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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
e476b1b5 12 (S) A severe warning (default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
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
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
5fc52bc6 47=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
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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
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53thread. See L<threads>.
54
6df41af2 55=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 56
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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
921106c8 67(F) The '!' is allowed in pack() or unpack() only after certain types.
f61d411c 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
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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
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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
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84to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
85L<attributes>).
43192e07 86
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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123(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
124transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
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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
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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:
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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
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151(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
152such as:
5f05dabc 153
154 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 155 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 156
8ea97a1e 157or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 158
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159 @foo[$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
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165name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
166error.
a0d0e21e 167
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168=item '%s' trapped by operation mask
169
170(F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
171disallowed. See L<Safe>.
172
f86702cc 173=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 174
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175(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
176that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
177will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
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178
179=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
180
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181(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
182spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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183
184=item assertion botched: %s
185
186(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
187
188=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
189
190(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
191
192=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
193
194(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
195must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
196know which context to supply to the right side.
197
2393f1b9 198=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 199
49293501 200(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 201the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 202
2393f1b9 203=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
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204
205(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
2393f1b9 206declared readonly from a restricted hash.
49293501 207
2393f1b9 208=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
49293501 209
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210(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
211which is not in its key set.
1b1f1335 212
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213=item Attempt to bless into a reference
214
215(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
216the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
217supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
218
219 bless $self, $proto;
220
221when you intended
222
223 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
224
225If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
226of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
227example by:
228
229 bless $self, "$proto";
230
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231=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
232
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233(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
234that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
235outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 236
54310121 237=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 238
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239(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
240strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
241strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
242of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 243
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244=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
245
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246(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
247free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
248SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
249free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
250try to free it.
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251
252=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
253
e476b1b5 254(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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255
256=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
257
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258(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
259see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
260earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
261This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
262that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
263mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
264corrupted.
a0d0e21e 265
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266=item Attempt to join self
267
268(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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269impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
270to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 271
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272=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
273
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274(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
275function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
276means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
277invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
278literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
279avoid this warning.
84902520 280
b7a902f4 281=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
282
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283(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
284used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
285dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 286
dc26df50 287=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
a0d0e21e 288
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289(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
290or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 291S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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292S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
293
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294=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
295
496a33f5 296(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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297substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
298most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
299
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300=item Bad filehandle: %s
301
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302(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
303symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
304open(), or did it in another package.
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305
306=item Bad free() ignored
307
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308(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
309been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 310setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 311
9ea8bc6d 312This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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313dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
314which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 315
aa689395 316=item Bad hash
317
318(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
319
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320=item Badly placed ()'s
321
322(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
323of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
324Perl yourself.
325
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326=item Bad name after %s::
327
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328(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
329didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
330of quotes, so
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331
332 $var = 'myvar';
333 $sym = mypack::$var;
334
335is not the same as
336
337 $var = 'myvar';
338 $sym = "mypack::$var";
339
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340=item Bad realloc() ignored
341
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342(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
343never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
344by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 345
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346=item Bad symbol for array
347
348(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
349wasn't a symbol table entry.
350
351=item Bad symbol for filehandle
352
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353(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
354that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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355
356=item Bad symbol for hash
357
358(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
359wasn't a symbol table entry.
360
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361=item Bareword found in conditional
362
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363(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
364conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
365of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
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366
367 open FOO || die;
368
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369It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
370a bareword:
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371
372 use constant TYPO => 1;
373 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
374
375The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
376
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377=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
378
379(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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380subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
381symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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382
383=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
384
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385(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
386compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
387you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 388
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389=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
390
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391(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
392subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
393exited.
a0d0e21e 394
68dc0745 395=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
396
397(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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398implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
399occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
400be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
401depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 402
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403=item \1 better written as $1
404
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405(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
406The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
407substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
408because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
409there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 410
252aa082
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411=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
412
e476b1b5 413(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
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414(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
415L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 416
69282e91 417=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 418
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419(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
420check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 421
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422=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
423
424(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
425Check you control flow and number of arguments.
426
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427=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
428
e476b1b5 429(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 430
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431=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
432
be771a83 433(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 434copyable.
4633a7c4 435
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436=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
437
438(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
439which provides a race condition that breaks security.
440
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441=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
442
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443(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
444iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
445which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 446
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447=item Callback called exit
448
4929bf7b 449(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
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450exited by calling exit.
451
6df41af2 452=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 453
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454(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
455parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
456that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
457early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
458subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
459checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
460function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
461the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 462
49704364 463=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
0258719b
NC
464
465(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
466integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
467to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
468
49704364 469=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
470
471(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
472compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
473attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
474See L<perlfunc/pack>.
475
49704364 476=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
477
478(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
479format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
480
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481=item Can't bless non-reference value
482
483(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
484encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
485
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486=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
487
488(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
489functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
490in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
491
6df41af2
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492=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
493
494(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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495object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
496like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
497
498 $BADREF = undef;
499 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
500 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
501
a0d0e21e
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502=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
503
54310121 504(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
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505ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
506didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
507object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
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508
509=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
510
511(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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512object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
513defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
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514Something like this will reproduce the error:
515
516 $BADREF = 42;
517 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
518 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
519
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520=item Can't chdir to %s
521
522(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
523that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
524
0545a864 525=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 526
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527(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
528nosuid.
104d25b7 529
6df41af2
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530=item Can't coerce array into hash
531
532(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
533information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
534only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
535
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536=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
537
538(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 539(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
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540say things like:
541
542 *foo += 1;
543
544You CAN say
545
546 $foo = *foo;
547 $foo += 1;
548
549but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
550
551=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
552
553(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 554(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
555
556=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
557
558(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 559(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
560
561=item Can't create pipe mailbox
562
be771a83
GS
563(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
564quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 565
eb64745e 566=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 567
2f7e735d
AMS
568(F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
569class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be
570extended for other types of variables in future.
eb64745e
GS
571
572=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
573
574(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
575"our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 576
6df41af2
GS
577=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
578
be771a83
GS
579(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
580a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 581
a0d0e21e
LW
582=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
583
be771a83
GS
584(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
585reason.
a0d0e21e 586
54310121 587=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 588
be771a83
GS
589(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
590reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
591C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 592
10f9c03d 593=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 594
e476b1b5 595(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
596characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
597inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 598
7253e4e3 599=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 600
b45f050a 601(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 602regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 603regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e
LW
604
605=item Can't do setegid!
606
be771a83
GS
607(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
608suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
609
610=item Can't do seteuid!
