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1=head1 NAME
2
3perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
8desperation):
9
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (optional).
00eb3f2b 12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
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13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
54310121 15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
cb1a09d0 16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
a0d0e21e 17
75b44862 18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
64977eb6 19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
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20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
b7eceb5b 30Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
e476b1b5 31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
4438c4b7 32
748a9306 33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
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34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
a0d0e21e 37
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38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
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44
45=over 4
46
6df41af2 47=item accept() on closed socket %s
33633739 48
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49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
33633739 52
6df41af2 53=item Allocation too large: %lx
a0d0e21e 54
6df41af2 55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
a0d0e21e 56
1109a392 57=item '%c' allowed only after types %s
ef54e1a4 58
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59(F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
ef54e1a4 61
6df41af2 62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
43192e07 63
75b44862 64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
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65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
43192e07 68
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69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
43192e07 73
6df41af2 74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
496a33f5 75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
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76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
43192e07 78
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79=item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
80
81(F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
85
6df41af2 86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
43192e07 87
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88(W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
a0d0e21e 91
6df41af2 92=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
a0d0e21e 93
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94(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
95redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
96redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
c9f97d15 97
6df41af2 98=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
1028017a 99
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100(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
101redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
102into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
103though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
104which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
1028017a 105
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106 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
107 while (<STDIN>) {
108 print;
109 print OUT;
110 }
111 close OUT;
c9f97d15 112
6df41af2 113=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
eb6e2d6f 114
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115(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
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117one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
118a scalar value -- the length of an array, or the population info of a
119hash -- and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
120you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
121alternatives.
eb6e2d6f 122
6df41af2 123=item Args must match #! line
a0d0e21e 124
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125(F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
126with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
127impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
128for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
a0d0e21e 129
6df41af2 130=item Arg too short for msgsnd
76cd736e 131
6df41af2 132(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
76cd736e 133
8ea97a1e 134=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
a0d0e21e 135
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136(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
137subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
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138
139 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 140 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
cc1c2e42 141 &do_something
a0d0e21e 142
8ea97a1e 143=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
5f05dabc 144
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145(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
146such as:
5f05dabc 147
148 $foo{$bar}
cb4f522a 149 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
5f05dabc 150
8ea97a1e 151or a hash or array slice, such as:
5f05dabc 152
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153 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
154 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
5315574d 155
6df41af2 156=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
a0d0e21e 157
6df41af2 158(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
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159name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
160error.
a0d0e21e 161
f86702cc 162=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
a0d0e21e 163
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164(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
165that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
166will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
a0d0e21e 167
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168=item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
169
170(W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
171forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
172data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
173the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
174If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
175the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
176
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177=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
178
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179(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
180spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
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181
182=item assertion botched: %s
183
184(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
185
186=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
187
188(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
189
190=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
191
192(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
193must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
194know which context to supply to the right side.
195
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196=item A thread exited while %d threads were running
197
4447dfc1 198(W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
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199thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
200Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
201created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
202thread. See L<threads>.
203
2393f1b9 204=item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
1b1f1335 205
49293501 206(F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
2393f1b9 207the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
49293501 208
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209=item Attempt to bless into a reference
210
211(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
212the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
213supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
214
215 bless $self, $proto;
216
217when you intended
218
219 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
220
221If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
222of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
223example by:
224
225 bless $self, "$proto";
226
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227=item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
228
229(F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
230which is not in its key set.
231
232=item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
233
234(F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
235declared readonly from a restricted hash.
236
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237=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
238
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239(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
240that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
241outside any of those arenas.
a0d0e21e 242
54310121 243=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
bbce6d69 244
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245(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
246strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
247strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
248of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
bbce6d69 249
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250=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
251
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252(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
253free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
254SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
255free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
256try to free it.
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257
258=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
259
e476b1b5 260(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
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261
262=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
263
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264(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
265see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
266earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
267This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
268that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
269mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
270corrupted.
a0d0e21e 271
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272=item Attempt to join self
273
274(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
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275impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
276to move the join() to some other thread.
dcdda58d 277
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278=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
279
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280(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
281function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
282means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
283invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
284literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
285avoid this warning.
84902520 286
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287=item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
288
289(F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
290compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
291unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
292L<perlvar/%INC>.
293
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294=item Attempt to set length of freed array
295
296(W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
297can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
298of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
299
300 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
301 $$r = 503
302
b7a902f4 303=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
304
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305(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
306used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
307dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
b7a902f4 308
dc26df50 309=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
a0d0e21e 310
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311(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
312or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
5f05dabc 313S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
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314S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
315
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316=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
317
496a33f5 318(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
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319substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
320most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
321
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322=item Bad filehandle: %s
323
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324(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
325symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
326open(), or did it in another package.
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327
328=item Bad free() ignored
329
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330(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
331been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
9ea8bc6d 332setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
33c8a3fe 333
9ea8bc6d 334This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
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335dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
336which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
a0d0e21e 337
aa689395 338=item Bad hash
339
340(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
341
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342=item Badly placed ()'s
343
344(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
345of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
346Perl yourself.
347
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348=item Bad name after %s::
349
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350(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
351didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
352of quotes, so
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353
354 $var = 'myvar';
355 $sym = mypack::$var;
356
357is not the same as
358
359 $var = 'myvar';
360 $sym = "mypack::$var";
361
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362=item Bad realloc() ignored
363
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364(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
365never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
366by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
4ad56ec9 367
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368=item Bad symbol for array
369
370(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
371wasn't a symbol table entry.
372
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373=item Bad symbol for dirhandle
374
375(P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
376that wasn't a symbol table entry.
377
378
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379=item Bad symbol for filehandle
380
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381(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
382that wasn't a symbol table entry.
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383
384=item Bad symbol for hash
385
386(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
387wasn't a symbol table entry.
388
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389=item Bareword found in conditional
390
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391(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
392conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
393of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
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394
395 open FOO || die;
396
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397It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
398a bareword:
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399
400 use constant TYPO => 1;
401 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
402
403The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
404
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405=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
406
407(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
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408subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
409symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
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410
411=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
412
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413(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
414compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
415you need to predeclare a package?
6df41af2 416
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417=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
418
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419(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
420subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
421exited.
a0d0e21e 422
68dc0745 423=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
424
425(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
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426implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
427occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
428be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
429depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
68dc0745 430
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431=item \1 better written as $1
432
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433(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
434The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
435substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
436because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
437there are more than 9 backreferences.
6df41af2 438
252aa082
JH
439=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
440
e476b1b5 441(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
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JH
442(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
443L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 444
69282e91 445=item bind() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 446
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447(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
448check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
a0d0e21e 449
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450=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
451
452(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
453Check you control flow and number of arguments.
454
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455=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
456
e476b1b5 457(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
c5a0f51a 458
4633a7c4
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459=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
460
be771a83 461(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
b45f050a 462copyable.
