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perldiag: an number -> a number
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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
d1d15184 11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
de42a5a9 53=item Allocation too large: %x
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous overloaded argument to %s resolved as %s
80
81(W ambiguous) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> on an object that had
82overloading of C<%{}> or C<@{}> or both. In such a case, the object is
83dereferenced according to its overloading, not its underlying reference type.
84The warning is issued when C<%{}> overloading exists on a blessed arrayref,
85when C<@{}> overloading exists on a blessed hashref, or when both overloadings
86are defined (in which case C<%{}> is used). You can force the interpretation
c69ca1d4 87of the object by explicitly dereferencing it as an array or hash instead of
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88passing the object itself to C<keys>, C<values> or C<each>.
89
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90=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
91
92(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
93all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
94first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
95C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
96
6df41af2 97=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 98
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99(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
100you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
101a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 102
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103=item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
104
105(W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
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106bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
107(denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
108like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
109assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
110clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
111really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
d8225693 112
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113=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
114
115(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
116asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
117named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
118the varable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
119function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
120and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
121
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122=item Ambiguous use of %c{%s%s} resolved to %c%s%s
123
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124(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo
125represents the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for
126element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write
127C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to
128the function named foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it
129returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
130
131In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
132to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
133C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length>
134followed by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what
135you want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/>
136to the unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to
137something that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by
138simply turning off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
4da60377 139
bdac9d71 140=item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
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141
142(W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
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143string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
144the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
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145write C<-foo()>.
146
6df41af2 147=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 148
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149(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
150redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
151redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 152
6df41af2 153=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 154
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155(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
156redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
157into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
158though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
159which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 160
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161 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
162 while (<STDIN>) {
163 print;
164 print OUT;
165 }
166 close OUT;
c9f97d15 167
6df41af2 168=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 169
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170(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
171transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
be771a83 172one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
ac036724 173a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
174hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
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175you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
176alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 177
6df41af2 178=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 179
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180(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
181with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
182impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
183for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 184
6df41af2 185=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 186
6df41af2 187(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 188
b0fdf69e 189=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
a0d0e21e 190
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191(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
192subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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193
194 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 195 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 196 &do_something
a0d0e21e 197
8ea97a1e 198=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 199
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200(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
201such as:
5f05dabc 202
203 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 204 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 205
8ea97a1e 206or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 207
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208 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
209 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 210
6df41af2 211=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 212
6df41af2 213(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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214name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
215error.
a0d0e21e 216
f86702cc 217=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 218
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219(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
220that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
221will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 222
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223=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
224
225(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
226forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
227data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
228the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
229If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
230the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
231
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232=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
233
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234(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
235spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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236
237=item assertion botched: %s
238
239(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
240
241=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
242
243(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
244
245=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
246
247(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
248must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
249know which context to supply to the right side.
250
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251=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
252
4447dfc1 253(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
96ebfdd7 254thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
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255Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
256created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
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257thread. See L<threads>.
258
2393f1b9 259=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 260
49293501 261(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 262the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 263
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264=item Attempt to bless into a reference
265
266(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
267the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
268supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
269
270 bless $self, $proto;
271
272when you intended
273
274 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
275
276If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
277of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
278example by:
279
280 bless $self, "$proto";
281
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282=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
283
284(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
285which is not in its key set.
286
287=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
288
289(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
290declared readonly from a restricted hash.
291
de42a5a9 292=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
a0d0e21e 293
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294(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
295that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
296outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 297
54310121 298=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 299
111a855e 300(P internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
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301strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
302strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
303of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 304
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305=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
306
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307(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
308free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
309SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
310free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
311try to free it.
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312
313=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
314
e476b1b5 315(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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316
317=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
318
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319(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
320see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
321earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
322This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
323that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
324mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
325corrupted.
a0d0e21e 326
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327=item Attempt to join self
328
329(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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330impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
331to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 332
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333=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
334
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335(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
336function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
337means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
338invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
339literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
340avoid this warning.
84902520 341
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342=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
343
344(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
345compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
346unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
347L<perlvar/%INC>.
348
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349=item Attempt to set length of freed array
350
351(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
352can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
353of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
354
355 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
356 $$r = 503
357
b7a902f4 358=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
359
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360(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
361used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
362dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 363
c32124fe
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364=item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
365
111a855e 366(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the "locked"
c32124fe 367attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
a5547419 368effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in a future
c32124fe
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369release of Perl 5.
370
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371=item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
372
111a855e 373(D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the "unique"
b7a2910f 374attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
a5547419
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375had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in a future release
376of Perl 5.
f1a3ce43 377
de42a5a9 378=item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
a0d0e21e 379
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380(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
381or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 382S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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383S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
384
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385=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
386
496a33f5 387(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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388substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
389most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
390
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391=item Bad filehandle: %s
392
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393(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
394symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
395open(), or did it in another package.
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396
397=item Bad free() ignored
398
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399(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
400been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 401setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 402
9ea8bc6d 403This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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404dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
405which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 406
aa689395 407=item Bad hash
408
409(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
410
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411=item Badly placed ()'s
412
413(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
414of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
415Perl yourself.
416
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417=item Bad name after %s::
418
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419(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
420didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
421of quotes, so
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422
423 $var = 'myvar';
424 $sym = mypack::$var;
425
426is not the same as
427
428 $var = 'myvar';
429 $sym = "mypack::$var";
430
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431=item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
432
433(F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
434plugin API.
435
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436=item Bad realloc() ignored
437
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438(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
439never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
4dcecea4 440by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 441
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442=item Bad symbol for array
443
444(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
445wasn't a symbol table entry.
446
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447=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
448
449(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
450that wasn't a symbol table entry.
451
452
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453=item Bad symbol for filehandle
454
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455(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
456that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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457
458=item Bad symbol for hash
459
460(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
461wasn't a symbol table entry.
462
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463=item Bareword found in conditional
464
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465(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
466conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
467of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
34d09196
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468
469 open FOO || die;
470
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471It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
472a bareword:
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473
474 use constant TYPO => 1;
475 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
476
477The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
478
6df41af2
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479=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
480
481(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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482subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
483symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
6df41af2
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484
485=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
486
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487(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
488compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
489you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 490
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491=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
492
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493(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
494subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
495exited.
a0d0e21e 496
68dc0745 497=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
498
499(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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500implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
501occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
502be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
503depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 504
6df41af2
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505=item \1 better written as $1
506
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507(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
508The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
509substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
510because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
511there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 512
252aa082
JH
513=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
514
e476b1b5 515(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
516(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
517L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 518
69282e91 519=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 520
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521(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
522check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 523
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524=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
525
526(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
4dcecea4 527Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 528
f866a7cd
FC
529=item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
530
531=item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
532
533(W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
534C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
535itself in a future release.
536
c5a0f51a
JH
537=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
538
e476b1b5 539(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 540
4633a7c4
LW
541=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
542
be771a83 543(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
4dcecea4 544copiable.