611
612(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
613
614=item Can't do setuid
615
be771a83
GS
616(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
617setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
618sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
619the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
620file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
621sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
a0d0e21e
LW
622
623=item Can't do waitpid with flags
624
be771a83
GS
625(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
626waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 627
a0d0e21e
LW
628=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
629
be771a83
GS
630(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
631point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
632line.
a0d0e21e
LW
633
634=item Can't exec "%s": %s
635
d1be9408 636(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
637named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
638permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
639C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
640architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
641can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
642#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
643
644=item Can't exec %s
645
be771a83
GS
646(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
647that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
648need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
649
650=item Can't execute %s
651
be771a83
GS
652(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
653found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 654
6df41af2 655=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 656
be771a83
GS
657(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
658is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 659
56ca2fc0
JH
660=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
661
662(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
89d60977 663could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
56ca2fc0
JH
664(remember that the names of character properties consist only of
665alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
666
6df41af2
GS
667=item Can't find label %s
668
be771a83
GS
669(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
670possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
671
672=item Can't find %s on PATH
673
be771a83
GS
674(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
675found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 676
6df41af2 677=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 678
be771a83
GS
679(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
680found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
681script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
682
683=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
684
be771a83
GS
685(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
686that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
687nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 688
fb73857a 689 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
690
be771a83
GS
691If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
692unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
693editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 694
64977eb6 695=item Can't find %s property definition %s
0103b764 696
77b96956
RGS
697(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
698example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
bc45ce41
JH
699Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
700If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
77b96956 701by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
f91328b7 702possible C<\E>).
0103b764 703
a0d0e21e
LW
704=item Can't fork
705
be771a83
GS
706(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
707pipeline.
a0d0e21e 708
748a9306
LW
709=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
710
be771a83
GS
711(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
712between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
713Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
714the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
715account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
716the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
717the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
718the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
719if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
720because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
721appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
722and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
723routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
724shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
725only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 726
a0d0e21e
LW
727=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
728
be771a83
GS
729(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
730pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
731
732=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
733
748a9306
LW
734(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
735mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 736
6df41af2 737=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 738
be771a83
GS
739(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
740loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
741
742=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
743
be771a83
GS
744(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
745a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
746you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
747See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 748
b150fb22
RH
749=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
750
be771a83
GS
751(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
752"string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
753probably don't want to.)
b150fb22 754
6df41af2
GS
755=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
756
be771a83
GS
757(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
758subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
759cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
760routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 761
0b5b802d
GS
762=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
763
be771a83
GS
764(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
765signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
766signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
767processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
768situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
769may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 770
6df41af2 771=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 772
6df41af2 773(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
774except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
775block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
776block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
777usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
778inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
779L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 780
748a9306
LW
781=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
782
2ba9eb46 783(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
748a9306
LW
784lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
785localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
786package name.
787
6df41af2 788=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 789
6df41af2
GS
790(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
791handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 792pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 793that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 794
ea071790 795=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
796
797(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
798found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
799unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
800need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
801the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
802to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
803L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 804
6df41af2
GS
805=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
806
be771a83
GS
807(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
808autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
809are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
810the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 811
a0d0e21e
LW
812=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
813
814(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
815functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 816method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e 817
d28b25d0
JH
818=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
819
820(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
3ad17c7e 821e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
d28b25d0 822
c1899e02
GS
823=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
824
825(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
826"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
827that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
828
a0d0e21e
LW
829=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
830
be771a83
GS
831(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
832doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 833
3e3baf6d
TB
834=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
835
be771a83
GS
836(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
837VMS.
3e3baf6d 838
a0d0e21e
LW
839=item Can't modify %s in %s
840
be771a83
GS
841(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
842to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 843
54310121 844=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
845
846(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
847a NULL.
848
6df41af2
GS
849=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
850
851(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
852such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
853
5f05dabc 854=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 855
5f05dabc 856(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
857buffer.
858
6df41af2
GS
859=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
860
861(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
862there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
863count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
864grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
865though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
866once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 867
a0d0e21e
LW
868=item Can't open %s: %s
869
c47ff5f1 870(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
871filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
872switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
873is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
874the command line.
a0d0e21e 875
9a869a14
RGS
876=item Can't open a reference
877
878(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
879using the 3-arg open() syntax :
880
881 open FH, '>', $ref;
882
883but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
884open is not supported.
885
a0d0e21e
LW
886=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
887
be771a83
GS
888(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
889You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
890as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
891">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 892
748a9306
LW
893=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
894
be771a83
GS
895(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
896redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
897the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
898
899=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
900
be771a83
GS
901(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
902redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
903command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
904
905=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
906
be771a83
GS
907(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
908redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
909the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
910
911=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
912
be771a83
GS
913(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
914redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
915for stdout.
748a9306 916
584d69ec 917=item Can't open perl script%s: %s
a0d0e21e
LW
918
919(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
920
6df41af2
GS
921=item Can't read CRTL environ
922
923(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
924from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
925missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
926or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
927searched.
6df41af2 928
7bac28a0 929=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
930
931(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
be771a83
GS
932pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
933it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
7bac28a0 934this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
935
6df41af2
GS
936=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
937
938(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
939there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
940count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
941or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
942though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
943loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
944
64977eb6 945=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 946
be771a83
GS
947(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
948file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
949the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 950
a0d0e21e
LW
951=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
952
e476b1b5 953(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 954probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 955
748a9306
LW
956=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
957
be771a83
GS
958(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
959to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 960
6df41af2
GS
961=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
962
be771a83
GS
963(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
964to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
965method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 966
a0d0e21e
LW
967=item Can't reswap uid and euid
968
be771a83
GS
969(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
970suidperl.
a0d0e21e 971
cd06dffe
GS
972=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
973
be771a83
GS
974(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
975temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
976is not allowed.
cd06dffe 977
78f9721b
SM
978=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
979
980(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
981but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
982to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
983the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
984list context.
985
6df41af2
GS
986=item Can't return outside a subroutine
987
988(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
989there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
990
a0d0e21e
LW
991=item Can't stat script "%s"
992
be771a83
GS
993(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
994open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
995
996=item Can't swap uid and euid
997
be771a83
GS
998(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
999suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
1000
1001=item Can't take log of %g
1002
fb73857a 1003(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1004negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1005standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1006negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1007
1008=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1009
1010(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1011negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1012with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1013
1014=item Can't undef active subroutine
1015
1016(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1017however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1018redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1019
1020=item Can't unshift
1021
1022(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1023as the main Perl stack.
1024
1025=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
1026
be771a83
GS
1027(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1028into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1029specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1030indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e
LW
1031
1032=item Can't upgrade to undef
1033
be771a83
GS
1034(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
1035upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
1036calling sv_upgrade.
a0d0e21e 1037
6df41af2
GS
1038=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1039
1040(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1041be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1042
1db89ea5
BS
1043=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1044
1045(P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1046table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1047for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1048
6df41af2
GS
1049=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1050
be771a83
GS
1051(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1052references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1053
90b75b61 1054=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1055
1056(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1057Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1058provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1059
6df41af2
GS
1060=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1061
be771a83
GS
1062(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1063foreach.