4633a7c4 463
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464=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
465
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466(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
467iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
468which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
f675dbe5 469
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470=item Callback called exit
471
4929bf7b 472(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
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473exited by calling exit.
474
6df41af2 475=item %s() called too early to check prototype
f675dbe5 476
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477(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
478parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
479that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
480early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
481subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
482checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
483function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
484the warning. See L<perlsub>.
f675dbe5 485
49704364 486=item Cannot compress integer in pack
0258719b
NC
487
488(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
489compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
490attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
491See L<perlfunc/pack>.
492
49704364 493=item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
0258719b
NC
494
495(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
496format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
497
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NC
498=item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
499
500(F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
501then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
502triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
503from that type of reference to a typeglob.
504
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505=item Cannot copy to %s in %s
506
507(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
508be directly assigned not.
509
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510=item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
511
512(F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
513integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
514to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
515
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516=item Can't bless non-reference value
517
518(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
519encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
520
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521=item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
522
0d863452
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523(F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
524a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
525
526=item Can't "break" outside a given block
dc57907a 527
0d863452
RH
528(F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
529
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530=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
531
532(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
533functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
534in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
535
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536=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
537
538(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
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539object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
540like this will reproduce the error:
6df41af2
GS
541
542 $BADREF = undef;
543 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
544 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
545
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546=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
547
54310121 548(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
be771a83
GS
549ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
550didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
551object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
552
553=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
554
555(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
be771a83
GS
556object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
557defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
72b5445b
GS
558Something like this will reproduce the error:
559
560 $BADREF = 42;
561 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
562 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
563
a0d0e21e
LW
564=item Can't chdir to %s
565
566(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
567that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
568
0545a864 569=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
104d25b7 570
be771a83
GS
571(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
572nosuid.
104d25b7 573
6df41af2
GS
574=item Can't coerce array into hash
575
576(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
577information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
578only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
579
a0d0e21e
LW
580=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
581
582(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 583(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
a0d0e21e
LW
584say things like:
585
586 *foo += 1;
587
588You CAN say
589
590 $foo = *foo;
591 $foo += 1;
592
593but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
594
595=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
596
597(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 598(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e
LW
599
600=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
601
602(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
55497cff 603(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
a0d0e21e 604
0d863452 605=item Can't "continue" outside a when block
dc57907a 606
0d863452
RH
607(F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
608or C<default> block.
609
a0d0e21e
LW
610=item Can't create pipe mailbox
611
be771a83
GS
612(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
613quotas or other plumbing problems.
a0d0e21e 614
eb64745e 615=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
a0d0e21e 616
2f7e735d 617(F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
30c282f6 618class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
2f7e735d 619extended for other types of variables in future.
eb64745e
GS
620
621=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
622
30c282f6
NC
623(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
624"state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
a0d0e21e 625
6df41af2
GS
626=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
627
be771a83
GS
628(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
629a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
6df41af2 630
a0d0e21e
LW
631=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
632
be771a83
GS
633(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
634reason.
a0d0e21e 635
54310121 636=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
a0d0e21e 637
be771a83
GS
638(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
639reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
640C<-i.bak>, or some such.
a0d0e21e 641
10f9c03d 642=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
a0d0e21e 643
e476b1b5 644(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
10f9c03d
CK
645characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
646inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
a0d0e21e 647
7253e4e3 648=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 649
b45f050a 650(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
7253e4e3 651regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
b45f050a 652regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e
LW
653
654=item Can't do setegid!
655
be771a83
GS
656(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
657suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
658
659=item Can't do seteuid!
660
661(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
662
663=item Can't do setuid
664
be771a83
GS
665(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
666setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
667sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
668the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
669file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
670sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
a0d0e21e
LW
671
672=item Can't do waitpid with flags
673
be771a83
GS
674(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
675waitpid() without flags is emulated.
a0d0e21e 676
a0d0e21e
LW
677=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
678
be771a83
GS
679(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
680point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
681line.
a0d0e21e 682
1109a392
MHM
683=item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
684
685(F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
686or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
687little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
688See L<perlfunc/pack>.
689
a0d0e21e
LW
690=item Can't exec "%s": %s
691
d1be9408 692(W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
be771a83
GS
693named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
694permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
695C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
696architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
697can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
698#! at all.)
a0d0e21e
LW
699
700=item Can't exec %s
701
be771a83
GS
702(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
703that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
704need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
a0d0e21e
LW
705
706=item Can't execute %s
707
be771a83
GS
708(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
709found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
2a92aaa0 710
6df41af2 711=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
2a92aaa0 712
be771a83
GS
713(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
714is no builtin with the name C<word>.
6df41af2 715
56ca2fc0
JH
716=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
717
718(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
89d60977 719could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
56ca2fc0
JH
720(remember that the names of character properties consist only of
721alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
722
6df41af2
GS
723=item Can't find label %s
724
be771a83
GS
725(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
726possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2a92aaa0
GS
727
728=item Can't find %s on PATH
729
be771a83
GS
730(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
731found in the PATH.
a0d0e21e 732
6df41af2 733=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
a0d0e21e 734
be771a83
GS
735(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
736found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
737script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
a0d0e21e
LW
738
739=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
740
be771a83
GS
741(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
742that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
743nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
a0d0e21e 744
fb73857a 745 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
746
be771a83
GS
747If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
748unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
749editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
a0d0e21e 750
660a4616
TS
751=item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
752
753(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
754example C<\p{Lu}> is all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
755Unicode property, see L<perlunicode> for the list of known properties.
756If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
757by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
758possible C<\E>).
759
a0d0e21e
LW
760=item Can't fork
761
be771a83
GS
762(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
763pipeline.
a0d0e21e 764
748a9306
LW
765=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
766
be771a83
GS
767(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
768between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
769Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
770the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
771account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
772the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
773the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
774the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
775if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
776because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
777appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
778and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
779routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
780shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
781only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
748a9306 782
a0d0e21e
LW
783=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
784
be771a83
GS
785(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
786pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
a0d0e21e
LW
787
788=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
789
748a9306
LW
790(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
791mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
a0d0e21e 792
6df41af2 793=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
a0d0e21e 794
be771a83
GS
795(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
796loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2
GS
797
798=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
799
be771a83
GS
800(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
801a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
802you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
803See L<perlfunc/goto>.
a0d0e21e 804
9850bf21 805=item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
cd299c6e 806
9850bf21
RH
807(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
808comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
809as the reduce() function in List::Util).
810
c74ace89 811=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
b150fb22 812
be771a83 813(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
c74ace89 814"string" or block.
b150fb22 815
6df41af2
GS
816=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
817
be771a83
GS
818(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
819subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
820cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
821routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
6df41af2 822
0b5b802d
GS
823=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
824
be771a83
GS
825(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
826signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
827signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
828processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
829situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
830may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
0b5b802d 831
6df41af2 832=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
4633a7c4 833
6df41af2 834(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
be771a83
GS
835except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
836block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
837block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
838usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
839inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
840L<perlfunc/last>.
