This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
move all pad-related code to its own src file
[perl5.git] / pod / perldiag.pod
CommitLineData
a0d0e21e
LW
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).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
e476b1b5 12 (S) A severe warning (default).
a0d0e21e
LW
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.
e476b1b5
GS
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
30Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
4438c4b7
JH
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
6df41af2
GS
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.
a0d0e21e
LW
44
45=over 4
46
c133c03f
JH
47=item A thread exited while %d other threads were still running
48
49(W) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
50thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
51Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
32419a4c 52created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
c133c03f
JH
53thread. See L<threads>.
54
6df41af2 55=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 56
be771a83
GS
57(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
58to check the return value of your socket() call? See
59L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 60
6df41af2 61=item Allocation too large: %lx
a0d0e21e 62
6df41af2 63(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 64
f61d411c 65=item '!' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 66
f61d411c
JH
67(F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
68See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 69
6df41af2 70=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 71
75b44862 72(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
be771a83
GS
73keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
74one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
75subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 76
6df41af2
GS
77To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
78before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
79Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
80imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 81
6df41af2 82To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 83on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
be771a83
GS
84to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
85L<attributes>).
43192e07 86
c2e66d9e
GS
87=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
88
89(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
90all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
91first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
92C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
93
6df41af2 94=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 95
6df41af2
GS
96(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
97you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
98a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 99
6df41af2 100=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 101
be771a83
GS
102(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
103redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
104redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 105
6df41af2 106=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 107
be771a83
GS
108(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
109redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
110into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
111though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
112which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 113
6df41af2
GS
114 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
115 while (<STDIN>) {
116 print;
117 print OUT;
118 }
119 close OUT;
c9f97d15 120
6df41af2 121=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 122
496a33f5
SC
123(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
124transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83
GS
125one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
126a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
127hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
128you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
129alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 130
6df41af2 131=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 132
6df41af2
GS
133(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
134with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
135impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
136for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 137
6df41af2 138=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 139
6df41af2 140(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 141
8ea97a1e 142=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
a0d0e21e 143
8ea97a1e 144(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
a0d0e21e
LW
145
146 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 147 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
a0d0e21e 148
8ea97a1e 149=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 150
be771a83
GS
151(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
152such as:
5f05dabc 153
154 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 155 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 156
8ea97a1e 157or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 158
6df41af2
GS
159 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
160 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 161
6df41af2 162=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 163
6df41af2 164(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
be771a83
GS
165name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
166error.
a0d0e21e 167
f86702cc 168=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 169
be771a83
GS
170(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
171that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
172will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e
LW
173
174=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
175
75b44862
GS
176(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
177spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e
LW
178
179=item assertion botched: %s
180
181(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
182
183=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
184
185(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
186
187=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
188
189(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
190must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
191know which context to supply to the right side.
192
2393f1b9 193=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 194
49293501 195(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 196the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 197
2393f1b9 198=item Attempt to clear a restricted hash
49293501 199
2393f1b9 200(F) It is currently not allowed to clear a restricted hash, even if the
49293501
MS
201new hash would contain the same keys as before. This may change in
202the future.
203
2393f1b9 204=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
49293501
MS
205
206(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
2393f1b9 207declared readonly from a restricted hash.
49293501 208
2393f1b9 209=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
49293501 210
2393f1b9
JH
211(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
212which is not in its key set.
1b1f1335 213
81689caa
HS
214=item Attempt to bless into a reference
215
216(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
217the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
218supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
219
220 bless $self, $proto;
221
222when you intended
223
224 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
225
226If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
227of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
228example by:
229
230 bless $self, "$proto";
231
a0d0e21e
LW
232=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
233
be771a83
GS
234(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
235that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
236outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 237
54310121 238=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 239
be771a83
GS
240(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
241strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
242strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
243of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 244
a0d0e21e
LW
245=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
246
be771a83
GS
247(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
248free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
249SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
250free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
251try to free it.
a0d0e21e
LW
252
253=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
254
e476b1b5 255(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
a0d0e21e
LW
256
257=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
258
be771a83
GS
259(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
260see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
261earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
262This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
263that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
264mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
265corrupted.
a0d0e21e 266
dcdda58d
GS
267=item Attempt to join self
268
269(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
be771a83
GS
270impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
271to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 272
84902520
TB
273=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
274
be771a83
GS
275(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
276function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
277means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
278invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
279literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
280avoid this warning.
84902520 281
b7a902f4 282=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
283
be771a83
GS
284(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
285used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
286dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 287
dc26df50 288=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
a0d0e21e 289
be771a83
GS
290(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
291or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 292S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
a0d0e21e
LW
293S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
294
7a95317d
GS
295=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
296
496a33f5 297(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
7a95317d
GS
298substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
299most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
300
a0d0e21e
LW
301=item Bad filehandle: %s
302
be771a83
GS
303(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
304symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
305open(), or did it in another package.
a0d0e21e
LW
306
307=item Bad free() ignored
308
be771a83
GS
309(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
310been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 311setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 312
9ea8bc6d 313This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
be771a83
GS
314dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
315which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 316
aa689395 317=item Bad hash
318
319(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
320
6df41af2
GS
321=item Badly placed ()'s
322
323(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
324of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
325Perl yourself.
326
a0d0e21e
LW
327=item Bad name after %s::
328
be771a83
GS
329(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
330didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
331of quotes, so
a0d0e21e
LW
332
333 $var = 'myvar';
334 $sym = mypack::$var;
335
336is not the same as
337
338 $var = 'myvar';
339 $sym = "mypack::$var";
340
4ad56ec9
IZ
341=item Bad realloc() ignored
342
be771a83
GS
343(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
344never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
345by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 346
a0d0e21e
LW
347=item Bad symbol for array
348
349(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
350wasn't a symbol table entry.
351
352=item Bad symbol for filehandle
353
be771a83
GS
354(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
355that wasn't a symbol table entry.
a0d0e21e
LW
356
357=item Bad symbol for hash
358
359(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
360wasn't a symbol table entry.
361
34d09196
GS
362=item Bareword found in conditional
363
be771a83
GS
364(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
365conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
366of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
GS
367
368 open FOO || die;
369
be771a83
GS
370It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
371a bareword:
34d09196
GS
372
373 use constant TYPO => 1;
374 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
375
376The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
377
6df41af2
GS
378=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
379
380(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
be771a83
GS
381subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
382symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
GS
383
384=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
385
be771a83
GS
386(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
387compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
388you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 389
a0d0e21e
LW
390=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
391
be771a83
GS
392(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
393subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
394exited.
a0d0e21e 395
68dc0745 396=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
397
398(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
be771a83
GS
399implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
400occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
401be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
402depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 403
6df41af2
GS
404=item \1 better written as $1
405
be771a83
GS
406(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
407The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
408substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
409because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
410there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 411
252aa082
JH
412=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
413
e476b1b5 414(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
415(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
416L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 417
69282e91 418=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 419
be771a83
GS
420(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
421check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 422
c289d2f7
JH
423=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
424
425(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
426Check you control flow and number of arguments.