6df41af2
GS
1064
1065=item Can't use global %s in "my"
1066
be771a83
GS
1067(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1068is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1069(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1070have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1071weren't.
1072
c07a80fd 1073=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1074
1075(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1076You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1077and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1078Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1079lexical variable.
1080
a0d0e21e
LW
1081=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1082
1083(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1084reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1085test the type of the reference, if need be.
1086
748a9306 1087=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1088
be771a83
GS
1089(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1090references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1091
748a9306
LW
1092=item Can't use subscript on %s
1093
1094(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1095subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1096didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1097
6df41af2
GS
1098=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1099
75b44862
GS
1100(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1101creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1102backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1103expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1104value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1105instead.
6df41af2 1106
810b8aa5
GS
1107=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1108
1109(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1110references can be weakened.
1111
5f05dabc 1112=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1113
be771a83
GS
1114(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1115with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1116Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1117
49704364 1118=item Character in "C" format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1119
1120(W pack) You said
1121
1122 pack("C", $x)
1123
1124where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1125only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1126and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1127
1128 pack("C", $x & 255)
1129
1130If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1131instead.
1132
49704364 1133=item Character in "c" format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1134
1135(W pack) You said
1136
1137 pack("c", $x)
1138
1139where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1140is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1141and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1142
1143 pack("c", $x & 255);
1144
1145If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1146instead.
1147
49704364
WL
1148=item Code missing after '/'
1149
1150(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1151template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1152
9ddeeac9 1153=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 1154
e476b1b5 1155(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
a0d0e21e 1156
6df41af2
GS
1157=item %s: Command not found
1158
be771a83
GS
1159(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1160Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1161
7a2e2cd6 1162=item Compilation failed in require
1163
1164(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1165Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1166encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1167
c3464db5
DD
1168=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1169
be771a83
GS
1170(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1171situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1172to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1173arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1174recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1175under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1176in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1177that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1178on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1179
38875929
DM
1180=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1181
1182(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1183cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1184function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1185cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1186has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1187first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1188after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1189lock.
1190
1191
1192=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1193
1194(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1195cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1196function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1197cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1198has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1199first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1200after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1201lock.
1202
69282e91 1203=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1204
be771a83
GS
1205(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1206to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1207L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1208
41ab332f 1209=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1210
be771a83
GS
1211(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1212an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1213specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1214corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1215L<overload>.
6df41af2 1216
779c5bc9
GS
1217=item Constant is not %s reference
1218
1219(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1220is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1221The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1222usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1223See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1224
4cee8e80
CS
1225=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1226
bb028877 1227(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
be771a83
GS
1228eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1229commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1230
9607fc9c 1231=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1232
be771a83
GS
1233(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1234for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1235workarounds.
9607fc9c 1236
e7ea3e70
IZ
1237=item Copy method did not return a reference
1238
64977eb6 1239(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1240L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1241
6798c92b
GS
1242=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1243
1244(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1245
a0d0e21e
LW
1246=item corrupted regexp pointers
1247
1248(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1249expression compiler gave it.
1250
1251=item corrupted regexp program
1252
be771a83
GS
1253(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1254valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1255
6df41af2
GS
1256=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1257
1258(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1259
49704364
WL
1260=item Count after length/code in unpack
1261
1262(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1263you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1264L<perlfunc/pack>.
1265
6df41af2
GS
1266=item C<-p> destination: %s
1267
1268(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1269command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1270redirected it with select().)
1271
1272=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1273
1274(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1275know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1276
a0d0e21e
LW
1277=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1278
be771a83
GS
1279(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1280100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1281infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1282which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1283
f10b0346 1284=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1285
be771a83
GS
1286(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1287checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1288array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1289
f10b0346 1290=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1291
be771a83
GS
1292(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1293checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1294is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1295
62658f4d
PM
1296=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1297
1298(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1299there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1300
fc36a67e 1301=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1302
be771a83
GS
1303(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1304long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1305that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1306
3cdd684c
TP
1307=item Did not produce a valid header
1308
1309See Server error.
1310
6df41af2
GS
1311=item %s did not return a true value
1312
1313(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1314it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1315traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1316do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1317
cc507455 1318=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1319
be771a83
GS
1320(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1321such.
4633a7c4 1322
cc507455 1323=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1324
be771a83
GS
1325(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1326variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1327seems superfluous.
33633739 1328
cc507455 1329=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1330
be771a83
GS
1331(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1332@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1333carried away.
748a9306 1334
7e1af8bc 1335=item Died
5f05dabc 1336
1337(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1338you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1339
3cdd684c
TP
1340=item Document contains no data
1341
1342See Server error.
1343
62658f4d
PM
1344=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1345
1346(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1347define a C<$VERSION.>
1348
49704364
WL
1349=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1350
1351(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1352See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1353
a0d0e21e
LW
1354=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1355
1356(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1357
1358=item do_study: out of memory
1359
1360(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1361
6df41af2
GS
1362=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1363
1364(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1365found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1366name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1367because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1368"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1369something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1370subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1371"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1372
ac206dc8
RGS
1373=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1374
1375(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1376qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1377
a0d0e21e
LW
1378=item Duplicate free() ignored
1379
be771a83
GS
1380(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1381already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1382
4633a7c4
LW
1383=item elseif should be elsif
1384
be771a83
GS
1385(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1386Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1387"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1388unlikely to be what you want.
1389
ab13f0c7
JH
1390=item Empty %s
1391
af6f566e
HS
1392(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1393described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1394a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1395
85ab1d1d 1396=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1397
85ab1d1d 1398(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1399effective uids or gids failed.
1400
748a9306
LW
1401=item Error converting file specification %s
1402
5f05dabc 1403(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1404specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1405single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1406an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1407conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1408
e4d48cc9
GS
1409=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1410
be771a83
GS
1411(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1412expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1413is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1414
e4d48cc9
GS
1415=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1416
be771a83
GS
1417(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1418C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1419pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1420is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1421building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1422that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1423
6df41af2
GS
1424=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1425
be771a83
GS
1426(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1427assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1428pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1429
fc36a67e 1430=item Excessively long <> operator
1431
1432(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1433Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1434filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1435variable and glob that.