4633a7c4 841
2c7d6b9c
RGS
842=item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
843
844(F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
845package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
846
b8170e59
JB
847=item Can't load '%s' for module %s
848
849(F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
850may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
851incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
852between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
16d98ec5 853extension was built against an older version of the library that is
b8170e59
JB
854installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
855extensions.
856
748a9306
LW
857=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
858
2ba9eb46 859(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
30c282f6 860lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
748a9306
LW
861localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
862package name.
863
6df41af2 864=item Can't localize through a reference
4727527e 865
6df41af2
GS
866(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
867handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
be771a83 868pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
64977eb6 869that $ref will still be a reference.
4727527e 870
ea071790 871=item Can't locate %s
ec889f3a
GS
872
873(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
874found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
be771a83
GS
875unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
876need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
877the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
878to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
879L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
a0d0e21e 880
6df41af2
GS
881=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
882
be771a83
GS
883(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
884autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
885are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
886the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
6df41af2 887
b8170e59
JB
888=item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
889
890(F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
891for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
892unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
893
a0d0e21e
LW
894=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
895
896(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
897functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
2ba9eb46 898method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
a0d0e21e
LW
899
900=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
901
be771a83
GS
902(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
903doesn't seem to exist.
a0d0e21e 904
2c7d6b9c
RGS
905=item Can't locate package %s for the parents of %s
906
907(W syntax) You did not define (or require/use) the first package,
908which is named as a (possibly indirect) parent of the second by
909C<@ISA> inheritance. Perl will treat this as if the undefined
910package had an empty C<@ISA>.
911
2f7da168
RK
912=item Can't locate PerlIO%s
913
914(F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
915e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
916
3e3baf6d
TB
917=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
918
be771a83
GS
919(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
920VMS.
3e3baf6d 921
a0d0e21e
LW
922=item Can't modify %s in %s
923
be771a83
GS
924(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
925to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
a0d0e21e 926
54310121 927=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
a0d0e21e
LW
928
929(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
930a NULL.
931
6df41af2
GS
932=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
933
934(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
935such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
936
5f05dabc 937=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
a0d0e21e 938
5f05dabc 939(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
a0d0e21e
LW
940buffer.
941
6df41af2
GS
942=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
943
944(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
945there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
be771a83
GS
946count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
947grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
948though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
949once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
6df41af2 950
a0d0e21e
LW
951=item Can't open %s: %s
952
c47ff5f1 953(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
08e9d68e
DD
954filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
955switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
be771a83
GS
956is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
957the command line.
a0d0e21e 958
9a869a14
RGS
959=item Can't open a reference
960
961(W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
962using the 3-arg open() syntax :
963
964 open FH, '>', $ref;
965
966but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
967open is not supported.
968
a0d0e21e
LW
969=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
970
be771a83
GS
971(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
972You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
973as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
974">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
a0d0e21e 975
748a9306
LW
976=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
977
be771a83
GS
978(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
979redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
980the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
981
982=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
983
be771a83
GS
984(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
985redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
986command line for reading.
748a9306
LW
987
988=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
989
be771a83
GS
990(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
991redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
992the command line for writing.
748a9306
LW
993
994=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
995
be771a83
GS
996(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
997redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
998for stdout.
748a9306 999
2b8ca739 1000=item Can't open perl script%s
a0d0e21e
LW
1001
1002(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1003
fa3aa65a
JC
1004If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1005shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1006you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1007
6df41af2
GS
1008=item Can't read CRTL environ
1009
1010(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1011from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1012missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
be771a83
GS
1013or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1014searched.
6df41af2 1015
6df41af2
GS
1016=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1017
1018(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1019there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1020count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1021or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1022though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1023loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1024
64977eb6 1025=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
10f9c03d 1026
be771a83
GS
1027(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1028file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1029the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
10f9c03d 1030
a0d0e21e
LW
1031=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1032
e476b1b5 1033(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
10f9c03d 1034probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
a0d0e21e 1035
748a9306
LW
1036=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1037
be771a83
GS
1038(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1039to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
748a9306 1040
6df41af2
GS
1041=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
1042
be771a83
GS
1043(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1044to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1045method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
6df41af2 1046
a0d0e21e
LW
1047=item Can't reswap uid and euid
1048
be771a83
GS
1049(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1050suidperl.
a0d0e21e 1051
cd06dffe
GS
1052=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1053
be771a83
GS
1054(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1055temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1056is not allowed.
cd06dffe 1057
96ebfdd7
RK
1058=item Can't return outside a subroutine
1059
1060(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1061there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1062
78f9721b
SM
1063=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1064
1065(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1066but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1067to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1068the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1069list context.
1070
a0d0e21e
LW
1071=item Can't stat script "%s"
1072
be771a83
GS
1073(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1074open already. Bizarre.
a0d0e21e
LW
1075
1076=item Can't swap uid and euid
1077
be771a83
GS
1078(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
1079suidperl.
a0d0e21e
LW
1080
1081=item Can't take log of %g
1082
fb73857a 1083(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1084negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
be771a83
GS
1085standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1086negative numbers.
a0d0e21e
LW
1087
1088=item Can't take sqrt of %g
1089
1090(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
fb73857a 1091negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1092with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
a0d0e21e
LW
1093
1094=item Can't undef active subroutine
1095
1096(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1097however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1098redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1099
1100=item Can't unshift
1101
1102(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1103as the main Perl stack.
1104
c81225bc 1105=item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
a0d0e21e 1106
be771a83
GS
1107(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1108into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1109specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1110indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
a0d0e21e 1111
1db89ea5
BS
1112=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1113
e27ad1f2 1114(F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1db89ea5
BS
1115table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1116for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1117
96ebfdd7
RK
1118=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1119
1120(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1121be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1122
6df41af2
GS
1123=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1124
be771a83
GS
1125(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1126references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 1127
90b75b61 1128=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1d2dff63
GS
1129
1130(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1131Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1132provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1133
1109a392
MHM
1134=item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1135
1136(F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1137byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1138allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1139
6df41af2
GS
1140=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1141
be771a83
GS
1142(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1143foreach.
6df41af2 1144
aab6a793 1145=item Can't use global %s in "%s"
6df41af2 1146
be771a83
GS
1147(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1148is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1149(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1150have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
6df41af2
GS
1151weren't.
1152
6d3b25aa
RGS
1153=item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1154
1155(F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1156that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1157For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1158is inside a big-endian group.
1159
c07a80fd 1160=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1161
1162(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
c47ff5f1 1163You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
c07a80fd 1164and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1165Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1166lexical variable.