427
c5a0f51a
JH
428=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
429
e476b1b5 430(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 431
4633a7c4
LW
432=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
433
be771a83 434(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 435copyable.
4633a7c4 436
6df41af2
GS
437=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
438
439(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
440which provides a race condition that breaks security.
441
f675dbe5
CB
442=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
443
be771a83
GS
444(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
445iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
446which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 447
a0d0e21e
LW
448=item Callback called exit
449
4929bf7b 450(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
451exited by calling exit.
452
6df41af2 453=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 454
be771a83
GS
455(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
456parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
457that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
458early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
459subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
460checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
461function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
462the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 463
6df41af2 464=item / cannot take a count
a0d0e21e 465
be771a83
GS
466(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
467you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
468L<perlfunc/pack>.
a0d0e21e
LW
469
470=item Can't bless non-reference value
471
472(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
473encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
474
a0d0e21e
LW
475=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
476
477(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
478functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
479in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
480
6df41af2
GS
481=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
482
483(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
484object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
485like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
486
487 $BADREF = undef;
488 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
489 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
490
a0d0e21e
LW
491=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
492
54310121 493(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
494ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
495didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
496object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
497
498=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
499
500(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
501object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
502defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
503Something like this will reproduce the error:
504
505 $BADREF = 42;
506 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
507 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
508
a0d0e21e
LW
509=item Can't chdir to %s
510
511(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
512that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
513
0545a864 514=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 515
be771a83
GS
516(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
517nosuid.
104d25b7 518
6df41af2
GS
519=item Can't coerce array into hash
520
521(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
522information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
523only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
524
a0d0e21e
LW
525=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
526
527(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 528(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
529say things like:
530
531 *foo += 1;
532
533You CAN say
534
535 $foo = *foo;
536 $foo += 1;
537
538but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
539
540=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
541
542(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 543(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
544
545=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
546
547(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 548(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
549
550=item Can't create pipe mailbox
551
be771a83
GS
552(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
553quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 554
eb64745e 555=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 556
2f7e735d
AMS
557(F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
558class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be
559extended for other types of variables in future.
eb64745e
GS
560
561=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
562
563(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
564"our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 565
6df41af2
GS
566=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
567
be771a83
GS
568(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
569a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 570
a0d0e21e
LW
571=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
572
be771a83
GS
573(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
574reason.
a0d0e21e 575
54310121 576=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 577
be771a83
GS
578(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
579reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
580C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 581
10f9c03d 582=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 583
e476b1b5 584(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
585characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
586inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 587
7253e4e3 588=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 589
b45f050a 590(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 591regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 592regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e
LW
593
594=item Can't do setegid!
595
be771a83
GS
596(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
597suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
598
599=item Can't do seteuid!
600
601(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
602
603=item Can't do setuid
604
be771a83
GS
605(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
606setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
607sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
608the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
609file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
610sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
a0d0e21e
LW
611
612=item Can't do waitpid with flags
613
be771a83
GS
614(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
615waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 616
a0d0e21e
LW
617=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
618
be771a83
GS
619(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
620point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
621line.
a0d0e21e
LW
622
623=item Can't exec "%s": %s
624
d1be9408 625(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
626named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
627permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
628C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
629architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
630can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
631#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
632
633=item Can't exec %s
634
be771a83
GS
635(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
636that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
637need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
638
639=item Can't execute %s
640
be771a83
GS
641(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
642found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 643
6df41af2 644=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 645
be771a83
GS
646(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
647is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 648
56ca2fc0
JH
649=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
650
651(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
89d60977 652could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
56ca2fc0
JH
653(remember that the names of character properties consist only of
654alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
655
6df41af2
GS
656=item Can't find label %s
657
be771a83
GS
658(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
659possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
660
661=item Can't find %s on PATH
662
be771a83
GS
663(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
664found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 665
6df41af2 666=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 667
be771a83
GS
668(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
669found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
670script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
671
672=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
673
be771a83
GS
674(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
675that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
676nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 677
fb73857a 678 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
679
be771a83
GS
680If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
681unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
682editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 683
64977eb6 684=item Can't find %s property definition %s
0103b764 685
77b96956
RGS
686(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
687example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
bc45ce41
JH
688Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
689If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
77b96956 690by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
f91328b7 691possible C<\E>).
0103b764 692
a0d0e21e
LW
693=item Can't fork
694
be771a83
GS
695(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
696pipeline.
a0d0e21e 697
748a9306
LW
698=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
699
be771a83
GS
700(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
701between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
702Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
703the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
704account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
705the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
706the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
707the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
708if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
709because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
710appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
711and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
712routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
713shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
714only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 715
a0d0e21e
LW
716=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
717
be771a83
GS
718(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
719pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
720
721=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
722
748a9306
LW
723(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
724mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 725
6df41af2 726=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 727
be771a83
GS
728(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
729loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
730
731=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
732
be771a83
GS
733(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
734a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
735you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
736See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 737
b150fb22
RH
738=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
739
be771a83
GS
740(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
741"string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
742probably don't want to.)
b150fb22 743
6df41af2
GS
744=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
745
be771a83
GS
746(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
747subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
748cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
749routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 750
0b5b802d
GS
751=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
752
be771a83
GS
753(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
754signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
755signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
756processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
757situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
758may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 759
6df41af2 760=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 761
6df41af2 762(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
763except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
764block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
765block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
766usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
767inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
768L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 769
748a9306
LW
770=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
771
2ba9eb46 772(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306
LW
773lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
774localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
775package name.
776
6df41af2 777=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 778
6df41af2
GS
779(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
780handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 781pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 782that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 783
ea071790 784=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
785
786(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
787found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
788unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
789need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
790the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
791to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
792L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 793
6df41af2
GS
794=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
795
be771a83
GS
796(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
797autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
798are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
799the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 800
a0d0e21e
LW
801=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
802
803(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
804functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 805method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 806
d28b25d0
JH
807=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
808
809(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
3ad17c7e 810e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
d28b25d0 811
c1899e02
GS
812=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
813
814(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
815"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
816that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
817
a0d0e21e
LW
818=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
819
be771a83
GS
820(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
821doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 822
3e3baf6d
TB
823=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
824
be771a83
GS
825(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
826VMS.
3e3baf6d 827
a0d0e21e
LW
828=item Can't modify %s in %s
829
be771a83
GS
830(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
831to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 832
54310121 833=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
834
835(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
836a NULL.
837
6df41af2
GS
838=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
839
840(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
841such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
842
5f05dabc 843=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 844
5f05dabc 845(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
846buffer.
847
6df41af2
GS
848=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
849
850(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
851there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
852count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
853grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
854though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
855once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 856
a0d0e21e
LW
857=item Can't open %s: %s
858
c47ff5f1 859(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
860filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
861switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
862is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
863the command line.
a0d0e21e 864
9a869a14
RGS
865=item Can't open a reference
866
867(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
868using the 3-arg open() syntax :
869
870 open FH, '>', $ref;
871
872but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
873open is not supported.