1436
ed9aa3b7
SG
1437=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1438
1439(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1440
f86702cc 1441=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1442
1443(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1444
1445=item Exiting eval via %s
1446
be771a83
GS
1447(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1448goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1449
1450=item Exiting format via %s
1451
9a2ff54b 1452(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1453goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1454
0a753a76 1455=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1456
be771a83
GS
1457(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1458sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1459loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1460
a0d0e21e
LW
1461=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1462
be771a83
GS
1463(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1464as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1465
1466=item Exiting substitution via %s
1467
be771a83
GS
1468(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1469as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1470
7b8d334a
GS
1471=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1472
be771a83
GS
1473(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1474the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1475usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1476e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1477
6df41af2
GS
1478=item %s: Expression syntax
1479
be771a83
GS
1480(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1481Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1482
1483=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1484
1485(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1486END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1487routines has been prematurely ended.
1488
7253e4e3 1489=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1490
be771a83 1491(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1492character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1493in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1494"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1495problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1496
748a9306 1497=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1498
be771a83
GS
1499(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1500system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1501details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1502you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1503
1504=item fcntl is not implemented
1505
1506(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1507PDP-11 or something?
1508
af8c498a 1509=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1510
6c8d78fb
HS
1511(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1512it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1513"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1514write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1515
af8c498a 1516=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1517
6c8d78fb
HS
1518(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1519you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
be771a83
GS
1520with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1521intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
6c8d78fb
HS
1522Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1523(also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1524
1525=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1526
1527(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1528as STDOUT or STDERR. This occured because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1529previously.
1530
1531=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1532
1533(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1534as STDIN. This occured because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1535
1536=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1537
1538(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1539a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1540happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1541name.
a0d0e21e
LW
1542
1543=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1544
1545(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1546a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1547happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1548name.
a0d0e21e 1549
56e90b21
GS
1550=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1551
be771a83 1552(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1553some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1554filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1555same name?
56e90b21 1556
49704364 1557=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2 1558
b45f050a 1559(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
7253e4e3
RK
1560meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
1561where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
1562
1563=item Format not terminated
1564
1565(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1566to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1567
a0d0e21e
LW
1568=item Format %s redefined
1569
e476b1b5 1570(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1571
1572 {
271595cc 1573 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1574 eval "format NAME =...";
1575 }
1576
a0d0e21e
LW
1577=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1578
e476b1b5 1579(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1580
1581 if ($foo = 123)
1582
1583when you meant
1584
1585 if ($foo == 123)
1586
1587(or something like that).
1588
6df41af2
GS
1589=item %s found where operator expected
1590
1591(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
be771a83
GS
1592sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1593operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1594operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1595
a0d0e21e
LW
1596=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1597
1598(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1599
1600=item gethostent not implemented
1601
1602(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1603because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1604on the Internet.
1605
69282e91 1606=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1607
be771a83
GS
1608(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1609socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1610
748a9306
LW
1611=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1612
1613(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1614C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1615
6df41af2
GS
1616=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1617
be771a83
GS
1618(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1619forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1620L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1621
1622=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1623
1624(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1625must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1626"our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1627is in (using "::").
1628
e476b1b5
GS
1629=item glob failed (%s)
1630
be771a83
GS
1631(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1632C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1633C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1634nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1635resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1636broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1637config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1638were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1639empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1640think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1641C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1642
a0d0e21e
LW
1643=item Glob not terminated
1644
1645(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1646a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1647not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1648earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1649
6df41af2 1650=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1651
6df41af2
GS
1652(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1653version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1654
1655=item goto must have label
1656
1657(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1658unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1659
49704364 1660=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 1661
49704364 1662(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
18529408 1663supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
49704364 1664 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 1665
6df41af2
GS
1666=item %s had compilation errors
1667
1668(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1669
a0d0e21e
LW
1670=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1671
be771a83
GS
1672(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1673to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1674created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1675
1676=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1677
be771a83
GS
1678(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1679spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1680
6df41af2
GS
1681=item %s has too many errors
1682
1683(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1684Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1685
252aa082
JH
1686=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1687
e476b1b5 1688(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1689(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1690L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1691
8903cb82 1692=item Identifier too long
1693
1694(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1695about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1696names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1697of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1698
6df41af2 1699=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1700
6df41af2 1701(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1702
6df41af2 1703=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1704
be771a83
GS
1705(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1706binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1707offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1708
4fdae800 1709=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1710
d5898338 1711(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1712would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1713when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1714version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1715to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1716
d37a9538
ST
1717=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1718
420cdfc1 1719(W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
d37a9538
ST
1720characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1721
904d85c5
RGS
1722=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1723
1724(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1725you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1726
a0d0e21e
LW
1727=item Illegal division by zero
1728
be771a83
GS
1729(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1730your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1731meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1732
6df41af2
GS
1733=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1734
be771a83
GS
1735(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1736A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1737number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1738
a0d0e21e
LW
1739=item Illegal modulus zero
1740
be771a83
GS
1741(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1742numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1743
6df41af2 1744=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1745
6df41af2
GS
1746(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1747two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1748
1749=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 1750
d1be9408 1751(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 1752
399388f4 1753=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1754
d1be9408 1755(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 1756Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1757
6df41af2 1758=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1759
6df41af2 1760(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1c4db469 1761following switches: B<-[DIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 1762
6df41af2 1763=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1764
75b44862 1765(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1766internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1767delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1768
6df41af2 1769=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1770
be771a83
GS
1771(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1772name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1773didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1774ignored.
54310121 1775
8fa7688f
SF
1776=item Impossible to activate assertion call
1777
1778(W assertions) You're calling an assertion function in a block that is
1779not under the control of the C<assertions> pragma.
1780
6df41af2 1781=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1782
be771a83
GS
1783(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1784the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1785system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1786times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1787would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1788
be771a83
GS
1789Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1790also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1791
979699d9
JH
1792=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1793
1794(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1795Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
1796encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
1797
a0d0e21e
LW
1798=item Insecure dependency in %s
1799
8b1a09fc 1800(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
1801The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1802setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1803tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1804from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1805such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1806L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
1807
1808=item Insecure directory in %s
1809
be771a83
GS
1810(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1811setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1812the world. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 1813
62f468fc 1814=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
1815
1816(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 1817setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
1818C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
1819supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
1820the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 1821
a7ae9550
GS
1822=item Integer overflow in %s number
1823
75b44862 1824(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
1825either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1826your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1827On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
1828representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
18290b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1830transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1831internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1832operations.
bbce6d69 1833
46314c13
JP
1834=item Integer overflow in version
1835
1836(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
1837size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
1838because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
1839element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
1840trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
1841100/9.
1842
7253e4e3 1843=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
1844
1845(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 1846The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
1847discovered.