1167
a0d0e21e
LW
1168=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1169
1170(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1171reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1172test the type of the reference, if need be.
1173
748a9306 1174=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
a0d0e21e 1175
be771a83
GS
1176(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1177references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 1178
748a9306
LW
1179=item Can't use subscript on %s
1180
1181(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1182subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
209e7cf1 1183didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
748a9306 1184
6df41af2
GS
1185=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1186
75b44862
GS
1187(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1188creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1189backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
be771a83
GS
1190expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1191value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1192instead.
6df41af2 1193
0d863452 1194=item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
dc57907a 1195
0d863452
RH
1196(F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1197loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1198from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1199or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1200
810b8aa5
GS
1201=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1202
1203(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1204references can be weakened.
1205
5f05dabc 1206=item Can't x= to read-only value
a0d0e21e 1207
be771a83
GS
1208(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1209with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
a0d0e21e
LW
1210Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1211
f337b084 1212=item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1213
1214(W pack) You said
1215
1216 pack("C", $x)
1217
1218where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1219only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1220and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1221
1222 pack("C", $x & 255)
1223
1224If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1225instead.
1226
f337b084
TH
1227=item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1228
1229(W pack) You said
1230
1231 pack("U0W", $x)
1232
1233where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1234all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1235meant:
1236
1237 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1238
1239=item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
ac7cd81a
SC
1240
1241(W pack) You said
1242
1243 pack("c", $x)
1244
1245where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1246is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1247and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1248
1249 pack("c", $x & 255);
1250
1251If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1252instead.
1253
f337b084
TH
1254=item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1255
1256(W unpack) You tried something like
1257
1258 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1259
1a147d38 1260where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
f337b084
TH
1261below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1262modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1263
1264 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1265
1266=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1267
1268(W pack) You tried something like
1269
1270 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1271
1a147d38
YO
1272where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1273value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1274uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1275
1276 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1277
1278=item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1279
1280(W unpack) You tried something like
1281
1282 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1283
1a147d38
YO
1284where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1285value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
f337b084
TH
1286uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1287
1288 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1289
96ebfdd7
RK
1290=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1291
1292(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1293
abc7ecad
SP
1294=item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1295
1296(W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1297a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1298
49704364
WL
1299=item Code missing after '/'
1300
1301(F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1302template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1303
6df41af2
GS
1304=item %s: Command not found
1305
be771a83
GS
1306(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1307Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2 1308
7a2e2cd6 1309=item Compilation failed in require
1310
1311(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
be771a83
GS
1312Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1313encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
7a2e2cd6 1314
c3464db5
DD
1315=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1316
be771a83
GS
1317(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1318situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1319to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1320arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1321recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1322under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1323in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
c2e66d9e 1324that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
be771a83 1325on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
c3464db5 1326
38875929
DM
1327=item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1328
1329(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1330cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1331function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1332cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1333has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1334first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1335after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1336lock.
1337
38875929
DM
1338=item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1339
1340(W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1341cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1342function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1343cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1344has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1345first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1346after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1347lock.
1348
69282e91 1349=item connect() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1350
be771a83
GS
1351(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1352to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1353L<perlfunc/connect>.
a0d0e21e 1354
41ab332f 1355=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
6df41af2 1356
be771a83
GS
1357(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1358an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1359specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1360corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1361L<overload>.
6df41af2 1362
fc8cd66c
YO
1363=item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1364
1a147d38
YO
1365(F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1366the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1367forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
fc8cd66c
YO
1368See L<charnames>.
1369
1370
779c5bc9
GS
1371=item Constant is not %s reference
1372
1373(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
be771a83
GS
1374is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1375The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1376usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
779c5bc9
GS
1377See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1378
4cee8e80
CS
1379=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1380
bb028877 1381(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
be771a83
GS
1382eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1383commentary and workarounds.
4cee8e80 1384
9607fc9c 1385=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1386
be771a83
GS
1387(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1388for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1389workarounds.
9607fc9c 1390
e7ea3e70
IZ
1391=item Copy method did not return a reference
1392
64977eb6 1393(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
13a2d996 1394L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
e7ea3e70 1395
6798c92b
GS
1396=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1397
1398(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1399
a0d0e21e
LW
1400=item corrupted regexp pointers
1401
1402(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1403expression compiler gave it.
1404
1405=item corrupted regexp program
1406
be771a83
GS
1407(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1408valid magic number.
a0d0e21e 1409
6df41af2
GS
1410=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1411
1412(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1413
49704364
WL
1414=item Count after length/code in unpack
1415
1416(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1417you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1418L<perlfunc/pack>.
1419
a0d0e21e
LW
1420=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1421
be771a83
GS
1422(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1423100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1424infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1425which case it indicates something else.
a0d0e21e 1426
f10b0346 1427=item defined(@array) is deprecated
69794302 1428
be771a83
GS
1429(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1430checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
64977eb6 1431array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1432
f10b0346 1433=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
69794302 1434
be771a83
GS
1435(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1436checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
64977eb6 1437is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
69794302 1438
62658f4d
PM
1439=item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1440
1441(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1442there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1443
fc36a67e 1444=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1445
be771a83
GS
1446(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1447long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1448that triggers this error.
fc36a67e 1449
6d3b25aa
RGS
1450=item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1451
1452(D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1453There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1454not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1455conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1456static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1457relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1458declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
36fb85f3 1459
6d3b25aa
RGS
1460 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1461
1462becomes
1463
1464 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1465
36fb85f3
RGS
1466Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1467have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1468
1469 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1470
500ab966
RGS
1471=item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1472
1473(F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1474just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1475to create a dangling reference.
1476
3cdd684c
TP
1477=item Did not produce a valid header
1478
1479See Server error.
1480
6df41af2
GS
1481=item %s did not return a true value
1482
1483(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1484it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1485traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1486do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1487
cc507455 1488=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
4633a7c4 1489
be771a83
GS
1490(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1491such.
4633a7c4 1492
cc507455 1493=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
33633739 1494
be771a83
GS
1495(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1496variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1497seems superfluous.
33633739 1498
cc507455 1499=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
a0d0e21e 1500
be771a83
GS
1501(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1502@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1503carried away.
748a9306 1504
7e1af8bc 1505=item Died
5f05dabc 1506
1507(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1508you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1509
3cdd684c
TP
1510=item Document contains no data
1511
1512See Server error.