874
a0d0e21e
LW
875=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
876
be771a83
GS
877(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
878You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
879as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
880">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 881
748a9306
LW
882=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
883
be771a83
GS
884(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
885redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
886the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
887
888=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
889
be771a83
GS
890(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
891redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
892command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
893
894=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
895
be771a83
GS
896(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
897redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
898the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
899
900=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
901
be771a83
GS
902(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
903redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
904for stdout.
748a9306 905
584d69ec 906=item Can't open perl script%s: %s
a0d0e21e
LW
907
908(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
909
6df41af2
GS
910=item Can't read CRTL environ
911
912(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
913from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
914missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
915or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
916searched.
6df41af2 917
7bac28a0 918=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
919
920(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
be771a83
GS
921pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
922it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
7bac28a0 923this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
924
6df41af2
GS
925=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
926
927(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
928there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
929count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
930or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
931though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
932loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
933
64977eb6 934=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 935
be771a83
GS
936(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
937file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
938the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 939
a0d0e21e
LW
940=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
941
e476b1b5 942(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 943probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 944
748a9306
LW
945=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
946
be771a83
GS
947(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
948to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 949
6df41af2
GS
950=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
951
be771a83
GS
952(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
953to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
954method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 955
a0d0e21e
LW
956=item Can't reswap uid and euid
957
be771a83
GS
958(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
959suidperl.
a0d0e21e 960
cd06dffe
GS
961=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
962
be771a83
GS
963(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
964temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
965is not allowed.
cd06dffe 966
78f9721b
SM
967=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
968
969(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
970but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
971to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
972the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
973list context.
974
6df41af2
GS
975=item Can't return outside a subroutine
976
977(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
978there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
979
a0d0e21e
LW
980=item Can't stat script "%s"
981
be771a83
GS
982(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
983open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
984
985=item Can't swap uid and euid
986
be771a83
GS
987(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
988suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
989
990=item Can't take log of %g
991
fb73857a 992(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
993negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
994standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
995negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
996
997=item Can't take sqrt of %g
998
999(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1000negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1001with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1002
1003=item Can't undef active subroutine
1004
1005(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1006however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1007redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1008
1009=item Can't unshift
1010
1011(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1012as the main Perl stack.
1013
1014=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1015
be771a83
GS
1016(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1017into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1018specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1019indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e
LW
1020
1021=item Can't upgrade to undef
1022
be771a83
GS
1023(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
1024upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
1025calling sv_upgrade.
a0d0e21e 1026
6df41af2
GS
1027=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1028
1029(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1030be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1031
1db89ea5
BS
1032=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1033
1034(P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1035table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1036for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1037
6df41af2
GS
1038=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1039
be771a83
GS
1040(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1041references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1042
90b75b61 1043=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1044
1045(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1046Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1047provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1048
6df41af2
GS
1049=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1050
be771a83
GS
1051(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1052foreach.
6df41af2
GS
1053
1054=item Can't use global %s in "my"
1055
be771a83
GS
1056(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1057is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1058(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1059have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1060weren't.
1061
c07a80fd 1062=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1063
1064(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1065You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1066and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1067Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1068lexical variable.
1069
a0d0e21e
LW
1070=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1071
1072(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1073reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1074test the type of the reference, if need be.
1075
748a9306 1076=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1077
be771a83
GS
1078(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1079references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1080
748a9306
LW
1081=item Can't use subscript on %s
1082
1083(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1084subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1085didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1086
6df41af2
GS
1087=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1088
75b44862
GS
1089(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1090creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1091backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1092expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1093value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1094instead.
6df41af2 1095
810b8aa5
GS
1096=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1097
1098(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1099references can be weakened.
1100
5f05dabc 1101=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1102
be771a83
GS
1103(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1104with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1105Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1106
ac7cd81a
SC
1107=item Character in "C" format wrapped
1108
1109(W pack) You said
1110
1111 pack("C", $x)
1112
1113where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1114only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1115and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1116
1117 pack("C", $x & 255)
1118
1119If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1120instead.
1121
1122=item Character in "c" format wrapped
1123
1124(W pack) You said
1125
1126 pack("c", $x)
1127
1128where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1129is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1130and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1131
1132 pack("c", $x & 255);
1133
1134If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1135instead.
1136
9ddeeac9 1137=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 1138
e476b1b5 1139(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
a0d0e21e 1140
6df41af2
GS
1141=item %s: Command not found
1142
be771a83
GS
1143(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1144Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1145
7a2e2cd6 1146=item Compilation failed in require
1147
1148(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1149Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1150encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1151
c3464db5
DD
1152=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1153
be771a83
GS
1154(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1155situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1156to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1157arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1158recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1159under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1160in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1161that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1162on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1163
38875929
DM
1164=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1165
1166(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1167cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1168function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1169cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1170has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1171first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1172after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1173lock.
1174
1175
1176=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1177
1178(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1179cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1180function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1181cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1182has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1183first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1184after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1185lock.
1186
69282e91 1187=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1188
be771a83
GS
1189(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1190to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1191L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1192
41ab332f 1193=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1194
be771a83
GS
1195(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1196an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1197specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1198corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1199L<overload>.
6df41af2 1200
779c5bc9
GS
1201=item Constant is not %s reference
1202
1203(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1204is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1205The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1206usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1207See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1208
4cee8e80
CS
1209=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1210
bb028877 1211(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
be771a83
GS
1212eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1213commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1214
9607fc9c 1215=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1216
be771a83
GS
1217(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1218for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1219workarounds.
9607fc9c 1220
e7ea3e70
IZ
1221=item Copy method did not return a reference
1222
64977eb6 1223(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1224L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1225
6798c92b
GS
1226=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1227
1228(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1229
a0d0e21e
LW
1230=item corrupted regexp pointers
1231
1232(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1233expression compiler gave it.
1234
1235=item corrupted regexp program
1236
be771a83
GS
1237(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1238valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1239
6df41af2
GS
1240=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1241
1242(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1243
1244=item C<-p> destination: %s
1245
1246(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1247command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1248redirected it with select().)
1249
1250=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1251
1252(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1253know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1254
a0d0e21e
LW
1255=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1256
be771a83
GS
1257(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1258100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1259infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1260which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1261
f10b0346 1262=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1263
be771a83
GS
1264(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1265checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1266array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1267
f10b0346 1268=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1269
be771a83
GS
1270(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1271checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1272is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1273
62658f4d
PM
1274=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1275
1276(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1277there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1278
fc36a67e 1279=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1280
be771a83
GS
1281(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1282long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1283that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1284
3cdd684c
TP
1285=item Did not produce a valid header
1286
1287See Server error.
1288
6df41af2
GS
1289=item %s did not return a true value
1290
1291(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1292it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1293traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1294do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1295
cc507455 1296=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1297
be771a83
GS
1298(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1299such.
4633a7c4 1300
cc507455 1301=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1302
be771a83
GS
1303(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1304variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1305seems superfluous.
33633739 1306
cc507455 1307=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1308
be771a83
GS
1309(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1310@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1311carried away.
748a9306 1312
7e1af8bc 1313=item Died
5f05dabc 1314
1315(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1316you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1317
3cdd684c
TP
1318=item Document contains no data
1319
1320See Server error.