1848
748a9306
LW
1849=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1850
be771a83
GS
1851(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1852you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1853to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1854L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1855Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1856terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 1857
7253e4e3 1858=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 1859
7253e4e3
RK
1860(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1861<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1862discovered.
a0d0e21e 1863
6df41af2
GS
1864=item %s (...) interpreted as function
1865
75b44862 1866(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 1867followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 1868operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 1869L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 1870
09bef843
SB
1871=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1872
1873The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1874by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1875
1876=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1877
be771a83
GS
1878The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1879recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1880
c635e13b 1881=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1882
be771a83
GS
1883(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1884L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 1885
7253e4e3 1886=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
1887
1888(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
1889greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1890C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1891up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1892problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 1893
d1573ac7 1894=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
1895
1896(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1897character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1898
09bef843
SB
1899=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1900
0120eecf 1901(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
1902elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1903parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1904See L<attributes>.
09bef843 1905
49704364 1906=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 1907
49704364
WL
1908(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
1909See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1910(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 1911silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 1912
46314c13
JP
1913=item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
1914
1915(F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
1916that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
1917version formats.
1918
1919=item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
1920
1921(F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
1922See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
1923
a0d0e21e
LW
1924=item ioctl is not implemented
1925
1926(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1927strange for a machine that supports C.
1928
c289d2f7
JH
1929=item ioctl() on unopened %s
1930
1931(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1932Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1933
80cbd5ad
JH
1934=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1935
1936(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1937neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1938
6ad11d81
JH
1939=item `%s' is not a code reference
1940
04a80ee0
RGS
1941(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
1942needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
1943to a subroutine.
1944
1945=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1946
04a80ee0
RGS
1947(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
1948unaware of.
6ad11d81 1949
a0d0e21e
LW
1950=item junk on end of regexp
1951
1952(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1953
1954=item Label not found for "last %s"
1955
be771a83
GS
1956(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1957of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1958L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
1959
1960=item Label not found for "next %s"
1961
1962(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1963that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1964L<perlfunc/last>.
1965
1966=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1967
1968(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1969that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1970L<perlfunc/last>.
1971
85ab1d1d 1972=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1973
85ab1d1d 1974(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1975effective uids or gids failed.
1976
49704364
WL
1977=item length/code after end of string in unpack
1978
1979(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was alread used up when an unpack
1980length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
1981an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1982
69282e91 1983=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1984
be771a83
GS
1985(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1986to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1987L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 1988
5d3e98de
RGS
1989=item lstat() on filehandle %s
1990
1991(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1992by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1993instead on the filehandle.)
1994
cd06dffe
GS
1995=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1996
1997(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
be771a83
GS
1998values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1999L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
cd06dffe 2000
49704364 2001=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2002
2003(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
7253e4e3
RK
2004handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
2005shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2e50fd82 2006
49704364
WL
2007=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2008
2009(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2010are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2011
2012=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2013
2014(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2015are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2016
6df41af2
GS
2017=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2018
2019(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2020
2021 prefix1;prefix2
2022
2023or
6df41af2
GS
2024 prefix1 prefix2
2025
be771a83
GS
2026with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2027a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2028appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2029"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2030
2f758a16
ST
2031=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2032
d37a9538
ST
2033(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2034syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2035obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2036when the function is called.
2f758a16 2037
ba210ebe
JH
2038=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2039
2040Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
2041
901b21bf
JH
2042One possible cause is that you read in data that you thought to be in
2043UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit data). Another
2044possibility is careless use of utf8::upgrade().
2045
dea0fc0b
JH
2046=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2047
2048Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2049doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2050
49704364 2051=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2052
2053(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
7253e4e3
RK
2054regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2055shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2056See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2057
25f58aea
PN
2058=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2059
2060(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2061interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2062"use" or "my".
2063
49704364 2064=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2065
2066(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2067checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2068See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2069
a0d0e21e
LW
2070=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2071
2072(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2073doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2074
3cdd684c
TP
2075=item Method %s not permitted
2076
2077See Server error.
2078
a0d0e21e
LW
2079=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2080
2081(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2082by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2083ended earlier on the current line.
2084
2085=item Misplaced _ in number
2086
d4ced10d
JH
2087(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2088separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2089
4a2d328f 2090=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 2091
4a2d328f 2092(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
2093double-quotish context.
2094
a0d0e21e
LW
2095=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2096
2097(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2098"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2099
06eaf0bc
GS
2100=item Missing command in piped open
2101
be771a83
GS
2102(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2103C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2104blank.
06eaf0bc 2105
961ce445
RGS
2106=item Missing control char name in \c
2107
2108(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2109character name.
2110
6df41af2
GS
2111=item Missing name in "my sub"
2112
be771a83
GS
2113(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2114they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2115
2116=item Missing $ on loop variable
2117
be771a83
GS
2118(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2119are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2120can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2121
cc507455 2122=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306
LW
2123
2124(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
2125found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2126
ab13f0c7
JH
2127=item Missing right brace on %s
2128
2129(F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2130
d98d5fff 2131=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2132
be771a83
GS
2133(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2134ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2135were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2136
6df41af2
GS
2137=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2138
2139(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
2140found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2141the previous line just because you saw this message.
2142
a0d0e21e
LW
2143=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2144
2145(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2146constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2147catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2148
2149 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2150 mod(2);
2151
2152Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2153
c5674021
PDF
2154Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2155is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2156
2157 $x = 1;
2158 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2159 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2160 }
c5674021 2161
7a4340ed 2162=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2163
2164(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2165subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2166backwards.
2167
7a4340ed 2168=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2169
be771a83
GS
2170(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2171couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2172
2173=item Module name must be constant
2174
2175(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2176
be98fb35 2177=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2178
be98fb35
GS
2179(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2180you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2181about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2182
ed9aa3b7
SG
2183=item More than one argument to open
2184
2185(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2186can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2187list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2188See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2189
a0d0e21e
LW
2190=item msg%s not implemented
2191
2192(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2193
2194=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2195
75b44862
GS
2196(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2197They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2198
49704364 2199=item '/' must be followed by 'a*', 'A*' or 'Z*'
09bef843 2200
6df41af2 2201(F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
be771a83
GS
2202Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
2203or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2 2204
49704364 2205=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2206
49704364
WL
2207(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2208follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2209See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2210
2211=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2212
be771a83
GS
2213(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2214that yet.
6df41af2
GS
2215
2216=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2217
be771a83
GS
2218(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2219sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2220local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2221
8b1a09fc 2222=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2223
e476b1b5 2224(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
2225If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2226again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 2227provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e 2228
49704364
WL
2229=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2230
2231(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2232negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2233
a0d0e21e
LW
2234=item Negative length
2235
be771a83
GS
2236(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2237length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2238
ed9aa3b7
SG
2239=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2240
2241(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2242greater than or equal to zero.