1513
62658f4d
PM
1514=item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1515
1516(F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1517define a C<$VERSION.>
1518
49704364
WL
1519=item '/' does not take a repeat count
1520
1521(F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1522See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1523
a0d0e21e
LW
1524=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1525
1526(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1527
1528=item do_study: out of memory
1529
1530(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1531
6df41af2
GS
1532=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1533
56da5a46
RGS
1534(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1535"%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
6df41af2
GS
1536name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1537because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
be771a83
GS
1538"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1539something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1540subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1541"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
6df41af2 1542
ac206dc8
RGS
1543=item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1544
1545(W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1546qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1547
84d78eb7
YO
1548=item dump is not supported
1549
1550(F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1551
a0d0e21e
LW
1552=item Duplicate free() ignored
1553
be771a83
GS
1554(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1555already been freed.
a0d0e21e 1556
1109a392
MHM
1557=item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1558
1559(W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1560in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1561
4633a7c4
LW
1562=item elseif should be elsif
1563
56da5a46
RGS
1564(S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1565ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
be771a83 1566"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
4633a7c4
LW
1567unlikely to be what you want.
1568
ab13f0c7
JH
1569=item Empty %s
1570
af6f566e
HS
1571(F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1572described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1573a regular expression without specifying the property name.
ab13f0c7 1574
85ab1d1d 1575=item entering effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 1576
85ab1d1d 1577(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
1578effective uids or gids failed.
1579
c038024b
RGS
1580=item %ENV is aliased to %s
1581
1582(F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1583aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1584program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1585
748a9306
LW
1586=item Error converting file specification %s
1587
5f05dabc 1588(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
748a9306 1589specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
be771a83
GS
1590single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1591an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1592conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
748a9306 1593
e4d48cc9
GS
1594=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1595
be771a83
GS
1596(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1597expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1598is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
e4d48cc9 1599
e4d48cc9
GS
1600=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1601
be771a83
GS
1602(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1603C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1604pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1605is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1606building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1607that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
e4d48cc9 1608
6df41af2
GS
1609=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1610
be771a83
GS
1611(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1612assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1613pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
6df41af2 1614
1a147d38
YO
1615=item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1616
1617(F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1618any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1619
1620The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1621discovered.
1622
fc36a67e 1623=item Excessively long <> operator
1624
1625(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1626Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1627filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1628variable and glob that.
1629
ed9aa3b7
SG
1630=item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1631
1632(F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1633
f86702cc 1634=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
a0d0e21e
LW
1635
1636(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1637
1638=item Exiting eval via %s
1639
be771a83
GS
1640(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1641goto, or a loop control statement.
e476b1b5
GS
1642
1643=item Exiting format via %s
1644
9a2ff54b 1645(W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
be771a83 1646goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1647
0a753a76 1648=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1649
be771a83
GS
1650(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1651sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1652loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
0a753a76 1653
a0d0e21e
LW
1654=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1655
be771a83
GS
1656(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1657as a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
1658
1659=item Exiting substitution via %s
1660
be771a83
GS
1661(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1662as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
a0d0e21e 1663
7b8d334a
GS
1664=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1665
be771a83
GS
1666(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1667the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1668usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1669e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
7b8d334a 1670
6df41af2
GS
1671=item %s: Expression syntax
1672
be771a83
GS
1673(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1674Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
6df41af2
GS
1675
1676=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1677
3c10abe3
AG
1678(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1679CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1680queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
6df41af2 1681
7253e4e3 1682=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
73b437c8 1683
be771a83 1684(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
7253e4e3
RK
1685character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1686in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1687"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1688problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
73b437c8 1689
748a9306 1690=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
a0d0e21e 1691
be771a83
GS
1692(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1693system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1694details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1695you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
a0d0e21e
LW
1696
1697=item fcntl is not implemented
1698
1699(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1700PDP-11 or something?
1701
22846ab4
AB
1702=item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1703
1704(F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1705is not possible.
1706
f337b084
TH
1707=item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1708
1709(W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1710which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1711a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1712C<u63> as format.
1713
af8c498a 1714=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
a0d0e21e 1715
6c8d78fb
HS
1716(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1717it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1718"+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1719write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
a0d0e21e 1720
af8c498a 1721=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
a0d0e21e 1722
6c8d78fb
HS
1723(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1724you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
be771a83
GS
1725with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1726intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
6c8d78fb
HS
1727Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1728(also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
97828cef
RGS
1729
1730=item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1731
1732(W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1733as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
97828cef
RGS
1734previously.
1735
1736=item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1737
1738(W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
d7f8936a 1739as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
a0d0e21e
LW
1740
1741=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1742
1743(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
be771a83
GS
1744a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1745happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1746name.
a0d0e21e 1747
56e90b21
GS
1748=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1749
be771a83 1750(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
c289d2f7 1751some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
be771a83
GS
1752filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1753same name?
56e90b21 1754
6df41af2
GS
1755=item Format not terminated
1756
1757(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1758to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1759
a0d0e21e
LW
1760=item Format %s redefined
1761
e476b1b5 1762(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
a0d0e21e
LW
1763
1764 {
271595cc 1765 no warnings 'redefine';
a0d0e21e
LW
1766 eval "format NAME =...";
1767 }
1768
a0d0e21e
LW
1769=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1770
e476b1b5 1771(W syntax) You said
a0d0e21e
LW
1772
1773 if ($foo = 123)
1774
1775when you meant
1776
1777 if ($foo == 123)
1778
1779(or something like that).
1780
6df41af2
GS
1781=item %s found where operator expected
1782
56da5a46
RGS
1783(S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1784If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
be771a83
GS
1785operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1786operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
6df41af2 1787
a0d0e21e
LW
1788=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1789
1790(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1791
1792=item gethostent not implemented
1793
1794(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1795because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1796on the Internet.
1797
69282e91 1798=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 1799
be771a83
GS
1800(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1801socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
a0d0e21e 1802
748a9306
LW
1803=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1804
1805(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1806C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1807
6df41af2
GS
1808=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1809
be771a83
GS
1810(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1811forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
6df41af2
GS
1812L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1813
1814=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1815
a4edf47d 1816(F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
30c282f6 1817that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
a4edf47d
GS
1818declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1819which package the global variable is in (using "::").
6df41af2 1820
e476b1b5
GS
1821=item glob failed (%s)
1822
be771a83
GS
1823(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1824C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1825C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1826nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1827resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1828broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1829config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1830were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1831empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1832think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
75b44862 1833C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
e476b1b5 1834
a0d0e21e
LW
1835=item Glob not terminated
1836
1837(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
be771a83
GS
1838a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1839not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1840earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
a0d0e21e 1841
6df41af2 1842=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
a0d0e21e 1843
6df41af2
GS
1844(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1845version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
a0d0e21e
LW
1846
1847=item goto must have label
1848
1849(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1850unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1851
49704364 1852=item ()-group starts with a count
18529408 1853
49704364 1854(F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
18529408 1855supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
49704364 1856 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
18529408 1857
6df41af2
GS
1858=item %s had compilation errors
1859
1860(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1861
a0d0e21e
LW
1862=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1863
be771a83
GS
1864(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1865to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1866created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
a0d0e21e
LW
1867
1868=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1869
be771a83
GS
1870(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1871spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
a0d0e21e 1872
6df41af2
GS
1873=item %s has too many errors
1874
1875(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1876Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1877
252aa082
JH
1878=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1879
e476b1b5 1880(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
9e24b6e2
JH
1881(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1882L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082 1883
8903cb82 1884=item Identifier too long
1885
1886(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
fc36a67e 1887about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
be771a83
GS
1888names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1889of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
8903cb82 1890
fc8cd66c
YO
1891=item Ignoring %s in character class in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1892
38a44b82 1893(W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return multi-char
fc8cd66c 1894or zero length sequences. When such an escape is used in a character class
1a147d38 1895its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
fc8cd66c
YO
1896been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1897
6df41af2 1898=item Illegal binary digit %s
f675dbe5 1899
6df41af2 1900(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
f675dbe5 1901
6df41af2 1902=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
a0d0e21e 1903
be771a83
GS
1904(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1905binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1906offending digit.