1321
62658f4d
PM
1322=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1323
1324(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1325define a C<$VERSION.>
1326
a0d0e21e
LW
1327=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1328
1329(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1330
1331=item do_study: out of memory
1332
1333(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1334
6df41af2
GS
1335=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1336
1337(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1338found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1339name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1340because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1341"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1342something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1343subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1344"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1345
ac206dc8
RGS
1346=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1347
1348(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1349qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1350
a0d0e21e
LW
1351=item Duplicate free() ignored
1352
be771a83
GS
1353(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1354already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1355
4633a7c4
LW
1356=item elseif should be elsif
1357
be771a83
GS
1358(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1359Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1360"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1361unlikely to be what you want.
1362
ab13f0c7
JH
1363=item Empty %s
1364
af6f566e
HS
1365(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1366described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1367a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1368
85ab1d1d 1369=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1370
85ab1d1d 1371(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1372effective uids or gids failed.
1373
748a9306
LW
1374=item Error converting file specification %s
1375
5f05dabc 1376(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1377specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1378single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1379an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1380conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1381
e4d48cc9
GS
1382=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1383
be771a83
GS
1384(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1385expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1386is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1387
e4d48cc9
GS
1388=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1389
be771a83
GS
1390(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1391C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1392pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1393is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1394building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1395that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1396
6df41af2
GS
1397=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1398
be771a83
GS
1399(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1400assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1401pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1402
fc36a67e 1403=item Excessively long <> operator
1404
1405(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1406Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1407filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1408variable and glob that.
1409
ed9aa3b7
SG
1410=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1411
1412(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1413
f86702cc 1414=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1415
1416(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1417
1418=item Exiting eval via %s
1419
be771a83
GS
1420(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1421goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1422
1423=item Exiting format via %s
1424
9a2ff54b 1425(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1426goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1427
0a753a76 1428=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1429
be771a83
GS
1430(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1431sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1432loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1433
a0d0e21e
LW
1434=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1435
be771a83
GS
1436(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1437as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1438
1439=item Exiting substitution via %s
1440
be771a83
GS
1441(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1442as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1443
7b8d334a
GS
1444=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1445
be771a83
GS
1446(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1447the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1448usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1449e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1450
6df41af2
GS
1451=item %s: Expression syntax
1452
be771a83
GS
1453(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1454Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1455
1456=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1457
1458(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1459END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1460routines has been prematurely ended.
1461
7253e4e3 1462=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1463
be771a83 1464(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1465character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1466in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1467"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1468problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1469
748a9306 1470=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1471
be771a83
GS
1472(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1473system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1474details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1475you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1476
1477=item fcntl is not implemented
1478
1479(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1480PDP-11 or something?
1481
af8c498a 1482=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1483
be771a83
GS
1484(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1485to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1486or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1487the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2a6fd447
NIS
1488The warning will also occur if STDOUT (file descriptor 1) or STDERR
1489(file descriptor 2) is opened for input, this is a pre-emptive warning in
1490case some other part of your program or a child process is expecting STDOUT
1491and STDERR to be writable. This can happen accidentally if you
1492C<close(STDOUT)> or STDERR and then C<open> an unrelated handle which
1493will resuse the lowest numbered available descriptor.
a0d0e21e 1494
af8c498a 1495=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1496
2a6fd447
NIS
1497(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing.
1498If you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
be771a83
GS
1499with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1500intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2a6fd447
NIS
1501The warning will also occur if STDIN (file descriptor 0) is opened
1502for output - this is a pre-emptive warning in case some other part of your
1503program or a child process is expecting STDIN to be readable.
1504This can happen accidentally if you C<close(STDIN)> and then C<open> an
1505unrelated handle which will resuse the lowest numbered available
1506descriptor.
a0d0e21e
LW
1507
1508=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1509
1510(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1511a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1512happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1513name.
a0d0e21e
LW
1514
1515=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1516
1517(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1518a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1519happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1520name.
a0d0e21e 1521
56e90b21
GS
1522=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1523
be771a83 1524(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1525some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1526filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1527same name?
56e90b21 1528
5cd5c422
RB
1529=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex;
1530
1531marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 1532
b45f050a 1533(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
7253e4e3
RK
1534meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
1535where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1536
1537=item Format not terminated
1538
1539(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1540to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1541
a0d0e21e
LW
1542=item Format %s redefined
1543
e476b1b5 1544(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1545
1546 {
271595cc 1547 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1548 eval "format NAME =...";
1549 }
1550
a0d0e21e
LW
1551=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1552
e476b1b5 1553(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1554
1555 if ($foo = 123)
1556
1557when you meant
1558
1559 if ($foo == 123)
1560
1561(or something like that).
1562
6df41af2
GS
1563=item %s found where operator expected
1564
1565(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
be771a83
GS
1566sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1567operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1568operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1569
a0d0e21e
LW
1570=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1571
1572(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1573
1574=item gethostent not implemented
1575
1576(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1577because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1578on the Internet.
1579
69282e91 1580=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1581
be771a83
GS
1582(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1583socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1584
748a9306
LW
1585=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1586
1587(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1588C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1589
6df41af2
GS
1590=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1591
be771a83
GS
1592(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1593forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1594L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1595
1596=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1597
1598(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1599must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1600"our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1601is in (using "::").
1602
e476b1b5
GS
1603=item glob failed (%s)
1604
be771a83
GS
1605(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1606C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1607C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1608nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1609resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1610broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1611config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1612were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1613empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1614think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1615C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1616
a0d0e21e
LW
1617=item Glob not terminated
1618
1619(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1620a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1621not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1622earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1623
6df41af2 1624=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1625
6df41af2
GS
1626(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1627version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1628
1629=item goto must have label
1630
1631(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1632unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1633
18529408
IZ
1634=item %s-group starts with a count
1635
1636(F) In pack/unpack a ()-group started with a count. A count is
1637supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1638
6df41af2
GS
1639=item %s had compilation errors
1640
1641(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1642
a0d0e21e
LW
1643=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1644
be771a83
GS
1645(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1646to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1647created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1648
1649=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1650
be771a83
GS
1651(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1652spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1653
6df41af2
GS
1654=item %s has too many errors
1655
1656(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1657Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1658
252aa082
JH
1659=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1660
e476b1b5 1661(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1662(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1663L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1664
8903cb82 1665=item Identifier too long
1666
1667(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1668about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1669names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1670of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1671
6df41af2 1672=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1673
6df41af2 1674(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1675
6df41af2 1676=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1677
be771a83
GS
1678(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1679binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1680offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1681
4fdae800 1682=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1683
d5898338 1684(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1685would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1686when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1687version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1688to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1689
d37a9538
ST
1690=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1691
420cdfc1 1692(W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
d37a9538
ST
1693characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1694
a0d0e21e
LW
1695=item Illegal division by zero
1696
be771a83
GS
1697(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1698your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1699meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1700
6df41af2
GS
1701=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1702
be771a83
GS
1703(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1704A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1705number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1706
a0d0e21e
LW
1707=item Illegal modulus zero
1708
be771a83
GS
1709(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1710numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1711
6df41af2 1712=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1713
6df41af2
GS
1714(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1715two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1716
1717=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 1718
d1be9408 1719(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 1720
399388f4 1721=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1722
d1be9408 1723(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 1724Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1725
6df41af2 1726=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1727
6df41af2 1728(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1c4db469 1729following switches: B<-[DIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 1730
6df41af2 1731=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1732
75b44862 1733(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1734internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1735delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1736
6df41af2 1737=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1738
be771a83
GS
1739(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1740name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1741didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1742ignored.
