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
5050code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
5051currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
5052C<AUTOLOAD>s.
dc848c6f 5053
5054The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
be771a83
GS
5055non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
5056to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
5057named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
5058startup.
dc848c6f 5059
be771a83
GS
5060In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
5061you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
7b8d334a 5062C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
fb73857a 5063
6df41af2
GS
5064=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
5065
5066(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
5067only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
5068
6df41af2
GS
5069=item Use of %s is deprecated
5070
75b44862 5071(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
be771a83
GS
5072generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
5073old way has bad side effects.
6df41af2 5074
96ebfdd7
RK
5075=item Use of -l on filehandle %s
5076
5077(W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
5078it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
5079The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
5080
5081=item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
5082
5083(D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
5084name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
5085otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
5086instead.
5087
ea25a9b2
Z
5088=item Use of qw(...) as parentheses is deprecated
5089
5090(D deprecated) You have something like C<foreach $x qw(a b c) {...}>,
5091using a C<qw(...)> list literal where a parenthesised expression is
5092expected. Historically the parser fooled itself into thinking that
5093C<qw(...)> literals were always enclosed in parentheses, and as a result
5094you could sometimes omit parentheses around them. (You could never do
5095the C<foreach qw(a b c) {...}> that you might have expected, though.)
5096The parser no longer lies to itself in this way. Wrap the list literal
5097in parentheses, like C<foreach $x (qw(a b c)) {...}>.
5098
1f1cc344 5099=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
d804643f 5100
77b96956 5101(W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
1f1cc344
JH
5102isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
5103to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
d804643f 5104
64977eb6 5105If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
1f1cc344
JH
5106C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
5107either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
353c6505 5108operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
d804643f 5109
85b81015
LW
5110=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
5111
be771a83
GS
5112(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
5113versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
5114explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
5115use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
5116suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
5117a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
85b81015 5118
bbd7eb8a
RD
5119=item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5120
159f47d9 5121(W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
bbd7eb8a
RD
5122arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5123but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5124arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5125
cc95b072 5126=item Use of uninitialized value%s
a0d0e21e 5127
be771a83
GS
5128(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5129defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5130To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
a0d0e21e 5131
29489e7c
DM
5132To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
5133name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
5134do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
5135in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
5136displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
5137program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
5138. $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
5139even though there is no C<.> in your program.
e5be4a53 5140
a1063b2d
RH
5141=item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5142
496a33f5 5143(D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1b1f1335
NIS
5144C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
5145used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
496a33f5 5146be removed in a future version.
a1063b2d
RH
5147
5148=item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5149
496a33f5 5150(D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1b1f1335
NIS
5151C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
5152allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
496a33f5 5153removed in a future version.
a1063b2d 5154
4385b89f
FC
5155=item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
5156
5157(F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
5158currently reserved for future use, as the exact behaviour has not
5159been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
5160modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
5161
ff3f963a
KW
5162=item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5163
5164(W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5165Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5166expression pattern bracketed character class.
5167
5168=item Using just the first characters returned by \N{}
5169
5170(W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of characters. There is a finite
5171limit as to the number of characters that can be used, which this sequence
5172exceeded. In the message, the characters in the sequence are separated by
5173dots, and each is shown by its ordinal in hex. Anything to the left of the
5174C<HERE> was retained; anything to the right was discarded.
5175
9466bab6
JH
5176=item UTF-16 surrogate %s
5177
a69635b7 5178(W utf8) You tried to generate half of a UTF-16 surrogate by
507b9800
JH
5179requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
51800xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
5181UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
5182encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
e1b711da 5183character. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn off
507b9800 5184this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
9466bab6 5185
68dc0745 5186=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
a6006777 5187
75b44862 5188(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
be771a83
GS
5189C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5190can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5191false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5192constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5193C<defined> operator.
a6006777 5194
f675dbe5
CB
5195=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5196
be771a83
GS
5197(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5198%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5199longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
52001024 characters.