4633a7c4 545
f675dbe5
CB
546=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
547
be771a83
GS
548(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
549iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
550which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 551
a0d0e21e
LW
552=item Callback called exit
553
4929bf7b 554(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
a0d0e21e
LW
555exited by calling exit.
556
6df41af2 557=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 558
be771a83
GS
559(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
560parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
561that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
562early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
563subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
564checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
565function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
566the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 567
49704364 568=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
569
570(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
571compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
572attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
573See L<perlfunc/pack>.
574
49704364 575=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
576
577(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
578format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
579
5c1f4d79
NC
580=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
581
582(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
583then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
584triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
585from that type of reference to a typeglob.
586
ba2fdce6
NC
587=item Cannot copy to %s in %s
588
589(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
4dcecea4 590be directly assigned to.
ba2fdce6 591
b5d97229
RGS
592=item Cannot find encoding "%s"
593
594(S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
595either with open() or binmode().
596
96ebfdd7
RK
597=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
598
599(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
600integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
601to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
602
a0d0e21e
LW
603=item Can't bless non-reference value
604
605(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
606encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
607
dc57907a
RGS
608=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
609
0d863452
RH
610(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
611a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
612
613=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 614
0d863452
RH
615(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
616
6df41af2
GS
617=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
618
619(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
620object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
621like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
622
623 $BADREF = undef;
624 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
625 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
626
a0d0e21e
LW
627=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
628
54310121 629(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
630ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
631didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
632object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
633
634=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
635
636(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
637object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
638defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
639Something like this will reproduce the error:
640
641 $BADREF = 42;
642 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
643 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
644
a0d0e21e
LW
645=item Can't chdir to %s
646
647(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
648that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
649
0545a864 650=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 651
be771a83
GS
652(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
653nosuid.
104d25b7 654
22e74366 655=item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
a0d0e21e
LW
656
657(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 658(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
659say things like:
660
661 *foo += 1;
662
663You CAN say
664
665 $foo = *foo;
666 $foo += 1;
667
668but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
669
0d863452 670=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 671
0d863452
RH
672(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
673or C<default> block.
674
a0d0e21e
LW
675=item Can't create pipe mailbox
676
be771a83
GS
677(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
678quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 679
eb64745e
GS
680=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
681
30c282f6
NC
682(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
683"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 684
6df41af2
GS
685=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
686
be771a83
GS
687(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
688a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 689
a0d0e21e
LW
690=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
691
be771a83
GS
692(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
693reason.
a0d0e21e 694
54310121 695=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 696
be771a83
GS
697(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
698reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
699C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 700
10f9c03d 701=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 702
e476b1b5 703(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
704characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
705inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 706
7253e4e3 707=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 708
b45f050a 709(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 710regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 711regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 712
a0d0e21e
LW
713=item Can't do waitpid with flags
714
be771a83
GS
715(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
716waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 717
a0d0e21e
LW
718=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
719
be771a83
GS
720(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
721point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
722line.
a0d0e21e 723
1109a392
MHM
724=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
725
726(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
727or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
728little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
729See L<perlfunc/pack>.
730
a0d0e21e
LW
731=item Can't exec "%s": %s
732
d1be9408 733(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
734named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
735permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
736C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
737architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
738can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
739#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
740
741=item Can't exec %s
742
be771a83
GS
743(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
744that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
745need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
746
747=item Can't execute %s
748
be771a83
GS
749(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
750found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 751
6df41af2 752=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 753
be771a83
GS
754(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
755is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 756
56ca2fc0
JH
757=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
758
759(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
e1b711da
KW
760could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
761See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
762for a complete list of available properties.
56ca2fc0 763
6df41af2
GS
764=item Can't find label %s
765
be771a83
GS
766(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
767possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
768
769=item Can't find %s on PATH
770
be771a83
GS
771(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
772found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 773
6df41af2 774=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 775
be771a83
GS
776(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
777found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
778script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
779
780=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
781
be771a83
GS
782(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
783that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
784nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 785
fb73857a 786 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
787
be771a83
GS
788If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
789unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
790editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 791
660a4616
TS
792=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
793
5f8ad6b6
FC
794(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
795property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
796letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
e1b711da 797L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
5f8ad6b6
FC
798for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
799mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by C<\\p>
800(just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
801until C<\E>).
660a4616 802
b3647a36 803=item Can't fork: %s
a0d0e21e 804
be771a83
GS
805(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
806pipeline.
a0d0e21e 807
b3647a36
SR
808=item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
809
c973c02e 810(W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
b3647a36
SR
811after five seconds.
812
748a9306
LW
813=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
814
be771a83
GS
815(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
816between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
817Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
818the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
819account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
820the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
2fe2bdfd 821the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
be771a83
GS
822the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
823if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
824because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
2fe2bdfd
FC
825appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
826and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
be771a83
GS
827routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
828shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
829only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 830
a0d0e21e
LW
831=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
832
be771a83
GS
833(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
834pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
835
836=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
837
748a9306
LW
838(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
839mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 840
6df41af2 841=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 842
be771a83
GS
843(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
844loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
845
846=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
847
be771a83
GS
848(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
849a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
850you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
851See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 852
9850bf21 853=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 854
9850bf21
RH
855(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
856comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
857as the reduce() function in List::Util).
858
c74ace89 859=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 860
be771a83 861(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 862"string" or block.
b150fb22 863
6df41af2
GS
864=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
865
be771a83
GS
866(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
867subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
868cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
869routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 870
0b5b802d
GS
871=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
872
be771a83
GS
873(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
874signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
875signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
876processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
877situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
878may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 879
e2c0f81f
DG
880=item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
881
882(F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
883attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
884process identifier.
885
6df41af2 886=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 887
6df41af2 888(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
889except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
890block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
891block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
892usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
893inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
894L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 895
2c7d6b9c
RGS
896=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
897
898(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
899package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
900
b8170e59
JB
901=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
902
903(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
904may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
905incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
906between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
16d98ec5 907extension was built against an older version of the library that is
b8170e59
JB
908installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
909extensions.
910
748a9306
LW
911=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
912
2ba9eb46 913(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
30c282f6 914lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
748a9306
LW
915localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
916package name.
917
6df41af2 918=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 919
6df41af2
GS
920(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
921handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 922pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 923that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 924
ea071790 925=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
926
927(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
928found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
929unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
930need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
931the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
932to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
933L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 934
6df41af2
GS
935=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
936
be771a83
GS
937(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
938autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
939are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
940the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 941
b8170e59
JB
942=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
943
944(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
945for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
946unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
947
a0d0e21e
LW
948=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
949
950(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
951functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 952method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
953
954=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
955
be771a83
GS
956(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
957doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 958
2f7da168
RK
959=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
960
961(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
962e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
963
3e3baf6d
TB
964=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
965
be771a83
GS
966(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
967VMS.