54310121 1743
6df41af2 1744=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1745
be771a83
GS
1746(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1747the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1748system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1749times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1750would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1751
be771a83
GS
1752Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1753also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1754
979699d9
JH
1755=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1756
1757(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1758Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1759encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
1760
a0d0e21e
LW
1761=item Insecure dependency in %s
1762
8b1a09fc 1763(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
1764The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1765setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1766tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1767from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1768such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1769L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
1770
1771=item Insecure directory in %s
1772
be771a83
GS
1773(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1774setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1775the world. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 1776
62f468fc 1777=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1778
1779(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc
MG
1780setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1781C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
a0d0e21e
LW
1782potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1783known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1784
a7ae9550
GS
1785=item Integer overflow in %s number
1786
75b44862 1787(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
1788either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1789your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1790On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
1791representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
17920b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1793transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1794internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1795operations.
bbce6d69 1796
7253e4e3 1797=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
1798
1799(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 1800The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
1801discovered.
1802
748a9306
LW
1803=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1804
be771a83
GS
1805(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1806you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1807to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1808L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1809Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1810terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 1811
7253e4e3 1812=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 1813
7253e4e3
RK
1814(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1815<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1816discovered.
a0d0e21e 1817
6df41af2
GS
1818=item %s (...) interpreted as function
1819
75b44862 1820(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 1821followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 1822operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 1823L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 1824
09bef843
SB
1825=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1826
1827The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1828by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1829
1830=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1831
be771a83
GS
1832The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1833recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1834
c635e13b 1835=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1836
be771a83
GS
1837(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1838L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 1839
7253e4e3 1840=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
1841
1842(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
1843greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1844C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1845up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1846problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 1847
7253e4e3 1848=item Invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
1849
1850(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1851character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1852
09bef843
SB
1853=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1854
0120eecf 1855(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
1856elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1857parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1858See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1859
96e4d5b1 1860=item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1861
8903cb82 1862(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
be771a83
GS
1863(W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1864silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1865
1866=item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1867
be771a83
GS
1868(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1869L<perlfunc/unpack>.
75b44862
GS
1870(W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1871silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1872
a0d0e21e
LW
1873=item ioctl is not implemented
1874
1875(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1876strange for a machine that supports C.
1877
c289d2f7
JH
1878=item ioctl() on unopened %s
1879
1880(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1881Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1882
80cbd5ad
JH
1883=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1884
1885(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1886neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1887
6ad11d81
JH
1888=item `%s' is not a code reference
1889
04a80ee0
RGS
1890(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
1891needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
1892to a subroutine.
1893
1894=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1895
04a80ee0
RGS
1896(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
1897unaware of.
6ad11d81 1898
a0d0e21e
LW
1899=item junk on end of regexp
1900
1901(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1902
1903=item Label not found for "last %s"
1904
be771a83
GS
1905(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1906of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1907L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1908
1909=item Label not found for "next %s"
1910
1911(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1912that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1913L<perlfunc/last>.
1914
1915=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1916
1917(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1918that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1919L<perlfunc/last>.
1920
85ab1d1d 1921=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1922
85ab1d1d 1923(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1924effective uids or gids failed.
1925
69282e91 1926=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1927
be771a83
GS
1928(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1929to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1930L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 1931
5d3e98de
RGS
1932=item lstat() on filehandle %s
1933
1934(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1935by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1936instead on the filehandle.)
1937
cd06dffe
GS
1938=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1939
1940(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
be771a83
GS
1941values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1942L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
cd06dffe 1943
5cd5c422
RB
1944=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex;
1945
1946marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
1947
1948(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
7253e4e3
RK
1949handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
1950shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2e50fd82 1951
6df41af2
GS
1952=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1953
1954(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1955
1956 prefix1;prefix2
1957
1958or
6df41af2
GS
1959 prefix1 prefix2
1960
be771a83
GS
1961with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1962a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1963appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 1964"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 1965
2f758a16
ST
1966=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
1967
d37a9538
ST
1968(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
1969syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
1970obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
1971when the function is called.
2f758a16 1972
ba210ebe
JH
1973=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1974
1975Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1976
901b21bf
JH
1977One possible cause is that you read in data that you thought to be in
1978UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit data). Another
1979possibility is careless use of utf8::upgrade().
1980
dea0fc0b
JH
1981=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1982
1983Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1984doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1985
5cd5c422
RB
1986=item %s matches null string many times in regex;
1987
1988marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
1989
1990(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
7253e4e3
RK
1991regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
1992shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1993See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 1994
25f58aea
PN
1995=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
1996
1997(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
1998interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
1999"use" or "my".
2000
6df41af2
GS
2001=item % may only be used in unpack
2002
2003(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2004checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2005See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2006
a0d0e21e
LW
2007=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2008
2009(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2010doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2011
3cdd684c
TP
2012=item Method %s not permitted
2013
2014See Server error.
2015
a0d0e21e
LW
2016=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2017
2018(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2019by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2020ended earlier on the current line.
2021
2022=item Misplaced _ in number
2023
d4ced10d
JH
2024(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2025separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2026
4a2d328f 2027=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 2028
4a2d328f 2029(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
2030double-quotish context.
2031
a0d0e21e
LW
2032=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2033
2034(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2035"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2036
06eaf0bc
GS
2037=item Missing command in piped open
2038
be771a83
GS
2039(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2040C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2041blank.
06eaf0bc 2042
6df41af2
GS
2043=item Missing name in "my sub"
2044
be771a83
GS
2045(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2046they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2047
2048=item Missing $ on loop variable
2049
be771a83
GS
2050(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2051are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2052can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2053
cc507455 2054=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306
LW
2055
2056(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
2057found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2058
ab13f0c7
JH
2059=item Missing right brace on %s
2060
2061(F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2062
d98d5fff 2063=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2064
be771a83
GS
2065(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2066ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2067were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2068
6df41af2
GS
2069=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2070
2071(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
2072found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2073the previous line just because you saw this message.
2074
a0d0e21e
LW
2075=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2076
2077(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2078constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2079catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2080
2081 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2082 mod(2);
2083
2084Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2085
c5674021
PDF
2086Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2087is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2088
2089 $x = 1;
2090 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2091 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2092 }
c5674021 2093
7a4340ed 2094=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2095
2096(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2097subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2098backwards.