a0d0e21e 1907
4fdae800 1908=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1909
d5898338 1910(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
be771a83
GS
1911would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1912when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1913version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1914to your Perl administrator.
4fdae800 1915
d37a9538
ST
1916=item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
1917
420cdfc1 1918(W syntax) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration. Legal
d37a9538
ST
1919characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
1920
904d85c5
RGS
1921=item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
1922
1923(F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
1924you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
1925
8e742a20
MHM
1926=item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
1927
1928(F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
1929
a0d0e21e
LW
1930=item Illegal division by zero
1931
be771a83
GS
1932(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1933your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1934meaningless input.
a0d0e21e 1935
6df41af2
GS
1936=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1937
be771a83
GS
1938(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1939A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1940number stopped before the illegal character.
6df41af2 1941
a0d0e21e
LW
1942=item Illegal modulus zero
1943
be771a83
GS
1944(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1945numbers don't take to this kindly.
a0d0e21e 1946
6df41af2 1947=item Illegal number of bits in vec
399388f4 1948
6df41af2
GS
1949(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1950two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
399388f4
GS
1951
1952=item Illegal octal digit %s
a0d0e21e 1953
d1be9408 1954(F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
a0d0e21e 1955
399388f4 1956=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
748a9306 1957
d1be9408 1958(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
75b44862 1959Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
748a9306 1960
6df41af2 1961=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
6ff81951 1962
6df41af2 1963(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
646ca9b2 1964following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
6ff81951 1965
6df41af2 1966=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
81e118e0 1967
75b44862 1968(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
be771a83
GS
1969internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1970delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
09bef843 1971
6df41af2 1972=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
54310121 1973
be771a83
GS
1974(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1975name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1976didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1977ignored.
54310121 1978
6df41af2 1979=item (in cleanup) %s
9607fc9c 1980
be771a83
GS
1981(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1982the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1983system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1984times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1985would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
6df41af2 1986
be771a83
GS
1987Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1988also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
9607fc9c 1989
2c7d6b9c
RGS
1990=item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
1991
1992(F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
1993C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
1994documentation in L<mro> for more information.
1995
979699d9
JH
1996=item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
1997
1998(F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
1999Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2000encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2001
1a147d38
YO
2002=item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2003
2004(F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2005text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2006either consume text or fail.
2007
2008The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2009discovered.
2010
6dbe9451
NC
2011=item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2012
2013(F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2014of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2015C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2016as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2017
a0d0e21e
LW
2018=item Insecure dependency in %s
2019
8b1a09fc 2020(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
be771a83
GS
2021The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2022setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2023tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2024from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2025such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2026L<perlsec> for more information.
a0d0e21e
LW
2027
2028=item Insecure directory in %s
2029
be771a83
GS
2030(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2031setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
df98f984
RGS
2032the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2033See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2034
62f468fc 2035=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2036
2037(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
62f468fc 2038setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
332d5f78
SR
2039C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2040supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2041the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2042
a7ae9550
GS
2043=item Integer overflow in %s number
2044
75b44862 2045(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
be771a83
GS
2046either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2047your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2048On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
9e24b6e2
JH
2049representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
20500b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2051transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2052internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2053operations.
bbce6d69 2054
2fba7546
GA
2055=item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2056
0be96356
AL
2057(F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2058or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2fba7546
GA
2059integers for your architecture.
2060
46314c13
JP
2061=item Integer overflow in version
2062
2063(F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2064size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2065because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2066element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2067trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2068100/9.
2069
7253e4e3 2070=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2071
2072(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
7253e4e3 2073The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
b45f050a
JF
2074discovered.
2075
748a9306
LW
2076=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2077
be771a83
GS
2078(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2079you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2080to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2081L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2082Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2083terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
748a9306 2084
7253e4e3 2085=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 2086
7253e4e3
RK
2087(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2088<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2089discovered.
a0d0e21e 2090
6df41af2
GS
2091=item %s (...) interpreted as function
2092
75b44862 2093(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
be771a83 2094followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
64977eb6 2095operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
13a2d996 2096L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
6df41af2 2097
09bef843
SB
2098=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2099
2100The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2101by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2102
2103=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2104
be771a83
GS
2105The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2106recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2107
c635e13b 2108=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2109
be771a83
GS
2110(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2111L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
c635e13b 2112
9e08bc66
TS
2113=item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2114
2115(W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2116didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2117from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2118The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2119The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2120escape was discovered.
2121
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2122=item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2123
2124(F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2125or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2126(Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2127
7253e4e3 2128=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2129
2130(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
7253e4e3
RK
2131greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2132C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2133up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2134problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2135
d1573ac7 2136=item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
c2e66d9e
GS
2137
2138(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2139character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2140
09bef843
SB
2141=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2142
0120eecf 2143(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
be771a83
GS
2144elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2145parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2146See L<attributes>.
09bef843 2147
b4581f09
JH
2148=item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2149
2150(W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2151colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2152If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2153list was terminated too soon.
2154
49704364 2155=item Invalid type '%s' in %s
96e4d5b1 2156
49704364
WL
2157(F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2158See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2159(W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
75b44862 2160silently ignored.
96e4d5b1 2161
46314c13
JP
2162=item Invalid version format (multiple underscores)
2163
2164(F) Versions may contain at most a single underscore, which signals
2165that the version is a beta release. See L<version> for the allowed
2166version formats.
2167
2168=item Invalid version format (underscores before decimal)
2169
2170(F) Versions may not contain decimals after the optional underscore.
2171See L<version> for the allowed version formats.
2172
a0d0e21e
LW
2173=item ioctl is not implemented
2174
2175(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2176strange for a machine that supports C.
2177
c289d2f7
JH
2178=item ioctl() on unopened %s
2179
2180(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2181Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2182
363c40c4
SB
2183=item IO layers (like "%s") unavailable
2184
2185(F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2186you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2187with 'useperlio'.