3e3baf6d 968
a0d0e21e
LW
969=item Can't modify %s in %s
970
be771a83
GS
971(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
972to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 973
54310121 974=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
975
976(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
977a NULL.
978
6df41af2
GS
979=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
980
981(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
2fe2bdfd 982such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
6df41af2 983
5f05dabc 984=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 985
5f05dabc 986(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
987buffer.
988
6df41af2
GS
989=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
990
991(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
992there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
993count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
994grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
995though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
996once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 997
a0d0e21e
LW
998=item Can't open %s: %s
999
c47ff5f1 1000(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
1001filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1002switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
1003is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1004the command line.
a0d0e21e 1005
9a869a14
RGS
1006=item Can't open a reference
1007
1008(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
2fe2bdfd 1009using the 3-arg open() syntax:
9a869a14
RGS
1010
1011 open FH, '>', $ref;
1012
1013but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1014open is not supported.
1015
a0d0e21e
LW
1016=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1017
be771a83
GS
1018(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1019You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1020as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1021">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 1022
748a9306
LW
1023=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1024
be771a83
GS
1025(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1026redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1027the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1028
1029=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1030
be771a83
GS
1031(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1032redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1033command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
1034
1035=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1036
be771a83
GS
1037(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1038redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1039the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
1040
1041=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1042
be771a83
GS
1043(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1044redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1045for stdout.
748a9306 1046
2b8ca739 1047=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1048
1049(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1050
fa3aa65a
JC
1051If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1052shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1053you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1054
6df41af2
GS
1055=item Can't read CRTL environ
1056
1057(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1058from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1059missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1060or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1061searched.
6df41af2 1062
6df41af2
GS
1063=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1064
1065(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1066there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1067count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1068or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1069though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1070loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1071
64977eb6 1072=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1073
be771a83
GS
1074(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1075file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1076the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1077
a0d0e21e
LW
1078=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1079
e476b1b5 1080(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1081probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1082
748a9306
LW
1083=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1084
be771a83
GS
1085(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1086to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1087
fe13d51d 1088=item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
6df41af2 1089
be771a83
GS
1090(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1091to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
2fe2bdfd 1092the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1093
cd06dffe
GS
1094=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1095
be771a83
GS
1096(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1097temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1098is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1099
96ebfdd7
RK
1100=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1101
1102(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1103there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1104
78f9721b
SM
1105=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1106
1107(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1108but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1109to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1110the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1111list context.
1112
a0d0e21e
LW
1113=item Can't stat script "%s"
1114
be771a83
GS
1115(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1116open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e 1117
a0d0e21e
LW
1118=item Can't take log of %g
1119
fb73857a 1120(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1121negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1122standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1123negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1124
1125=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1126
1127(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1128negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1129with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1130
1131=item Can't undef active subroutine
1132
1133(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1134however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1135redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1136
c81225bc 1137=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1138
be771a83
GS
1139(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1140into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1141specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1142indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1143
1db89ea5
BS
1144=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1145
e27ad1f2 1146(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1147table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1148for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1149
96ebfdd7
RK
1150=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1151
1152(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1153be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1154
6df41af2
GS
1155=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1156
be771a83
GS
1157(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1158references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1159
90b75b61 1160=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1161
1162(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1163Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1164provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1165
1109a392
MHM
1166=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1167
1168(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1169byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1170allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1171
6df41af2
GS
1172=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1173
be771a83
GS
1174(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1175foreach.
6df41af2 1176
aab6a793 1177=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1178
be771a83
GS
1179(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1180is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1181(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1182have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1183weren't.
1184
6d3b25aa
RGS
1185=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1186
1187(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1188that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1189For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1190is inside a big-endian group.
1191
c07a80fd 1192=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1193
1194(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1195You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1196and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1197Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1198lexical variable.
1199
a0d0e21e
LW
1200=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1201
1202(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1203reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1204test the type of the reference, if need be.
1205
748a9306 1206=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1207
be771a83
GS
1208(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1209references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1210
748a9306
LW
1211=item Can't use subscript on %s
1212
1213(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1214subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1215didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1216
6df41af2
GS
1217=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1218
75b44862
GS
1219(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1220creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1221backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1222expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1223value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1224instead.
6df41af2 1225
0d863452 1226=item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
dc57907a 1227
0d863452
RH
1228(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1229loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1230from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1231or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1232
810b8aa5
GS
1233=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1234
1235(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1236references can be weakened.
1237
5f05dabc 1238=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1239
be771a83
GS
1240(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1241with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1242Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1243
4a68bf9d 1244=item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
f9d13529 1245
17a3df4c
KW
1246(F|W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1247It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.16. In the
1248cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1249derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1250
1251Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
f9d13529 1252
f337b084 1253=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1254
1255(W pack) You said
1256
1257 pack("C", $x)
1258
1259where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1260only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1261and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1262
1263 pack("C", $x & 255)
1264
1265If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1266instead.
1267
f337b084
TH
1268=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1269
1270(W pack) You said
1271
1272 pack("U0W", $x)
1273
1274where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1275all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1276meant:
1277
1278 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1279
1280=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1281
1282(W pack) You said
1283
1284 pack("c", $x)
1285
1286where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1287is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1288and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1289
1290 pack("c", $x & 255);
1291
1292If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1293instead.
1294
f337b084
TH
1295=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1296
1297(W unpack) You tried something like
1298
1299 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1300
1a147d38 1301where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
f337b084
TH
1302below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1303modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1304
1305 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1306
1307=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1308
1309(W pack) You tried something like
1310
1311 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1312
1a147d38
YO
1313where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1314value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1315uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1316
1317 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1318
1319=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1320
1321(W unpack) You tried something like
1322
1323 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1324
1a147d38
YO
1325where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1326value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1327uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1328
1329 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1330
f866a7cd
FC
1331=item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1332
1333(D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1334to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1335evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
1336ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.16. Just use a
1337semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1338
1339=item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1340
1341(W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1342non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1343written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1344characters.
1345
96ebfdd7
RK
1346=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1347
1348(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1349
abc7ecad
SP
1350=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1351
1352(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1353a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1354
541ed3a9
FC
1355=item Closure prototype called
1356
1357(F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1358handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1359This subroutine cannot be called.
1360
49704364
WL
1361=item Code missing after '/'
1362
1363(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1364template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1365
0876b9a0
KW
1366=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1367
9ae3ac1a
KW
1368=item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, no properties match it; all inverse properties do
1369
0876b9a0
KW
1370(W utf8) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum of U+10FFFF.
1371
1372Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code
1373points, up to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on
1374your system, but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems.
1375At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
13760x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require
1377larger than a 32 bit word.
1378
9ae3ac1a
KW
1379None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1380code point. For example,
1381
1382 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1383
1384will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1385
1386 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1387
1388will match.