2099
7a4340ed 2100=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2101
be771a83
GS
2102(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2103couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2104
2105=item Module name must be constant
2106
2107(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2108
be98fb35 2109=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2110
be98fb35
GS
2111(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2112you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2113about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2114
ed9aa3b7
SG
2115=item More than one argument to open
2116
2117(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2118can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2119list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2120See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2121
a0d0e21e
LW
2122=item msg%s not implemented
2123
2124(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2125
2126=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2127
75b44862
GS
2128(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2129They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2130
6df41af2 2131=item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
09bef843 2132
6df41af2 2133(F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
be771a83
GS
2134Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
2135or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2136
2137=item / must be followed by a, A or Z
2138
be771a83
GS
2139(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
2140must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
2141of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2142
2143=item / must follow a numeric type
2144
be771a83
GS
2145(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
2146follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2147
2148=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2149
be771a83
GS
2150(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2151that yet.
6df41af2
GS
2152
2153=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2154
be771a83
GS
2155(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2156sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2157local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2158
8b1a09fc 2159=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2160
e476b1b5 2161(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
2162If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2163again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 2164provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e
LW
2165
2166=item Negative length
2167
be771a83
GS
2168(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2169length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2170
ed9aa3b7
SG
2171=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2172
2173(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2174greater than or equal to zero.
2175
7253e4e3 2176=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2177
b45f050a 2178(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2179things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2180expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2181
7253e4e3 2182Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2183C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2184
6df41af2 2185=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2186
be771a83
GS
2187(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2188scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e
LW
2189
2190=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2191
be771a83
GS
2192(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2193setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2194will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2195securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2196
2197=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2198
2199(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2200
2201=item No comma allowed after %s
2202
2203(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2204allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2205Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2206
0a753a76 2207One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2208constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2209importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2210does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2211explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2212L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2213would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2214remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2215constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2216list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2217this error was triggered?
2218
748a9306
LW
2219=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2220
be771a83
GS
2221(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2222redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2223doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2224
a0d0e21e
LW
2225=item No DB::DB routine defined
2226
be771a83
GS
2227(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2228for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2229define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2230is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2231should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
a0d0e21e
LW
2232
2233=item No dbm on this machine
2234
2235(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2236supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2237
2238=item No DBsub routine
2239
2240(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2241but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2242didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2243ordinary subroutine call.
2244
c47ff5f1 2245=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2246
be771a83
GS
2247(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2248redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2249find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2250
c47ff5f1 2251=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2252
be771a83
GS
2253(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2254redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2255name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2256
6df41af2
GS
2257=item No #! line
2258
2259(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2260even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2261
2262=item "no" not allowed in expression
2263
be771a83
GS
2264(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2265returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2266
c47ff5f1 2267=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2268
be771a83
GS
2269(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2270redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2271doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2272
c47ff5f1 2273=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2274
be771a83
GS
2275(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2276redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2277find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2278
1ec3e8de
GS
2279=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2280
be771a83
GS
2281(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2282declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2283semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2284
a0d0e21e
LW
2285=item No Perl script found in input
2286
2287(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2288with #! and containing the word "perl".
2289
2290=item No setregid available
2291
2292(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2293your system.
2294
2295=item No setreuid available
2296
2297(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2298your system.
2299
a67e862a 2300=item No space allowed after -%c
a0d0e21e 2301
be771a83
GS
2302(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2303immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
a0d0e21e 2304
6df41af2
GS
2305=item No %s specified for -%c
2306
2307(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2308you haven't specified one.
2309
2c692339
RGS
2310=item No such class %s
2311
2312(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but
2313this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2314
6df41af2
GS
2315=item No such pipe open
2316
2317(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2318close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2319earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2320
a0d0e21e
LW
2321=item No such signal: SIG%s
2322
be771a83
GS
2323(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2324not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2325names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2326
2327=item Not a CODE reference
2328
2329(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2330subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2331use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2332also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2333
2334=item Not a format reference
2335
2336(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2337format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2338
2339=item Not a GLOB reference
2340
be771a83
GS
2341(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2342symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2343something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2344kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2345
2346=item Not a HASH reference
2347
be771a83
GS
2348(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2349reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2350find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2351
6df41af2
GS
2352=item Not an ARRAY reference
2353
be771a83
GS
2354(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2355a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2356to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2357
a0d0e21e
LW
2358=item Not a perl script
2359
2360(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2361even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2362mention perl.
2363
2364=item Not a SCALAR reference
2365
be771a83
GS
2366(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2367a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2368to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2369
2370=item Not a subroutine reference
2371
2372(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2373subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2374use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2375also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2376
e7ea3e70 2377=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2378
2379(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2380doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2381
a0d0e21e
LW
2382=item Not enough arguments for %s
2383
2384(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2385
6df41af2
GS
2386=item Not enough format arguments
2387
be771a83
GS
2388(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2389supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2390
2391=item %s: not found
2392
be771a83
GS
2393(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2394of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2395yourself.
6df41af2 2396
206947d2
IZ
2397=item %s not allowed in length fields
2398
2399(F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
2400C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes. Redesign
2401the template.
2402
6df41af2 2403=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2404
6df41af2
GS
2405(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2406timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2407to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2408F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2409need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2410
2411=item Null filename used
2412
be771a83
GS
2413(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2414machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2415
6df41af2
GS
2416=item NULL OP IN RUN
2417
be771a83
GS
2418(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2419pointer.
6df41af2 2420
55497cff 2421=item Null picture in formline
2422
2423(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2424specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2425supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2426
a0d0e21e
LW
2427=item Null realloc
2428
2429(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2430
2431=item NULL regexp argument
2432
5f05dabc 2433(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2434
2435=item NULL regexp parameter
2436
2437(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2438
fc36a67e 2439=item Number too long
2440
be771a83 2441(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 2442about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
2443versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2444the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2445"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2446
6df41af2
GS
2447=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2448
be771a83
GS
2449(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2450The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2451future version.
6df41af2 2452
252aa082
JH
2453=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2454
75b44862 2455(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2456(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2457L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2458
2459See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2460
6ad11d81
JH
2461=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2462
04a80ee0
RGS
2463(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2464arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 2465
b21befc1
MG
2466=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2467
2468(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2469which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2470
1930e939 2471=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2472
be771a83
GS
2473(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2474which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2475
bbce6d69 2476=item Offset outside string
2477
2478(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
be771a83
GS
2479pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2480exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2481the buffer and zero pad the new area.
bbce6d69 2482
9ddeeac9
JH
2483=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2484
2485(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
c289d2f7 2486that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
9ddeeac9 2487
c289d2f7 2488=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
2489
2490(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2491never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2492call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2493
a0d0e21e
LW
2494=item oops: oopsAV
2495
e476b1b5 2496(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2497
2498=item oops: oopsHV
2499
e476b1b5 2500(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2501
56f7f34b 2502=item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2503
be771a83
GS
2504(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2505handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2506of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2507C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2508
748a9306
LW
2509=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2510
be771a83
GS
2511(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2512was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2513use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2514example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2515"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2516
6df41af2
GS
2517=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2518
be771a83
GS
2519(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2520in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2521
a80b8354
GS
2522=item Out of memory!
2523
2524(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2525remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2526no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2527
6df41af2 2528=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2529
6df41af2
GS
2530(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2531remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2532the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2533possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2534
1b979e0a 2535=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2536
be771a83
GS
2537(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2538insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2539request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2540
2541The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2542depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2543However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2544emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
2545is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2546where the failed request happened.