2188
80cbd5ad
JH
2189=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2190
2191(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2192neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2193
b4581f09
JH
2194=item $* is no longer supported
2195
fafcdf9e 2196(S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
b4581f09
JH
2197been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2198C<//m> and C<//s> regexp modifiers instead.
2199
8ae1fe26
RGS
2200=item $# is no longer supported
2201
fafcdf9e 2202(S deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
8ae1fe26
RGS
2203been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2204printf/sprintf functions instead.
2205
6ad11d81
JH
2206=item `%s' is not a code reference
2207
04a80ee0
RGS
2208(W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2209needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
6ad11d81
JH
2210to a subroutine.
2211
2212=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2213
04a80ee0
RGS
2214(W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2215unaware of.
6ad11d81 2216
a0d0e21e
LW
2217=item junk on end of regexp
2218
2219(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2220
2221=item Label not found for "last %s"
2222
be771a83
GS
2223(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2224of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2225L<perlfunc/last>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2226
2227=item Label not found for "next %s"
2228
2229(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2230that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2231L<perlfunc/last>.
2232
2233=item Label not found for "redo %s"
2234
2235(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2236that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2237L<perlfunc/last>.
2238
85ab1d1d 2239=item leaving effective %s failed
5ff3f7a4 2240
85ab1d1d 2241(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
5ff3f7a4
GS
2242effective uids or gids failed.
2243
49704364
WL
2244=item length/code after end of string in unpack
2245
d7f8936a 2246(F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
49704364
WL
2247length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2248an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2249
69282e91 2250=item listen() on closed socket %s
a0d0e21e 2251
be771a83
GS
2252(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2253to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2254L<perlfunc/listen>.
a0d0e21e 2255
58e23c8d 2256=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
2257
2258(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
58e23c8d 2259handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2e50fd82 2260
2f7da168
RK
2261=item lstat() on filehandle %s
2262
2263(W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2264by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2265instead on the filehandle.)
2266
96ebfdd7
RK
2267=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2268
2269(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2270values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2271L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2272
49704364
WL
2273=item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2274
2275(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2276are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2277
2278=item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2279
2280(F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2281are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2282
6df41af2
GS
2283=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2284
2285(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2286
2287 prefix1;prefix2
2288
2289or
6df41af2
GS
2290 prefix1 prefix2
2291
be771a83
GS
2292with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2293a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2294appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
fecfaeb8 2295"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 2296
2f758a16
ST
2297=item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2298
d37a9538
ST
2299(F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2300syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2301obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2302when the function is called.
2f758a16 2303
ba210ebe
JH
2304=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2305
2575c402
JW
2306(S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2307encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
ba210ebe 2308
2575c402
JW
2309One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2310you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
23118-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2312
2313If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2314sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2315set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2316message.
2317
2318See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
901b21bf 2319
dea0fc0b
JH
2320=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2321
2322Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2323doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2324
f337b084
TH
2325=item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2326
2327(F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2328rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2329
2330=item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2331
2332(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2333rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2334
2335=item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2336
2337(F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2338rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2339
2563cec5
IZ
2340=item Maximal count of pending signals (%s) exceeded
2341
2342(F) Perl aborted due to a too important number of signals pending. This
2343usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2344too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2345resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2346safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2347
49704364 2348=item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
6df41af2
GS
2349
2350(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
7253e4e3
RK
2351regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2352shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2353See L<perlre>.
6df41af2 2354
25f58aea
PN
2355=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2356
2357(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2358interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2359"use" or "my".
2360
49704364 2361=item % may not be used in pack
6df41af2
GS
2362
2363(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
be771a83
GS
2364checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2365See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
6df41af2 2366
a0d0e21e
LW
2367=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2368
2369(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
e7ea3e70 2370doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2371
3cdd684c
TP
2372=item Method %s not permitted
2373
2374See Server error.
2375
a0d0e21e
LW
2376=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2377
2378(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2379by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2380ended earlier on the current line.
2381
2382=item Misplaced _ in number
2383
d4ced10d
JH
2384(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2385separate two digits.
a0d0e21e 2386
9e81e6a1
RGS
2387=item Missing argument to -%c
2388
2389(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2390immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2391
4a2d328f 2392=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
423cee85 2393
4a2d328f 2394(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
423cee85
JH
2395double-quotish context.
2396
a0d0e21e
LW
2397=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2398
2399(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2400"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2401
06eaf0bc
GS
2402=item Missing command in piped open
2403
be771a83
GS
2404(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2405C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2406blank.
06eaf0bc 2407
961ce445
RGS
2408=item Missing control char name in \c
2409
2410(F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2411character name.
2412
6df41af2
GS
2413=item Missing name in "my sub"
2414
be771a83
GS
2415(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2416they have a name with which they can be found.
6df41af2
GS
2417
2418=item Missing $ on loop variable
2419
be771a83
GS
2420(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2421are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2422can vary from one line to the next.
6df41af2 2423
cc507455 2424=item (Missing operator before %s?)
748a9306 2425
56da5a46
RGS
2426(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2427"%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
748a9306 2428
ab13f0c7
JH
2429=item Missing right brace on %s
2430
2431(F) Missing right brace in C<\p{...}> or C<\P{...}>.
2432
d98d5fff 2433=item Missing right curly or square bracket
a0d0e21e 2434
be771a83
GS
2435(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2436ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2437were last editing.
a0d0e21e 2438
6df41af2
GS
2439=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2440
56da5a46
RGS
2441(S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2442"%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
6df41af2
GS
2443the previous line just because you saw this message.
2444
a0d0e21e
LW
2445=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2446
2447(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
5f05dabc 2448constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
a0d0e21e
LW
2449catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2450
2451 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2452 mod(2);
2453
2454Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2455
c5674021
PDF
2456Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2457is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2458
2459 $x = 1;
2460 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2461 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
64977eb6 2462 }
c5674021 2463
7a4340ed 2464=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e
LW
2465
2466(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2467subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2468backwards.
2469
7a4340ed 2470=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
a0d0e21e 2471
be771a83
GS
2472(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2473couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
a0d0e21e
LW
2474
2475=item Module name must be constant
2476
2477(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2478
be98fb35 2479=item Module name required with -%c option
6df41af2 2480
be98fb35
GS
2481(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2482you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2483about C<-M> and C<-m>.
6df41af2 2484
ed9aa3b7
SG
2485=item More than one argument to open
2486
2487(F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2488can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2489list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2490See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2491
a0d0e21e
LW
2492=item msg%s not implemented
2493
2494(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2495
2496=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2497
75b44862
GS
2498(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2499They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
8b1a09fc 2500
49704364 2501=item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
6df41af2 2502
49704364
WL
2503(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2504follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2505See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6df41af2
GS
2506
2507=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2508
be771a83
GS
2509(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2510that yet.
6df41af2 2511
30c282f6 2512=item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
6df41af2 2513
be771a83
GS
2514(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2515sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2516local() if you want to localize a package variable.