1389
6df41af2
GS
1390=item %s: Command not found
1391
be771a83
GS
1392(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1393Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1394
7a2e2cd6 1395=item Compilation failed in require
1396
1397(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1398Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1399encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1400
c3464db5
DD
1401=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1402
be771a83
GS
1403(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1404situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1405to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1406arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1407recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1408under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1409in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1410that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1411on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1412
38875929
DM
1413=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1414
1415(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1416cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
a568ca76 1417function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
38875929 1418cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
a568ca76
FC
1419has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread
1420first to wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
38875929
DM
1421after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1422lock.
1423
38875929
DM
1424=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1425
1426(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1427cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
a568ca76 1428function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
38875929 1429cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
a568ca76
FC
1430has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread
1431first to wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
38875929
DM
1432after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1433lock.
1434
69282e91 1435=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1436
be771a83
GS
1437(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1438to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1439L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1440
41ab332f 1441=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1442
be771a83
GS
1443(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1444an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1445specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1446corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1447L<overload>.
6df41af2 1448
fc8cd66c
YO
1449=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1450
1a147d38
YO
1451(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1452the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1453forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1454See L<charnames>.
1455
1456
779c5bc9
GS
1457=item Constant is not %s reference
1458
1459(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1460is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1461The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1462usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1463See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1464
4cee8e80
CS
1465=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1466
bb028877 1467(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
be771a83
GS
1468eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1469commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1470
9607fc9c 1471=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1472
be771a83
GS
1473(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1474for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1475workarounds.
9607fc9c 1476
e7ea3e70
IZ
1477=item Copy method did not return a reference
1478
64977eb6 1479(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1480L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1481
6798c92b
GS
1482=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1483
1484(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1485
a0d0e21e
LW
1486=item corrupted regexp pointers
1487
1488(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1489expression compiler gave it.
1490
1491=item corrupted regexp program
1492
be771a83
GS
1493(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1494valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1495
de42a5a9 1496=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
6df41af2
GS
1497
1498(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1499
49704364
WL
1500=item Count after length/code in unpack
1501
1502(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1503you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1504L<perlfunc/pack>.
1505
a0d0e21e
LW
1506=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1507
be771a83
GS
1508(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1509100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1510infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1511which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1512
aad1d01f
NC
1513This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1514setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1515
f10b0346 1516=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1517
be771a83
GS
1518(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1519checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1520array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1521
f10b0346 1522=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1523
be771a83
GS
1524(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1525checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1526is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1527
62658f4d
PM
1528=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1529
1530(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1531there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1532
fc36a67e 1533=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1534
be771a83
GS
1535(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1536long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1537that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1538
4a68bf9d 1539=item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
cb233ae3
KW
1540
1541(D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
5fca8acb
FC
1542But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1543are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1544and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1545parentheses or colons.
cb233ae3 1546
6d3b25aa
RGS
1547=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1548
1549(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1550There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1551not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1552conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1553static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1554relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1555declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1556
6d3b25aa
RGS
1557 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1558
1559becomes
1560
1561 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1562
36fb85f3
RGS
1563Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1564have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1565
1566 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1567
500ab966
RGS
1568=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1569
1570(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1571just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1572to create a dangling reference.
1573
3cdd684c
TP
1574=item Did not produce a valid header
1575
1576See Server error.
1577
6df41af2
GS
1578=item %s did not return a true value
1579
1580(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1581it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1582traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1583do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1584
cc507455 1585=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1586
413ff9f6
FC
1587(W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1588some such.
4633a7c4 1589
cc507455 1590=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1591
be771a83
GS
1592(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1593variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1594seems superfluous.
33633739 1595
cc507455 1596=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1597
be771a83
GS
1598(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1599@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1600carried away.
748a9306 1601
7e1af8bc 1602=item Died
5f05dabc 1603
1604(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
075b00aa 1605you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5f05dabc 1606
3cdd684c
TP
1607=item Document contains no data
1608
1609See Server error.
1610
62658f4d
PM
1611=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1612
1613(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1614define a C<$VERSION.>
1615
49704364
WL
1616=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1617
1618(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1619See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1620
a0d0e21e
LW
1621=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1622
1623(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1624
1625=item do_study: out of memory
1626
1627(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1628
6df41af2
GS
1629=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1630
56da5a46
RGS
1631(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1632"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1633name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1634because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1635"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1636something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1637subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1638"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1639
ac206dc8
RGS
1640=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1641
1642(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1643qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1644
84d78eb7
YO
1645=item dump is not supported
1646
1647(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1648
a0d0e21e
LW
1649=item Duplicate free() ignored
1650
be771a83
GS
1651(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1652already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1653
1109a392
MHM
1654=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1655
1656(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1657in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1658
4633a7c4
LW
1659=item elseif should be elsif
1660
56da5a46
RGS
1661(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1662ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1663"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1664unlikely to be what you want.
1665
ab13f0c7
JH
1666=item Empty %s
1667
af6f566e
HS
1668(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1669described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1670a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1671
85ab1d1d 1672=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1673
85ab1d1d 1674(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1675effective uids or gids failed.
1676
c038024b
RGS
1677=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1678
1679(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1680aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1681program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1682
748a9306
LW
1683=item Error converting file specification %s
1684
5f05dabc 1685(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1686specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1687single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1688an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1689conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1690
e4d48cc9
GS
1691=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1692
be771a83
GS
1693(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1694expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1695is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1696
fc8f615e 1697=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
e4d48cc9 1698
be771a83
GS
1699(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1700C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
f11307f5
FC
1701pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1702it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1703C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1704interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1705L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1706
6df41af2
GS
1707=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1708
be771a83
GS
1709(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1710assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1711pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1712
1a147d38
YO
1713=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1714
1715(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1716any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1717
1718The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1719discovered.
1720
fc36a67e 1721=item Excessively long <> operator
1722
1723(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1724Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1725filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1726variable and glob that.
1727
ed9aa3b7
SG
1728=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1729
af8bb25a
FC
1730(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
1731OS. See L<perlport>.
ed9aa3b7 1732
fe13d51d 1733=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
a0d0e21e
LW
1734
1735(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1736
1737=item Exiting eval via %s
1738
be771a83
GS
1739(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1740goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1741
1742=item Exiting format via %s
1743
9a2ff54b 1744(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1745goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1746
0a753a76 1747=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1748
be771a83
GS
1749(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1750sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1751loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1752
a0d0e21e
LW
1753=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1754
be771a83
GS
1755(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1756as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1757
1758=item Exiting substitution via %s
1759
be771a83
GS
1760(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1761as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1762
7b8d334a
GS
1763=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1764
be771a83
GS
1765(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1766the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1767usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1768e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1769
6df41af2
GS
1770=item %s: Expression syntax
1771
be771a83
GS
1772(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1773Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1774
1775=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1776
3c10abe3
AG
1777(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1778CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1779queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1780
7253e4e3 1781=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1782
be771a83 1783(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1784character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1785in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1786"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1787problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1788
1b1ee2ef 1789=item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1790
be771a83
GS
1791(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1792system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1793details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1794you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1795
1796=item fcntl is not implemented
1797
1798(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1799PDP-11 or something?