55497cff 2547
1b979e0a
IZ
2548=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2549
2550(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2551is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2552C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2553
6df41af2
GS
2554=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2555
be771a83
GS
2556(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2557parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2558otherwise.
6df41af2
GS
2559
2560=item @ outside of string
2561
2562(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2563the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2564
2565=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2566
be771a83
GS
2567(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2568package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2569some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2570mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 2571
a0d0e21e
LW
2572=item page overflow
2573
be771a83
GS
2574(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2575page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 2576
6df41af2
GS
2577=item panic: %s
2578
2579(P) An internal error.
2580
a0d0e21e
LW
2581=item panic: ck_grep
2582
2583(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2584
2585=item panic: ck_split
2586
2587(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2588
2589=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2590
be771a83
GS
2591(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2592there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 2593
810b8aa5
GS
2594=item panic: del_backref
2595
2596(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2597reference.
2598
a0d0e21e
LW
2599=item panic: die %s
2600
2601(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2602it wasn't an eval context.
2603
290deeac 2604=item panic: pp_match%s
a0d0e21e 2605
be771a83
GS
2606(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2607data.
a0d0e21e 2608
a0d0e21e
LW
2609=item panic: do_subst
2610
be771a83
GS
2611(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2612data.
a0d0e21e 2613
2269b42e 2614=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 2615
2269b42e 2616(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 2617data.
a0d0e21e 2618
c635e13b 2619=item panic: frexp
2620
2621(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2622
a0d0e21e
LW
2623=item panic: goto
2624
2625(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2626and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2627
2628=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2629
2630(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2631
2632=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2633
2634(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2635
e446cec8
IZ
2636=item panic: kid popen errno read
2637
2638(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2639
a0d0e21e
LW
2640=item panic: last
2641
2642(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2643it wasn't a block context.
2644
2645=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2646
be771a83
GS
2647(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2648scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
2649
2650=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2651
2652(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2653invalid enum on the top of it.
2654
810b8aa5
GS
2655=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2656
2657(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2658references to an object.
2659
6df41af2
GS
2660=item panic: malloc
2661
2662(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2663
a0d0e21e
LW
2664=item panic: mapstart
2665
2666(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2667
2668=item panic: null array
2669
2670(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2671
2672=item panic: pad_alloc
2673
2674(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2675and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2676
2677=item panic: pad_free curpad
2678
2679(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2680and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2681
2682=item panic: pad_free po
2683
2684(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2685
2686=item panic: pad_reset curpad
2687
2688(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2689and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2690
2691=item panic: pad_sv po
2692
2693(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2694
2695=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2696
2697(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2698and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2699
2700=item panic: pad_swipe po
2701
2702(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2703
2704=item panic: pp_iter
2705
2706(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2707
2269b42e
JH
2708=item panic: pp_split
2709
2710(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2711
a0d0e21e
LW
2712=item panic: realloc
2713
2714(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2715
2716=item panic: restartop
2717
2718(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2719didn't supply the destination.
2720
2721=item panic: return
2722
2723(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2724then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2725
2726=item panic: scan_num
2727
2728(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2729
2730=item panic: sv_insert
2731
2732(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2733was string.
2734
2735=item panic: top_env
2736
6224f72b 2737(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e
LW
2738
2739=item panic: yylex
2740
2741(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2742
dea0fc0b
JH
2743=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2744
2745(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 2746to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 2747
7b8d334a 2748=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 2749
e476b1b5 2750(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
2751
2752 my $foo, $bar = @_;
2753
2754when you meant
2755
2756 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2757
54884818 2758Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 2759
75b44862 2760=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
a0d0e21e 2761
be771a83
GS
2762(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2763recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2764you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2765
6df41af2
GS
2766=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2767
2768(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 2769C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2
GS
2770
2771=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2772
2773(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2774
2775 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2776 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2777 LC_ALL = "En_US",
2778 LANG = (unset)
2779 are supported and installed on your system.
2780 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2781
2782Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2783settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
2784This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2785system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2786locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2787dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2788Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2789the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2790you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2791L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 2792
bccbfa77
NC
2793=item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2794
d7133549
RGS
2795(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
2796forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
64977eb6
NC
2797data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2798the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2799If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2800the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2801
d7133549 2802=item perlio: invalid separator character %s in layer specification list %s
64977eb6 2803
d7133549 2804(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
d1be9408 2805colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
64977eb6
NC
2806If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2807list was terminated too soon.
bccbfa77 2808
ef0f9817
DD
2809=item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2810
d7133549 2811(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
ef0f9817
DD
2812system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2813internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2814are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2815explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2816value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2817
a0d0e21e
LW
2818=item Permission denied
2819
2820(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2821
bd3fa61c 2822=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 2823
be771a83
GS
2824(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2825process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2826fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 2827
3bf38418
WL
2828=item P must have an explicit size
2829
2830(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
2831
5cd5c422
RB
2832=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex;
2833
2834marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2835
9a0b3859 2836(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
2837I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
2838/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
2839implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
2840cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
2841where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 2842
5cd5c422
RB
2843=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2844
2845marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2846
2847(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
2848beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
2849If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2850expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2851backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
2852about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 2853
5cd5c422
RB
2854=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2855
2856marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2857
7253e4e3
RK
2858(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2859with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
2860need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
2861character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
2862and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2863problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 2864
5cd5c422
RB
2865=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex;
2866
2867marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2868
7253e4e3
RK
2869(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
2870shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
80feea45
JH
2871Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
2872the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
2873not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 2874
a0d0e21e
LW
2875=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2876
81777298 2877(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
a0d0e21e
LW
2878the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2879
bbce6d69 2880=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2881
e476b1b5 2882(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 2883strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
2884literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2885parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2886
774d564b 2887You probably wrote something like this:
2888
54310121 2889 @list = qw(
774d564b 2890 a # a comment
bbce6d69 2891 b # another comment
774d564b 2892 );
bbce6d69 2893
2894when you should have written this:
2895
774d564b 2896 @list = qw(
54310121 2897 a
2898 b
774d564b 2899 );
2900
2901If you really want comments, build your list the
2902old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2903
2904 @list = (
2905 'a', # a comment
2906 'b', # another comment
2907 );
bbce6d69 2908
2909=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2910
be771a83
GS
2911(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2912commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2913different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2914frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2915
54310121 2916You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 2917
774d564b 2918 qw! a, b, c !;
2919
2920which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2921commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 2922
774d564b 2923 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 2924
a0d0e21e
LW
2925=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2926
2927(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2928Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2929end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2930Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2931
18623440
PS
2932=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
2933
2934(W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
32b0a12e
AMS
2935but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
2936literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
2937to the array you apparently lost track of.
18623440 2938
6df41af2
GS
2939=item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2940
2941(W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2942could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2943
8cd79558
GS
2944=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2945
a1063b2d 2946(D deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
2947
2948 sub doit
2949 {
2950 use attrs qw(locked);
2951 }
2952
2953You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2954
2955 sub doit : locked
2956 {
2957 ...