2243
7253e4e3 2244=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2245
b45f050a 2246(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2247things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2248expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2249
7253e4e3 2250Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2251C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2252
6df41af2 2253=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2254
be771a83
GS
2255(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2256scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e
LW
2257
2258=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2259
be771a83
GS
2260(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2261setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2262will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2263securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2264
2265=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2266
2267(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2268
2269=item No comma allowed after %s
2270
2271(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2272allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2273Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2274
0a753a76 2275One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2276constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2277importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2278does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2279explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2280L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2281would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2282remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2283constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2284list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2285this error was triggered?
2286
748a9306
LW
2287=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2288
be771a83
GS
2289(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2290redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2291doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2292
a0d0e21e
LW
2293=item No DB::DB routine defined
2294
be771a83
GS
2295(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2296for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2297define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2298is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2299should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
a0d0e21e
LW
2300
2301=item No dbm on this machine
2302
2303(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2304supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2305
2306=item No DBsub routine
2307
2308(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2309but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2310didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2311ordinary subroutine call.
2312
c47ff5f1 2313=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2314
be771a83
GS
2315(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2316redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2317find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2318
49704364
WL
2319=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2320
2321(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2322matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2323
c47ff5f1 2324=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2325
be771a83
GS
2326(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2327redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2328name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2329
6df41af2
GS
2330=item No #! line
2331
2332(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2333even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2334
2335=item "no" not allowed in expression
2336
be771a83
GS
2337(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2338returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2339
c47ff5f1 2340=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2341
be771a83
GS
2342(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2343redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2344doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2345
c47ff5f1 2346=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2347
be771a83
GS
2348(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2349redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2350find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2351
1ec3e8de
GS
2352=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2353
be771a83
GS
2354(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2355declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2356semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2357
a0d0e21e
LW
2358=item No Perl script found in input
2359
2360(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2361with #! and containing the word "perl".
2362
2363=item No setregid available
2364
2365(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2366your system.
2367
2368=item No setreuid available
2369
2370(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2371your system.
2372
a67e862a 2373=item No space allowed after -%c
a0d0e21e 2374
be771a83
GS
2375(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2376immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
a0d0e21e 2377
6df41af2
GS
2378=item No %s specified for -%c
2379
2380(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2381you haven't specified one.
2382
2c692339
RGS
2383=item No such class %s
2384
2385(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration, but
2386this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2387
6df41af2
GS
2388=item No such pipe open
2389
2390(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2391close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2392earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2393
a0d0e21e
LW
2394=item No such signal: SIG%s
2395
be771a83
GS
2396(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2397not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2398names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2399
2400=item Not a CODE reference
2401
2402(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2403subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2404use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2405also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2406
2407=item Not a format reference
2408
2409(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2410format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2411
2412=item Not a GLOB reference
2413
be771a83
GS
2414(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2415symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2416something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2417kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2418
2419=item Not a HASH reference
2420
be771a83
GS
2421(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2422reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2423find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2424
6df41af2
GS
2425=item Not an ARRAY reference
2426
be771a83
GS
2427(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2428a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2429to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2430
a0d0e21e
LW
2431=item Not a perl script
2432
2433(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2434even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2435mention perl.
2436
2437=item Not a SCALAR reference
2438
be771a83
GS
2439(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2440a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2441to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2442
2443=item Not a subroutine reference
2444
2445(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2446subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2447use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2448also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2449
e7ea3e70 2450=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2451
2452(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2453doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2454
a0d0e21e
LW
2455=item Not enough arguments for %s
2456
2457(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2458
6df41af2
GS
2459=item Not enough format arguments
2460
be771a83
GS
2461(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2462supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2463
2464=item %s: not found
2465
be771a83
GS
2466(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2467of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2468yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2469
2470=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2471
6df41af2
GS
2472(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2473timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2474to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2475F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2476need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2477
2478=item Null filename used
2479
be771a83
GS
2480(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2481machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2482
6df41af2
GS
2483=item NULL OP IN RUN
2484
be771a83
GS
2485(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2486pointer.
6df41af2 2487
55497cff 2488=item Null picture in formline
2489
2490(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2491specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2492supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2493
a0d0e21e
LW
2494=item Null realloc
2495
2496(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2497
2498=item NULL regexp argument
2499
5f05dabc 2500(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2501
2502=item NULL regexp parameter
2503
2504(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2505
fc36a67e 2506=item Number too long
2507
be771a83 2508(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 2509about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
2510versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2511the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2512"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2513
6df41af2
GS
2514=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2515
be771a83
GS
2516(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2517The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2518future version.
6df41af2 2519
252aa082
JH
2520=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2521
75b44862 2522(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2523(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2524L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2525
2526See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2527
6ad11d81
JH
2528=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2529
04a80ee0
RGS
2530(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2531arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 2532
b21befc1
MG
2533=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2534
2535(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2536which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2537
1930e939 2538=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2539
be771a83
GS
2540(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2541which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2542
bbce6d69 2543=item Offset outside string
2544
2545(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
be771a83
GS
2546pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2547exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2548the buffer and zero pad the new area.
bbce6d69 2549
9ddeeac9
JH
2550=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2551
2552(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
c289d2f7 2553that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
9ddeeac9 2554
c289d2f7 2555=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
2556
2557(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2558never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2559call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2560
a0d0e21e
LW
2561=item oops: oopsAV
2562
e476b1b5 2563(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2564
2565=item oops: oopsHV
2566
e476b1b5 2567(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2568
56f7f34b 2569=item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2570
be771a83
GS
2571(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2572handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2573of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2574C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2575
748a9306
LW
2576=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2577
be771a83
GS
2578(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2579was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2580use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2581example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2582"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2583
6df41af2
GS
2584=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2585
be771a83
GS
2586(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2587in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2588
a80b8354
GS
2589=item Out of memory!
2590
2591(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2592remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2593no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2594
19a52907
JH
2595At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2596process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2597C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2598the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2599and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2600
6df41af2 2601=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2602
6df41af2
GS
2603(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2604remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2605the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2606possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2607
1b979e0a 2608=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2609
be771a83
GS
2610(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2611insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2612request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2613
2614The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2615depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2616However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2617emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
2618is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2619where the failed request happened.
55497cff 2620
1b979e0a
IZ
2621=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2622
2623(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2624is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2625C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2626
6df41af2
GS
2627=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2628
be771a83
GS
2629(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2630parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2631otherwise.
6df41af2 2632
49704364 2633=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 2634
49704364 2635(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
2636the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2637
2638=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2639
be771a83
GS
2640(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2641package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2642some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2643mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 2644
a0d0e21e
LW
2645=item page overflow
2646
be771a83
GS
2647(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2648page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 2649
6df41af2
GS
2650=item panic: %s
2651
2652(P) An internal error.