1800
22846ab4
AB
1801=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1802
1803(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1804is not possible.
1805
f337b084
TH
1806=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1807
1808(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1809which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1810a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
5c96f6f7 1811C<u63> as the format.
f337b084 1812
af8c498a 1813=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1814
6c8d78fb
HS
1815(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1816it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1817"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1818write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1819
af8c498a 1820=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1821
6c8d78fb
HS
1822(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1823you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
89a1bda8
FC
1824with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1825read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1826is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1827output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1828
1829=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1830
1831(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1832as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1833previously.
1834
1835=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1836
1837(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1838as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1839
1840=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1841
1842(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1843a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1844happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1845name.
a0d0e21e 1846
56e90b21
GS
1847=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1848
be771a83 1849(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1850some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1851filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1852same name?
56e90b21 1853
6df41af2
GS
1854=item Format not terminated
1855
1856(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1857to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1858
a0d0e21e
LW
1859=item Format %s redefined
1860
e476b1b5 1861(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1862
1863 {
271595cc 1864 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1865 eval "format NAME =...";
1866 }
1867
a0d0e21e
LW
1868=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1869
e476b1b5 1870(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1871
1872 if ($foo = 123)
1873
1874when you meant
1875
1876 if ($foo == 123)
1877
1878(or something like that).
1879
6df41af2
GS
1880=item %s found where operator expected
1881
56da5a46
RGS
1882(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1883If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1884operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1885operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1886
a0d0e21e
LW
1887=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1888
1889(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1890
1891=item gethostent not implemented
1892
1893(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1894because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1895on the Internet.
1896
69282e91 1897=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1898
be771a83
GS
1899(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1900socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1901
748a9306
LW
1902=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1903
1904(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1905C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1906
6df41af2
GS
1907=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1908
be771a83
GS
1909(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1910forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1911L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1912
1913=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1914
a4edf47d 1915(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1916that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1917declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1918which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1919
e476b1b5
GS
1920=item glob failed (%s)
1921
be771a83
GS
1922(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1923C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1924C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1925nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1926resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1927broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1928config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1929were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1930empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1931think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1932C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1933
a0d0e21e
LW
1934=item Glob not terminated
1935
1936(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1937a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1938not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1939earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1940
bcd05b94 1941=item gmtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 1942
e9200be3 1943(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
fc003d4b
MS
1944it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1945date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1946not-a-number value).
1947
bcd05b94 1948=item gmtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 1949
e9200be3 1950(W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
fc003d4b
MS
1951it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1952date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1953not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 1954
6df41af2 1955=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1956
6df41af2
GS
1957(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1958version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1959
1960=item goto must have label
1961
1962(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1963unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1964
49704364 1965=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 1966
bca4a986
FC
1967(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
1968something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 1969
fe13d51d 1970=item %s had compilation errors.
6df41af2
GS
1971
1972(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1973
a0d0e21e
LW
1974=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1975
be771a83
GS
1976(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1977to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1978created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1979
1980=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1981
be771a83
GS
1982(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1983spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1984
6df41af2
GS
1985=item %s has too many errors
1986
1987(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1988Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1989
e6897b1a
KW
1990=item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
1991
1992(D syntax)
1993
1994You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following a pattern
1995without an intervening space. For example, the two constructs:
1996
1997 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
1998 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
1999
21356872
FC
2000both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow the first
2001form in Perl 5.16. And,
e6897b1a
KW
2002
2003 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
2004
2005will be disallowed too.
2006
252aa082
JH
2007=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2008
e476b1b5 2009(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
2010(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2011L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 2012
8903cb82 2013=item Identifier too long
2014
2015(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 2016about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
2017names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2018of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 2019
c3c41406 2020=item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
fc8cd66c 2021
ff3f963a
KW
2022(W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
2023zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1a147d38 2024its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
2025been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2026
6df41af2 2027=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 2028
6df41af2 2029(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 2030
6df41af2 2031=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 2032
be771a83
GS
2033(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2034binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2035offending digit.
a0d0e21e 2036
78d0fecf 2037=item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
4fdae800 2038
d5898338 2039(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
2040would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2041when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2042version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2043to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 2044
d37a9538
ST
2045=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2046
197afce1 2047(W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2e9cc7ef 2048Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
d37a9538 2049
904d85c5
RGS
2050=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2051
2052(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2053you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2054
8e742a20
MHM
2055=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2056
2057(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2058
a0d0e21e
LW
2059=item Illegal division by zero
2060
be771a83
GS
2061(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2062your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2063meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 2064
6df41af2
GS
2065=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2066
be771a83
GS
2067(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2068A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2069number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 2070
a0d0e21e
LW
2071=item Illegal modulus zero
2072
be771a83
GS
2073(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2074numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 2075
6df41af2 2076=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 2077
6df41af2
GS
2078(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2079two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
2080
2081=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 2082
d1be9408 2083(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 2084
399388f4 2085=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 2086
d1be9408 2087(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 2088Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 2089
fe13d51d 2090=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
6ff81951 2091
6df41af2 2092(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 2093following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 2094
6df41af2 2095=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 2096
75b44862 2097(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
2098internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2099delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 2100
6df41af2 2101=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 2102
be771a83
GS
2103(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2104name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2105didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2106ignored.
54310121 2107
6df41af2 2108=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 2109
be771a83
GS
2110(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2111the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2112system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2113times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2114would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 2115
be771a83
GS
2116Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2117also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 2118
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2119=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2120
2121(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2122C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2123documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2124
979699d9
JH
2125=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2126
2127(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2128Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2129encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2130
1a147d38
YO
2131=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2132
2133(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2134text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2135either consume text or fail.
2136
2137The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2138discovered.
2139
6dbe9451
NC
2140=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2141
2142(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2143of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2144C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2145as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2146
a0d0e21e
LW
2147=item Insecure dependency in %s
2148
8b1a09fc 2149(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2150The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2151setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2152tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2153from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2154such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2155L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2156
2157=item Insecure directory in %s
2158
be771a83
GS
2159(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2160setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2161the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2162See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2163
62f468fc 2164=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2165
2166(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2167setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2168C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2169supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2170the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2171
b9ef414d
FC
2172=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2173
2174(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2175or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2176integers for your architecture.
2177
a7ae9550
GS
2178=item Integer overflow in %s number
2179
75b44862 2180(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2181either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2182your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2183On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2184representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
21850b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2186transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2187internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2188operations.
bbce6d69 2189
46314c13
JP
2190=item Integer overflow in version
2191
2192(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2193size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2194because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2195element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2196trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2197100/9.
2198
7253e4e3 2199=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2200
2201(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2202The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2203discovered.