2958
2959The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2960backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2961
a0d0e21e
LW
2962=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2963
e476b1b5 2964(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 2965
a0d0e21e
LW
2966 open FOO || die;
2967
2968is now misinterpreted as
2969
2970 open(FOO || die);
2971
be771a83
GS
2972because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2973list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2974parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2975of "||".
a0d0e21e 2976
3cdd684c
TP
2977=item Premature end of script headers
2978
2979See Server error.
2980
6df41af2
GS
2981=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2982
be771a83 2983(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 2984before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 2985
9a7dcd9c 2986=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 2987
be771a83 2988(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 2989before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 2990
6df41af2 2991=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 2992
6df41af2
GS
2993(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2994applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2995port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2996L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 2997in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 2998
3fe9a6f1 2999=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 3000
9a0b3859 3001(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 3002declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 3003
ed9aa3b7
SG
3004=item Prototype not terminated
3005
2a6fd447 3006(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
3007definition.
3008
5cd5c422
RB
3009=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex;
3010
3011marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3012
b45f050a 3013(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
7253e4e3 3014{min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 3015the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 3016
5cd5c422
RB
3017=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression;
3018
3019marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3020
b45f050a
JF
3021(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3022it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3023quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3024"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3025C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 3026
7253e4e3
RK
3027The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3028discovered.
3029
89ea2908
GA
3030=item Range iterator outside integer range
3031
3032(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3033are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
3034One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3035by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 3036
9a7dcd9c 3037=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3038
75b44862 3039(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3040before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3041
6df41af2
GS
3042=item Reallocation too large: %lx
3043
3044(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3045
4ad56ec9
IZ
3046=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3047
be771a83
GS
3048(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3049already been freed.
4ad56ec9 3050
a0d0e21e
LW
3051=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3052
be771a83
GS
3053(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3054the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
3055which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3056
3e0ccd42 3057=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e
LW
3058
3059(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
3060an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
3061
7a4340ed 3062=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 3063
be771a83
GS
3064(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3065a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3066hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 3067
1930e939
TP
3068=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3069
be771a83
GS
3070(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3071with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3072means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3073parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
3074
3075 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3076 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3077 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3078 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3079
810b8aa5
GS
3080=item Reference is already weak
3081
e476b1b5 3082(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
3083Doing so has no effect.
3084
a0d0e21e
LW
3085=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3086
be771a83
GS
3087(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3088a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 3089
5cd5c422
RB
3090=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex;
3091
3092marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3093
3094(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3095not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3096wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3097prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
9baa0206 3098
7253e4e3 3099The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 3100discovered.
9baa0206 3101
a0d0e21e
LW
3102=item regexp memory corruption
3103
3104(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3105expression compiler gave it.
3106
b45f050a 3107=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 3108
be771a83
GS
3109(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3110earlier.
a0d0e21e 3111
7a95317d
GS
3112=item Repeat count in pack overflows
3113
be771a83
GS
3114(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3115signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7a95317d
GS
3116
3117=item Repeat count in unpack overflows
3118
be771a83
GS
3119(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3120signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
7a95317d 3121
a0d0e21e
LW
3122=item Reversed %s= operator
3123
be771a83
GS
3124(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3125always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e
LW
3126
3127=item Runaway format
3128
3129(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3130produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3131199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3132themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3133shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3134
3135=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3136
be771a83
GS
3137(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3138single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3139value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3140behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3141argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3142and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3143if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 3144
748a9306 3145On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 3146element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
3147Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3148L<perlref>.
3149
a6006777 3150=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3151
75b44862 3152(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
3153element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3154(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3155like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3156argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3157and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3158if you're expecting only one subscript.
3159
3160On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3161as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3162not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 3163L<perlref>.
3164
3e2f796a
NIS
3165=item Scalars leaked: %d
3166
3167(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3168not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3169What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3170especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3171
a0d0e21e
LW
3172=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3173
54310121 3174(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3175or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e
LW
3176
3177=item Search pattern not terminated
3178
3179(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3180construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3181Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3182
9ddeeac9 3183=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3184
be771a83
GS
3185(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3186filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e
LW
3187
3188=item select not implemented
3189
3190(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3191
ae21d580 3192=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 3193
ae21d580
JH
3194(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3195the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 3196
6df41af2 3197=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 3198
75b44862
GS
3199(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3200semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
3201
3202=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3203
be771a83
GS
3204(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3205scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 3206
6df41af2 3207=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 3208
6df41af2 3209(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 3210
69282e91 3211=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3212
be771a83 3213(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3214before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3215
7253e4e3 3216=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 3217
7253e4e3 3218(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
b45f050a 3219shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 3220L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 3221
5cd5c422
RB
3222=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex;
3223
3224marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3225
3226(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
7253e4e3
RK
3227for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3228the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3229L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3230
5cd5c422
RB
3231=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex;
3232
3233marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3234
b45f050a 3235(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
7253e4e3 3236has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
3237where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3238
5cd5c422
RB
3239=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex;
3240
3241marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3242
7253e4e3
RK
3243(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3244<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3245discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3246
5cd5c422
RB
3247=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex;
3248
3249marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3250
3251(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
7253e4e3
RK
3252parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3253the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3254L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
3255
3256=item 500 Server error
3257
3258See Server error.
3259
a5f75d66
AD
3260=item Server error
3261
3cdd684c 3262This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
3263to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3264varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3265are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3266contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3267produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 3268
3269B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3270
be771a83
GS
3271You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3272user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3273account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3274(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3275location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3276Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 3277
06a5f41f
JH
3278 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3279 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3280 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 3281
be94a901
GS
3282You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3283
a0d0e21e
LW
3284=item setegid() not implemented
3285
be771a83
GS
3286(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3287support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3288didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3289
3290=item seteuid() not implemented
3291
be771a83
GS
3292(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3293support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3294didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3295
81777298
GS
3296=item setpgrp can't take arguments
3297
be771a83
GS
3298(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3299arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3300group ID.
81777298 3301
a0d0e21e
LW
3302=item setrgid() not implemented
3303
be771a83
GS
3304(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3305support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3306didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3307
3308=item setruid() not implemented
3309
be771a83
GS
3310(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3311support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3312didn't think so.
a0d0e21e 3313
6df41af2
GS
3314=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3315
be771a83
GS
3316(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3317forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
3318L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3319
a0d0e21e
LW
3320=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3321
be771a83
GS
3322(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3323world, because the world might have written on it already.
a0d0e21e
LW
3324
3325=item shm%s not implemented
3326
3327(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3328
6df41af2
GS
3329=item <> should be quotes
3330
3331(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3332C<require 'file'>.
3333
3334=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3335
3336(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
be771a83
GS
3337as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3338result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3339probably not what you had in mind.
6df41af2 3340
69282e91 3341=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3342
75b44862
GS
3343(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3344superfluous.
a0d0e21e 3345
f86702cc 3346=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
a0d0e21e 3347
be771a83
GS
3348(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3349Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
a0d0e21e
LW
3350
3351=item sort is now a reserved word
3352
3353(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3354But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3355
3356=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3357
3358(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
c47ff5f1 3359it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
a0d0e21e
LW
3360See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3361
3362=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3363
3364(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3365or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3366
8cbc2e3b
JH