2653
a0d0e21e
LW
2654=item panic: ck_grep
2655
2656(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2657
2658=item panic: ck_split
2659
2660(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2661
2662=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2663
be771a83
GS
2664(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2665there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 2666
810b8aa5
GS
2667=item panic: del_backref
2668
2669(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2670reference.
2671
a0d0e21e
LW
2672=item panic: die %s
2673
2674(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2675it wasn't an eval context.
2676
290deeac 2677=item panic: pp_match%s
a0d0e21e 2678
be771a83
GS
2679(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2680data.
a0d0e21e 2681
a0d0e21e
LW
2682=item panic: do_subst
2683
be771a83
GS
2684(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2685data.
a0d0e21e 2686
2269b42e 2687=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 2688
2269b42e 2689(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 2690data.
a0d0e21e 2691
c635e13b 2692=item panic: frexp
2693
2694(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2695
a0d0e21e
LW
2696=item panic: goto
2697
2698(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2699and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2700
2701=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2702
2703(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2704
2705=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2706
2707(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2708
e446cec8
IZ
2709=item panic: kid popen errno read
2710
2711(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2712
a0d0e21e
LW
2713=item panic: last
2714
2715(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2716it wasn't a block context.
2717
2718=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2719
be771a83
GS
2720(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2721scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
2722
2723=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2724
2725(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2726invalid enum on the top of it.
2727
810b8aa5
GS
2728=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2729
2730(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2731references to an object.
2732
6df41af2
GS
2733=item panic: malloc
2734
2735(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2736
a0d0e21e
LW
2737=item panic: mapstart
2738
2739(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2740
2741=item panic: null array
2742
2743(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2744
2745=item panic: pad_alloc
2746
2747(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2748and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2749
2750=item panic: pad_free curpad
2751
2752(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2753and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2754
2755=item panic: pad_free po
2756
2757(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2758
2759=item panic: pad_reset curpad
2760
2761(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2762and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2763
2764=item panic: pad_sv po
2765
2766(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2767
2768=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2769
2770(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2771and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2772
2773=item panic: pad_swipe po
2774
2775(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2776
2777=item panic: pp_iter
2778
2779(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2780
2269b42e
JH
2781=item panic: pp_split
2782
2783(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2784
a0d0e21e
LW
2785=item panic: realloc
2786
2787(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2788
2789=item panic: restartop
2790
2791(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2792didn't supply the destination.
2793
2794=item panic: return
2795
2796(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2797then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2798
2799=item panic: scan_num
2800
2801(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2802
2803=item panic: sv_insert
2804
2805(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2806was string.
2807
2808=item panic: top_env
2809
6224f72b 2810(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e
LW
2811
2812=item panic: yylex
2813
2814(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2815
dea0fc0b
JH
2816=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2817
2818(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 2819to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 2820
7b8d334a 2821=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 2822
e476b1b5 2823(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
2824
2825 my $foo, $bar = @_;
2826
2827when you meant
2828
2829 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2830
54884818 2831Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 2832
75b44862 2833=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
a0d0e21e 2834
be771a83
GS
2835(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2836recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2837you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2838
6df41af2
GS
2839=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2840
2841(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 2842C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2
GS
2843
2844=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2845
2846(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2847
2848 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2849 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2850 LC_ALL = "En_US",
2851 LANG = (unset)
2852 are supported and installed on your system.
2853 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2854
2855Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2856settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
2857This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2858system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2859locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2860dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2861Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2862the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2863you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2864L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 2865
bccbfa77
NC
2866=item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2867
d7133549
RGS
2868(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
2869forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
64977eb6
NC
2870data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2871the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2872If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2873the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2874
d7133549 2875=item perlio: invalid separator character %s in layer specification list %s
64977eb6 2876
d7133549 2877(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
d1be9408 2878colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
64977eb6
NC
2879If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2880list was terminated too soon.
bccbfa77 2881
ef0f9817
DD
2882=item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2883
d7133549 2884(W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
ef0f9817
DD
2885system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2886internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2887are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2888explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2889value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2890
a0d0e21e
LW
2891=item Permission denied
2892
2893(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2894
bd3fa61c 2895=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 2896
be771a83
GS
2897(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2898process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2899fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 2900
49704364 2901=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
2902
2903(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
2904
49704364 2905=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2906
9a0b3859 2907(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
2908I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
2909/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
2910implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
2911cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
2912where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 2913
49704364 2914=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2915
2916(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
2917beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
2918If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2919expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2920backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
2921about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 2922
49704364 2923=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2924
7253e4e3
RK
2925(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2926with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
2927need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
2928character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
2929and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2930problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 2931
49704364 2932=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2933
7253e4e3
RK
2934(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
2935shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
80feea45
JH
2936Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
2937the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
2938not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 2939
a0d0e21e
LW
2940=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2941
81777298 2942(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
a0d0e21e
LW
2943the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2944
bbce6d69 2945=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2946
e476b1b5 2947(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 2948strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
2949literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2950parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2951
774d564b 2952You probably wrote something like this:
2953
54310121 2954 @list = qw(
774d564b 2955 a # a comment
bbce6d69 2956 b # another comment
774d564b 2957 );
bbce6d69 2958
2959when you should have written this:
2960
774d564b 2961 @list = qw(
54310121 2962 a
2963 b
774d564b 2964 );
2965
2966If you really want comments, build your list the
2967old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2968
2969 @list = (
2970 'a', # a comment
2971 'b', # another comment
2972 );
bbce6d69 2973
2974=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2975
be771a83
GS
2976(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2977commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2978different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2979frequently used.)
bbce6d69 2980
54310121 2981You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 2982
774d564b 2983 qw! a, b, c !;
2984
2985which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2986commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 2987
774d564b 2988 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 2989
a0d0e21e
LW
2990=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2991
2992(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2993Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2994end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2995Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2996
276b2a0c
RGS
2997=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
2998
2999(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3000with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3001
3002 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3003
3004This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3005higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3006really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, write
3007C<$x & ($y == 0 ? 1 : 0)>).
3008
18623440
PS
3009=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3010
3011(W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
32b0a12e
AMS
3012but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3013literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3014to the array you apparently lost track of.
18623440 3015
6df41af2
GS
3016=item Possible Y2K bug: %s
3017
3018(W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
3019could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
3020
8cd79558
GS
3021=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3022
a1063b2d 3023(D deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
3024
3025 sub doit
3026 {
3027 use attrs qw(locked);
3028 }
3029
3030You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3031
3032 sub doit : locked
3033 {
3034 ...
3035
3036The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3037backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
3038
a0d0e21e
LW
3039=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3040
e476b1b5 3041(S precedence) The old irregular construct
cb1a09d0 3042
a0d0e21e
LW
3043 open FOO || die;
3044
3045is now misinterpreted as
3046
3047 open(FOO || die);
3048
be771a83
GS
3049because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3050list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3051parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3052of "||".
a0d0e21e 3053
3cdd684c
TP
3054=item Premature end of script headers
3055
3056See Server error.