2204
748a9306
LW
2205=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2206
be771a83
GS
2207(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2208you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2209to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2210L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2211Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2212terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2213
7253e4e3 2214=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2215
7253e4e3
RK
2216(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2217<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2218discovered.
a0d0e21e 2219
6df41af2
GS
2220=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2221
75b44862 2222(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2223followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2224operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2225L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2226
09bef843
SB
2227=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2228
a4a4c9e2 2229(F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
09bef843
SB
2230by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2231
2232=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2233
a4a4c9e2 2234(F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
be771a83 2235recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2236
c635e13b 2237=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2238
be771a83
GS
2239(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2240L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2241
9e08bc66
TS
2242=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2243
2244(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2245didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2246from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2247The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2248The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2249escape was discovered.
2250
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2251=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2252
162a3e34
FC
2253(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2254where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2255the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2256a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2c7d6b9c 2257
7253e4e3 2258=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2259
2260(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2261greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2262C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2263up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2264problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2265
d1573ac7 2266=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2267
2268(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2269character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2270
09bef843
SB
2271=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2272
0120eecf 2273(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2274elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2275parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2276See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2277
b4581f09
JH
2278=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2279
2bfc5f71
FC
2280(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2281than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
b4581f09
JH
2282If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2283list was terminated too soon.
2284
2c86d456
DG
2285=item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2286
2287(F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2288A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2289decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2290v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
a6485a24 2291The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2c86d456
DG
2292See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2293
49704364 2294=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2295
49704364
WL
2296(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2297See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2298(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2299silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2300
2c86d456
DG
2301=item Invalid version format (%s)
2302
2303(F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2304A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2305decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
9da2b86b
FC
2306v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it must
2307have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional.
2308Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2c86d456
DG
2309component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2310dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
a6485a24 2311criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2c86d456 2312allowed version formats.
46314c13 2313
798ae1b7
DG
2314=item Invalid version object
2315
2316(F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2317the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2318was blessed into the "version" class.
2319
a0d0e21e
LW
2320=item ioctl is not implemented
2321
2322(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2323strange for a machine that supports C.
2324
c289d2f7
JH
2325=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2326
2327(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
34b6fd5e 2328Check your control flow and number of arguments.
c289d2f7 2329
fe13d51d 2330=item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
363c40c4
SB
2331
2332(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
34b6fd5e 2333you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
363c40c4
SB
2334with 'useperlio'.
2335
80cbd5ad
JH
2336=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2337
2338(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
34b6fd5e 2339neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
80cbd5ad 2340
b4581f09
JH
2341=item $* is no longer supported
2342
a58ac25e
FC
2343(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2344perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
2345previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2346matching within a string.
4fd19576
B
2347
2348Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
570dedd4
FC
2349modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2350with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2351then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
b4581f09 2352
8ae1fe26
RGS
2353=item $# is no longer supported
2354
a58ac25e
FC
2355(D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2356perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
2357should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
8ae1fe26 2358
6ad11d81
JH
2359=item `%s' is not a code reference
2360
04a80ee0
RGS
2361(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2362needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
2363to a subroutine.
2364
2365=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2366
04a80ee0
RGS
2367(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2368unaware of.
6ad11d81 2369
a0d0e21e
LW
2370=item junk on end of regexp
2371
2372(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2373
2374=item Label not found for "last %s"
2375
be771a83
GS
2376(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2377of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2378L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2379
2380=item Label not found for "next %s"
2381
2382(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2383that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2384L<perlfunc/last>.
2385
2386=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2387
2388(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2389that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2390L<perlfunc/last>.
2391
85ab1d1d 2392=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2393
85ab1d1d 2394(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2395effective uids or gids failed.
2396
49704364
WL
2397=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2398
d7f8936a 2399(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
49704364
WL
2400length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2401an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2402
f0e67a1d
Z
2403=item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2404
2405(F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
d35a2c71
FC
2406(using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but tried to insert a character
2407that couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2408of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where it
2409is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
f0e67a1d
Z
2410
2411=item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2412
2413(F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2414detectable way.
2415
69282e91 2416=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2417
be771a83
GS
2418(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2419to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2420L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2421
bcd05b94 2422=item localtime(%f) too large
8b56d6ff 2423
e9200be3 2424(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
fc003d4b
MS
2425than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2426wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2427not-a-number value).
2428
bcd05b94 2429=item localtime(%f) too small
fc003d4b 2430
e9200be3 2431(W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
fc003d4b
MS
2432than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2433wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2434not-a-number value).
8b56d6ff 2435
58e23c8d 2436=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2437
2438(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
58e23c8d 2439handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2440
b88df990
NC
2441=item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2442
2443(W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2444for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2445hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2446because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2447are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2448You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2449
2f7da168
RK
2450=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2451
2452(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2453by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2454instead on the filehandle.)
2455
885ef6f5
GG
2456=item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2457
963d9ce9 2458(W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
d9159685
RS
2459by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute is not
2460possible. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine add the
e2bd2e2b 2461lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the declaration before
885ef6f5
GG
2462the definition.
2463
96ebfdd7
RK
2464=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2465
2466(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2467values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2468L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2469
49704364
WL
2470=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2471
2472(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2473are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2474
2475=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2476
2477(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2478are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2479
6df41af2
GS
2480=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2481
2482(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2483
2484 prefix1;prefix2
2485
2486or
6df41af2
GS
2487 prefix1 prefix2
2488
be771a83
GS
2489with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2490a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2491appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2492"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2493
2f758a16
ST
2494=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2495
d37a9538
ST
2496(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2497syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2498obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2499when the function is called.
2f758a16 2500
ba210ebe
JH
2501=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2502
2575c402
JW
2503(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2504encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2505
2575c402
JW
2506One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2507you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
25088-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2509
2510If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2511sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2512set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2513message.
2514
2515See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2516
dea0fc0b
JH
2517=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2518
183097aa 2519(F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
dea0fc0b
JH
2520doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2521
ff3f963a
KW
2522=item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2523
2524(F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2525
f337b084
TH
2526=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2527
2528(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2529rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2530
2531=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2532
2533(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2534rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2535
2536=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2537
2538(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2539rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2540
de42a5a9 2541=item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2563cec5 2542
fe13d51d 2543(F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2563cec5
IZ
2544usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2545too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2546resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2547safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2548
49704364 2549=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2550
2551(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
7253e4e3
RK
2552regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2553shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2554See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2555
25f58aea
PN
2556=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2557
2558(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2559interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2560"use" or "my".
2561
49704364 2562=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2563
2564(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2565checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2566See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2567
a0d0e21e
LW
2568=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2569
2570(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2571doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2572
3cdd684c
TP
2573=item Method %s not permitted
2574
2575See Server error.
2576
a0d0e21e
LW
2577=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2578
2579(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2580by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2581ended earlier on the current line.