f675dbe5 5201
b5c19bd7 5202=item Variable "%s" is not available
44a8e56a 5203
b5c19bd7
DM
5204(W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5205attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
42c13b56 5206This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
b5c19bd7
DM
5207declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5208(Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
42c13b56 5209subs are created at run-time.) For example,
44a8e56a 5210
b5c19bd7 5211 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
44a8e56a 5212
b5c19bd7
DM
5213At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
5214since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
5215the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5216now been created and is live:
be771a83 5217
b5c19bd7
DM
5218 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5219
5220The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5221gone out of scope, for example,
5222
5223 sub f {
5224 my $a;
5225 sub { eval '$a' }
5226 }
5227 f()->();
5228
5229Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5230executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
44a8e56a 5231
b4581f09
JH
5232=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5233
413ff9f6
FC
5234(W misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
5235that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
b4581f09
JH
5236something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5237that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5238front of your variable.
5239
58e23c8d 5240=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
b4581f09
JH
5241
5242(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
58e23c8d 5243known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
b4581f09
JH
5244
5245=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5246
30c282f6 5247(W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
b4581f09
JH
5248scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
5249instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
5250earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
5251all closure referents to it are destroyed.
5252
6df41af2
GS
5253=item Variable syntax
5254
5255(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5256of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5257Perl yourself.
5258
44a8e56a 5259=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5260
be771a83 5261(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
b5c19bd7 5262lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
44a8e56a 5263
b5c19bd7 5264When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
be771a83
GS
5265the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5266call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5267outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5268longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5269variable will no longer be shared.
44a8e56a 5270
44a8e56a 5271This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5272anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
b5c19bd7 5273reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
be771a83 5274are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
44a8e56a 5275
e2e6a0f1
YO
5276=item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5277
5278(F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
5279or check that you are using the right verb.
5280
5281=item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5282
5283(F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
5284argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5285
084610c0
GS
5286=item Version number must be a constant number
5287
5288(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5289its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5290the version number.
5291
808ee47e
SP
5292=item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5293
32e998fd
RGS
5294(W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5295are being ignored.
808ee47e 5296
7e1af8bc 5297=item Warning: something's wrong
5f05dabc 5298
5299(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
ec8bb14c 5300you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 5301
f86702cc 5302=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
a0d0e21e 5303
be771a83
GS
5304(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5305the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5306space.
a0d0e21e 5307
5f05dabc 5308=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
a0d0e21e 5309
be771a83
GS
5310(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5311looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5312term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5313function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
a0d0e21e
LW
5314
5315 rand + 5;
5316
5317you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5318
5319 rand() + 5;
5320
5321but in actual fact, you got
5322
5323 rand(+5);
5324
5f05dabc 5325So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
a0d0e21e 5326
4b3603a4
JH
5327=item Wide character in %s
5328
c8f79457 5329(S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
cd28123a
JH
5330one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5331way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5332output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5333warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5334cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5335filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
4b3603a4 5336
49704364
WL
5337=item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5338
5339(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
5340C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
5341determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
5342of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5343
9a7dcd9c 5344=item write() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 5345
be771a83 5346(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 5347before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 5348
b4581f09
JH
5349=item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5350
5351When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5352into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5353this encoding, for example
5354
5355 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5356
5357if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5358
49704364 5359=item 'X' outside of string
a0d0e21e 5360
49704364
WL
5361(F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5362the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e 5363
49704364 5364=item 'x' outside of string in unpack
a0d0e21e
LW
5365
5366(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5367the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5368
a0d0e21e
LW
5369=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5370
5f05dabc 5371(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
a0d0e21e 5372sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
1b1f1335 5373about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
496a33f5 5374your script.
a0d0e21e
LW
5375
5376=item You need to quote "%s"
5377
be771a83
GS
5378(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5379Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5380which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5381assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5382what you want, put an & in front.)
a0d0e21e 5383
6cfd5ea7
JH
5384=item Your random numbers are not that random
5385
5386(F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5387not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5388Something Very Wrong.
5389
a0d0e21e
LW
5390=back
5391
00eb3f2b
RGS
5392=head1 SEE ALSO
5393
5394L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.
5395
56e90b21 5396=cut