3057
6df41af2
GS
3058=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3059
be771a83 3060(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3061before now. Check your control flow.
6df41af2 3062
9a7dcd9c 3063=item print() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3064
be771a83 3065(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3066before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3067
6df41af2 3068=item Process terminated by SIG%s
a0d0e21e 3069
6df41af2
GS
3070(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3071applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3072port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3073L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
fecfaeb8 3074in L<perlos2>.
a0d0e21e 3075
3fe9a6f1 3076=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4633a7c4 3077
9a0b3859 3078(S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
be771a83 3079declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4633a7c4 3080
ed9aa3b7
SG
3081=item Prototype not terminated
3082
2a6fd447 3083(F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
ed9aa3b7
SG
3084definition.
3085
49704364 3086=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3087
b45f050a 3088(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
7253e4e3 3089{min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
b45f050a 3090the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
9baa0206 3091
49704364 3092=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
9baa0206 3093
b45f050a
JF
3094(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3095it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3096quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3097"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3098C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
9baa0206 3099
7253e4e3
RK
3100The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3101discovered.
3102
89ea2908
GA
3103=item Range iterator outside integer range
3104
3105(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3106are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
be771a83
GS
3107One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3108by prepending "0" to your numbers.
89ea2908 3109
b5fe5ca2
SR
3110=item read() on closed filehandle %s
3111
3112(W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3113
3114=item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3115
3116(W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3117
9a7dcd9c 3118=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
a0d0e21e 3119
75b44862 3120(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3121before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3122
6df41af2
GS
3123=item Reallocation too large: %lx
3124
3125(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3126
4ad56ec9
IZ
3127=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3128
be771a83
GS
3129(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3130already been freed.
4ad56ec9 3131
a0d0e21e
LW
3132=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3133
be771a83
GS
3134(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3135the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
a0d0e21e
LW
3136which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3137
3e0ccd42 3138=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
a0d0e21e
LW
3139
3140(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
3141an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
3142
7a4340ed 3143=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3e0ccd42 3144
be771a83
GS
3145(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3146a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3147hierarchy.
3e0ccd42 3148
1930e939
TP
3149=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3150
be771a83
GS
3151(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3152with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3153means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3154parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
7b8d334a
GS
3155
3156 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3157 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3158 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3159 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3160
810b8aa5
GS
3161=item Reference is already weak
3162
e476b1b5 3163(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
810b8aa5
GS
3164Doing so has no effect.
3165
a0d0e21e
LW
3166=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3167
be771a83
GS
3168(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3169a reference count of other than 1.
a0d0e21e 3170
49704364 3171=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3172
3173(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3174not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3175wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3176prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
9baa0206 3177
7253e4e3 3178The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a 3179discovered.
9baa0206 3180
a0d0e21e
LW
3181=item regexp memory corruption
3182
3183(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3184expression compiler gave it.
3185
b45f050a 3186=item Regexp out of space
a0d0e21e 3187
be771a83
GS
3188(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3189earlier.
a0d0e21e 3190
49704364 3191=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
7a95317d 3192
be771a83
GS
3193(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3194signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
7a95317d 3195
a0d0e21e
LW
3196=item Reversed %s= operator
3197
be771a83
GS
3198(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3199always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
a0d0e21e
LW
3200
3201=item Runaway format
3202
3203(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
3204produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
3205199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
3206themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
3207shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
3208
3209=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3210
be771a83
GS
3211(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3212single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3213value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3214behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3215argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3216and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3217if you're expecting only one subscript.
a0d0e21e 3218
748a9306 3219On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
5f05dabc 3220element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
748a9306
LW
3221Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3222L<perlref>.
3223
a6006777 3224=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3225
75b44862 3226(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
be771a83
GS
3227element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3228(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3229like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3230argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3231and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3232if you're expecting only one subscript.
3233
3234On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3235as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3236not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
a6006777 3237L<perlref>.
3238
3e2f796a
NIS
3239=item Scalars leaked: %d
3240
3241(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3242not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3243What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3244especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3245
a0d0e21e
LW
3246=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3247
54310121 3248(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3249or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
a0d0e21e
LW
3250
3251=item Search pattern not terminated
3252
3253(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3254construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
fb73857a 3255Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
a0d0e21e 3256
0cb1bcd7 3257Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
5d9c98cd
JH
3258construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3259in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3260misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3261
9ddeeac9 3262=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
a0d0e21e 3263
be771a83
GS
3264(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3265filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
a0d0e21e
LW
3266
3267=item select not implemented
3268
3269(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3270
ae21d580 3271=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
68a4a7e4 3272
ae21d580
JH
3273(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3274the current implementation.
68a4a7e4 3275
6df41af2 3276=item Semicolon seems to be missing
a0d0e21e 3277
75b44862
GS
3278(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3279semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
a0d0e21e
LW
3280
3281=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3282
be771a83
GS
3283(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3284scalar that had previously been marked as free.
a0d0e21e 3285
6df41af2 3286=item sem%s not implemented
a0d0e21e 3287
6df41af2 3288(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
a0d0e21e 3289
69282e91 3290=item send() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 3291
be771a83 3292(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
c289d2f7 3293before now. Check your control flow.
a0d0e21e 3294
7253e4e3 3295=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
7b8d334a 3296
7253e4e3 3297(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
b45f050a 3298shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
be771a83 3299L<perlre>.
1b1626e4 3300
49704364 3301=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3302
3303(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
7253e4e3
RK
3304for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3305the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3306L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3307
49704364 3308=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3309
b45f050a 3310(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
7253e4e3 3311has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
b45f050a
JF
3312where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3313
49704364 3314=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 3315
7253e4e3
RK
3316(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3317<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3318discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 3319
49704364 3320=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
3321
3322(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
7253e4e3
RK
3323parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3324the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3325L<perlre>.
6df41af2
GS
3326
3327=item 500 Server error
3328
3329See Server error.
3330
a5f75d66
AD
3331=item Server error
3332
3cdd684c 3333This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
be771a83
GS
3334to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3335varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3336are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3337contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3338produce a valid header".
9607fc9c 3339
3340B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3341
be771a83
GS
3342You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3343user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3344account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3345(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3346location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3347Please see the following for more information:
9607fc9c 3348
06a5f41f
JH
3349 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
3350 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
3351 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
a5f75d66 3352
be94a901
GS
3353You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3354
a0d0e21e
LW
3355=item setegid() not implemented
3356
be771a83
GS
3357(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3358support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3359didn't think so.
a0d0e21e
LW
3360
3361=item seteuid() not implemented
3362
be771a83
GS
3363(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3364support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Co