2582
2583=item Misplaced _ in number
2584
d4ced10d
JH
2585(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2586separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2587
7baa4690
HS
2588=item Missing argument in %s
2589
2590(W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2591supplied.
2592
9e81e6a1
RGS
2593=item Missing argument to -%c
2594
2595(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2596immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2597
ff3f963a 2598=item Missing braces on \N{}
423cee85 2599
4a2d328f 2600(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
c3c41406
KW
2601double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2602comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2603This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2604the C<\N>.
423cee85 2605
f0a2b745
KW
2606=item Missing braces on \o{}
2607
2608(F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2609
a0d0e21e
LW
2610=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2611
2612(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2613"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2614
06eaf0bc
GS
2615=item Missing command in piped open
2616
be771a83
GS
2617(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2618C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2619blank.
06eaf0bc 2620
961ce445
RGS
2621=item Missing control char name in \c
2622
2623(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2624character name.
2625
6df41af2
GS
2626=item Missing name in "my sub"
2627
be771a83
GS
2628(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2629they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2630
2631=item Missing $ on loop variable
2632
be771a83
GS
2633(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2634are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2635can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2636
cc507455 2637=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2638
56da5a46
RGS
2639(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2640"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2641
ab13f0c7
JH
2642=item Missing right brace on %s
2643
ff3f963a
KW
2644(F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2645
4a68bf9d 2646=item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
ff3f963a 2647
0a96133f
KW
2648(F)
2649C<\N> has two meanings.
2650
2651The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2652in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
ff3f963a 2653Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
0a96133f
KW
2654double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2655have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
ff3f963a 2656
0a96133f 2657Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
c3c41406
KW
2658patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2659C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
ff3f963a
KW
2660
2661This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
c3c41406 2662left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
ff3f963a
KW
2663the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2664that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
0a96133f 26653; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
ff3f963a
KW
2666and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2667
2668However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
c3c41406 2669omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
0a96133f
KW
2670raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2671the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
ab13f0c7 2672
d98d5fff 2673=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2674
be771a83
GS
2675(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2676ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2677were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2678
6df41af2
GS
2679=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2680
56da5a46
RGS
2681(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2682"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2683the previous line just because you saw this message.
2684
a0d0e21e
LW
2685=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2686
2687(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2688constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2689catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2690
2691 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2692 mod(2);
2693
2694Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2695
c5674021
PDF
2696Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2697is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2698
2699 $x = 1;
2700 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2701 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2702 }
c5674021 2703
7a4340ed 2704=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2705
2706(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2707subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2708backwards.
2709
7a4340ed 2710=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2711
be771a83
GS
2712(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2713couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2714
2715=item Module name must be constant
2716
2717(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2718
be98fb35 2719=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2720
be98fb35
GS
2721(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2722you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2723about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2724
fe13d51d 2725=item More than one argument to '%s' open
ed9aa3b7
SG
2726
2727(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2728can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2729list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2730See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2731
a0d0e21e
LW
2732=item msg%s not implemented
2733
2734(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2735
2736=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2737
75b44862
GS
2738(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2739They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2740
49704364 2741=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2742
49704364
WL
2743(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2744follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2745See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2746
2747=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2748
be771a83
GS
2749(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2750that yet.
6df41af2 2751
30c282f6 2752=item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2753
be771a83
GS
2754(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2755sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2756local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2757
4a68bf9d 2758=item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
ff3f963a 2759
c3c41406
KW
2760(F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2761character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2762specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2763
4a68bf9d 2764=item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
c3c41406
KW
2765
2766(F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2767was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
b09c05e6 2768such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
c3c41406
KW
2769
2770 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
b09c05e6 2771 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
c3c41406
KW
2772 /$re/;
2773
b09c05e6 2774Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
c3c41406
KW
2775
2776 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2777 /$re/;
2778
2779The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2780components:
2781
2782 $re = '\N';
2783 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2784
2785It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2786doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2787
2788Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2789C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2790
2791 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2792 /\N{SPACE}/x; # ok
ff3f963a 2793
8b1a09fc 2794=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2795
e476b1b5 2796(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
2797If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2798again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 2799provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e 2800
64b374f4
FD
2801NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2802%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2803the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2804will not trigger this warning.
2805
4a68bf9d 2806=item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
ff3f963a
KW
2807
2808(F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
c3c41406
KW
2809number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2810or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
ff3f963a 2811
49704364
WL
2812=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2813
2814(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2815negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2816
a0d0e21e
LW
2817=item Negative length
2818
be771a83
GS
2819(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2820length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2821
ed9aa3b7
SG
2822=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2823
2824(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2825greater than or equal to zero.
2826
7253e4e3 2827=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2828
b45f050a 2829(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2830things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2831expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2832
7253e4e3 2833Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2834C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2835
6df41af2 2836=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2837
be771a83
GS
2838(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2839scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2840
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2841=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2842
2843(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2844real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2845See L<mro>.
2846
a0d0e21e
LW
2847=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2848
be771a83
GS
2849(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2850setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2851will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2852securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2853
a0d0e21e
LW
2854=item No comma allowed after %s
2855
2856(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2857allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2858Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2859
0a753a76 2860One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2861constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2862importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2863does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2864explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2865L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2866would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2867remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2868constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2869list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2870this error was triggered?
2871
748a9306
LW
2872=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2873
be771a83
GS
2874(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2875redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2876doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2877
a0d0e21e
LW
2878=item No DB::DB routine defined
2879
be771a83 2880(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
ccafdc96
RGS
2881for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2882module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2883statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2884
2885=item No dbm on this machine
2886
2887(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2888supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2889
ccafdc96 2890=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2891
ccafdc96
RGS
2892(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2893for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2894module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2895of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2896
96ebfdd7
RK
2897=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2898
2899(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2900
c47ff5f1 2901=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2902
be771a83
GS
2903(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2904redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2905find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2906
49704364
WL
2907=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2908
2909(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2910matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2911
c47ff5f1 2912=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2913
be771a83
GS
2914(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2915redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2916name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2917
6df41af2
GS
2918=item No #! line
2919
2920(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2921even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2922
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2923=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2924
2925(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2926in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2927it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2928or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2929
6df41af2
GS
2930=item "no" not allowed in expression
2931
be771a83
GS
2932(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2933returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2934
c47ff5f1 2935=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2936
be771a83
GS
2937(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2938redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2939doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2940
c47ff5f1 2941=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2942
be771a83
GS
2943(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2944redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2945find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2946
1ec3e8de
GS
2947=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2948
be771a83
GS
2949(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2950declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2951semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2952
a0d0e21e
LW
2953=item No Perl script found in input
2954
2955(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2956with #! and containing the word "perl".
2957
2958=item No setregid available
2959
2960(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2961your system.
2962
2963=item No setreuid available
2964
2965(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2966your system.
2967
6df41af2
GS
2968=item No %s specified for -%c
2969
2970(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2971you haven't specified one.
e75d1f10
RD
2972=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2973
2974(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2975but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2976package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2977
2c692339
RGS
2978=item No such class %s
2979
30c282f6 2980(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2c692339
RGS
2981this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2982
3c20a832
SP
2983=item No such hook: %s
2984
2985(F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2986accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2987
6df41af2
GS
2988=item No such pipe open
2989
2990(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2991close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2992earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2993
a0d0e21e
LW
2994=item No such signal: SIG%s
2995
be771a83
GS
2996(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2997not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2998names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2999
3000=item Not a CODE reference
3001
3002(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3003subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3004use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3005also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3006
3007=item Not a format reference
3008
3009(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
3010format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
3011
3012=item Not a GLOB reference
3013
be771a83
GS
3014(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3015symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3016something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3017kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3018
3019=item Not a HASH reference
3020
be771a83
GS
3021(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3022reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3023find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3024
6df41af2
GS
3025=item Not an ARRAY reference
3026
be771a83
GS
3027(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3028a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3029to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 3030
a0d0e21e
LW
3031=item Not a perl script
3032
3033(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
3034even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
3035mention perl.
3036
3037=item Not a SCALAR reference
3038
be771a83
GS
3039(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3040a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3041to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
3042
3043=item Not a subroutine reference
3044
3045(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3046subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
3047use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3048also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 3049
e7ea3e70 3050=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
3051
3052(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 3053doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 3054
a0d0e21e
LW
3055=item Not enough arguments for %s
3056
3057(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3058
6df41af2
GS
3059=item Not enough format arguments
3060
be771a83
GS
3061(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3062supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
3063
3064=item %s: not found
3065
be771a83
GS
3066(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3067of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3068yourself.
6df41af2
GS
3069
3070=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 3071
6df41af2
GS
3072(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3073timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
3074to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3075F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3076need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 3077
f0a2b745
KW
3078=item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3079
3080(W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was unexpectedly
3081encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as indicated.
3082
4ef2275c
GA
3083=item Non-string passed as bitmask
3084
3085(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3086Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3087select. See L<perlfunc/select>
3088
a0d0e21e
LW
3089=item Null filename used
3090
be771a83
GS
3091(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3092machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 3093
6df41af2
GS
3094=item NULL OP IN RUN
3095
be771a83
GS
3096(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3097pointer.
6df41af2 3098
55497cff 3099=item Null picture in formline
3100
3101(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3102specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3103supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3104
a0d0e21e
LW
3105=item Null realloc
3106
3107(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3108
3109=item NULL regexp argument
3110
5f05dabc 3111(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
3112
3113=item NULL regexp parameter
3114
3115(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3116
fc36a67e 3117=item Number too long
3118
be771a83 3119(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 3120about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
3121versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3122the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3123"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 3124
f0a2b745
KW
3125=item Number with no digits
3126
3127(F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like a number.
3128This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between the braces.
3129
6df41af2
GS
3130=item Octal number in vector unsupported
3131
be771a83
GS
3132(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3133The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3134future version.
6df41af2 3135
252aa082
JH
3136=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3137
75b44862 3138(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
3139(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3140L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
3141
3142See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3143
6ad11d81
JH
3144=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3145
04a80ee0
RGS
3146(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3147arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 3148
b21befc1
MG
3149=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3150
3151(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3152which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3153
1930e939 3154=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 3155
be771a83
GS
3156(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3157which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 3158
bbce6d69 3159=item Offset outside string
3160
a4a4c9e2 3161(F|W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
42bc49da 3162with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
3163imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3164take place when going past the end of the string when either
3165C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
3166for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3167with real files).
bbce6d69 3168
c289d2f7 3169=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
3170
3171(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3172never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3173call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3174
96ebfdd7
RK
3175=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3176
3177(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3178that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3179
a0d0e21e
LW
3180=item oops: oopsAV
3181
e476b1b5 3182(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
3183
3184=item oops: oopsHV
3185
e476b1b5 3186(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 3187
abc718f2
RGS
3188=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3189
a4a4c9e2 3190(W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3191a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3192Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3193and is deprecated.
3194
3195=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3196
a4a4c9e2 3197(W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
abc718f2
RGS
3198a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3199Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3200and is deprecated.
3201
a0288114 3202=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 3203
be771a83
GS
3204(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3205handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3206of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3207C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 3208
9ae3ac1a
KW
3209=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
3210
3211(W) You performed an operation requiring Unicode semantics on a Unicode
3212surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of surrogates for anything but
3213storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics are (reluctantly) defined for
3214the surrogates, and they are to do nothing for this operation. Because
3215the use of surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
3216
3217If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3218matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3219
3220If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3221C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
3222
3223=item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
3224
3225(W) You performed an operation requiring Unicode semantics on a code
3226point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not defined. Perl
3227has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
3228
3229If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3230matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3231
3232If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3233C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
3234
748a9306
LW
3235=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3236
be771a83
GS
3237(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3238was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3239use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3240example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3241"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 3242
6df41af2
GS
3243=item "our" variable %s redeclared
3244
be771a83
GS
3245(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3246in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 3247
a80b8354
GS
3248=item Out of memory!
3249
3250(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
3251remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3252no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 3253
19a52907
JH
3254At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3255process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3256C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3257the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3258and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3259
6d3b25aa
RGS
3260=item Out of memory during %s extend
3261
3262(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3263the largest possible memory allocation.
3264
6df41af2 3265=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 3266
6df41af2
GS
3267(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3268remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
3269the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3270possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 3271
1b979e0a 3272=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 3273
be771a83
GS
3274(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3275insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3276request.
eff9c6e2
CS
3277
3278The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3279depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
3280However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3281emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
3282is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3283where the failed request happened.
55497cff 3284
1b979e0a
IZ
3285=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3286
3287(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
3288is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3289C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 3290
6df41af2
GS
3291=item Out of memory for yacc stack
3292
be771a83
GS
3293(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3294parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3295otherwise.
6df41af2 3296
28be1210
TH
3297=item '.' outside of string in pack
3298
3299(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3300position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3301
49704364 3302=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 3303
49704364 3304(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
3305the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3306
f337b084
TH
3307=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3308
3309(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3310the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3311UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3312
7cb0cfe6
BM
3313=item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3314
3315(F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3316but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3317L<overload>.
3318
3319=item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3320
3321(F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3322overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3323
6df41af2
GS
3324=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3325
be771a83
GS
3326(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3327package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3328some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3329mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 3330
fb2e24cd
KW
3331=item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
3332
3333(W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
3334match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
f7f5e97b
KW
3335use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
3336class, which should know about the locale's rules.
3337(See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
3338
3339Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
3340Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
3341subset.
3342
3343Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
3344locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
3345CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
3346"MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
3347meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
3348should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
3349positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
3350incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
3351is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
3352case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
3353change when upper cased.
fb2e24cd 3354
96ebfdd7
RK
3355=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3356
3357(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3358signed i