09bef843 2517
8b1a09fc 2518=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2519
e476b1b5 2520(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
be771a83
GS
2521If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2522again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
77ca0c92 2523provided for this purpose.
a0d0e21e 2524
64b374f4
FD
2525NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2526%c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2527the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2528will not trigger this warning.
2529
49704364
WL
2530=item Negative '/' count in unpack
2531
2532(F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2533negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2534
a0d0e21e
LW
2535=item Negative length
2536
be771a83
GS
2537(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2538length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
a0d0e21e 2539
ed9aa3b7
SG
2540=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2541
2542(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2543greater than or equal to zero.
2544
7253e4e3 2545=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
a0d0e21e 2546
b45f050a 2547(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
7253e4e3 2548things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
b45f050a 2549expression about where the problem was discovered.
a0d0e21e 2550
7253e4e3 2551Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
be771a83 2552C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
a0d0e21e 2553
6df41af2 2554=item %s never introduced
a0d0e21e 2555
be771a83
GS
2556(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2557scope before it could possibly have been used.
a0d0e21e 2558
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2559=item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2560
2561(F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2562real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2563See L<mro>.
2564
a0d0e21e
LW
2565=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2566
be771a83
GS
2567(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2568setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2569will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2570securable. See L<perlsec>.
a0d0e21e 2571
a0d0e21e
LW
2572=item No comma allowed after %s
2573
2574(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2575allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2576Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2577
0a753a76 2578One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2579constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2580importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2581does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2582explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2583L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2584would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2585remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2586constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2587list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2588this error was triggered?
2589
748a9306
LW
2590=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2591
be771a83
GS
2592(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2593redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2594doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
748a9306 2595
a0d0e21e
LW
2596=item No DB::DB routine defined
2597
be771a83 2598(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
ccafdc96
RGS
2599for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2600module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2601statement.
a0d0e21e
LW
2602
2603=item No dbm on this machine
2604
2605(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
5f05dabc 2606supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
a0d0e21e 2607
ccafdc96 2608=item No DB::sub routine defined
a0d0e21e 2609
ccafdc96
RGS
2610(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2611for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2612module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2613of each ordinary subroutine call.
a0d0e21e 2614
96ebfdd7
RK
2615=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2616
2617(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2618
c47ff5f1 2619=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
748a9306 2620
be771a83
GS
2621(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2622redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2623find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
748a9306 2624
49704364
WL
2625=item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2626
2627(F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2628matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2629
c47ff5f1 2630=item No input file after < on command line
748a9306 2631
be771a83
GS
2632(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2633redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2634name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
748a9306 2635
6df41af2
GS
2636=item No #! line
2637
2638(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2639even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2640
2c7d6b9c
RGS
2641=item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2642
2643(F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2644in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2645it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2646or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2647
6df41af2
GS
2648=item "no" not allowed in expression
2649
be771a83
GS
2650(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2651returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6df41af2 2652
c47ff5f1 2653=item No output file after > on command line
748a9306 2654
be771a83
GS
2655(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2656redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2657doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
748a9306 2658
c47ff5f1 2659=item No output file after > or >> on command line
748a9306 2660
be771a83
GS
2661(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2662redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2663find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
748a9306 2664
1ec3e8de
GS
2665=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2666
be771a83
GS
2667(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2668declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2669semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
1ec3e8de 2670
a0d0e21e
LW
2671=item No Perl script found in input
2672
2673(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2674with #! and containing the word "perl".
2675
2676=item No setregid available
2677
2678(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2679your system.
2680
2681=item No setreuid available
2682
2683(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2684your system.
2685
6df41af2
GS
2686=item No %s specified for -%c
2687
2688(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2689you haven't specified one.
2690
e75d1f10
RD
2691=item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2692
2693(F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2694but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2695package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2696
2c692339
RGS
2697=item No such class %s
2698
30c282f6 2699(F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2c692339
RGS
2700this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2701
6df41af2
GS
2702=item No such pipe open
2703
2704(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
be771a83
GS
2705close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2706earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
6df41af2 2707
a0d0e21e
LW
2708=item No such signal: SIG%s
2709
be771a83
GS
2710(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2711not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2712names on your system.
a0d0e21e
LW
2713
2714=item Not a CODE reference
2715
2716(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2717subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2718use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2719also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2720
2721=item Not a format reference
2722
2723(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2724format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2725
2726=item Not a GLOB reference
2727
be771a83
GS
2728(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2729symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2730something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2731kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2732
2733=item Not a HASH reference
2734
be771a83
GS
2735(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2736reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2737find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2738
6df41af2
GS
2739=item Not an ARRAY reference
2740
be771a83
GS
2741(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2742a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2743to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
6df41af2 2744
a0d0e21e
LW
2745=item Not a perl script
2746
2747(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2748even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2749mention perl.
2750
2751=item Not a SCALAR reference
2752
be771a83
GS
2753(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2754a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2755to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e
LW
2756
2757=item Not a subroutine reference
2758
2759(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2760subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
be771a83
GS
2761use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2762also L<perlref>.
a0d0e21e 2763
e7ea3e70 2764=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
a0d0e21e
LW
2765
2766(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
8b1a09fc 2767doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
a0d0e21e 2768
a0d0e21e
LW
2769=item Not enough arguments for %s
2770
2771(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2772
6df41af2
GS
2773=item Not enough format arguments
2774
be771a83
GS
2775(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2776supplied. See L<perlform>.
6df41af2
GS
2777
2778=item %s: not found
2779
be771a83
GS
2780(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2781of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2782yourself.
6df41af2
GS
2783
2784=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
a0d0e21e 2785
6df41af2
GS
2786(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2787timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
be771a83
GS
2788to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2789F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2790need to be added to UTC to get local time.
a0d0e21e 2791
4ef2275c
GA
2792=item Non-string passed as bitmask
2793
2794(W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
2795Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
2796select. See L<perlfunc/select>
2797
a0d0e21e
LW
2798=item Null filename used
2799
be771a83
GS
2800(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2801machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
a0d0e21e 2802
6df41af2
GS
2803=item NULL OP IN RUN
2804
be771a83
GS
2805(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2806pointer.
6df41af2 2807
55497cff 2808=item Null picture in formline
2809
2810(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2811specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2812supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2813
a0d0e21e
LW
2814=item Null realloc
2815
2816(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2817
2818=item NULL regexp argument
2819
5f05dabc 2820(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
a0d0e21e
LW
2821
2822=item NULL regexp parameter
2823
2824(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2825
fc36a67e 2826=item Number too long
2827
be771a83 2828(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
da75cd15 2829about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
be771a83
GS
2830versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2831the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2832"1_000_000").
fc36a67e 2833
6df41af2
GS
2834=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2835
be771a83
GS
2836(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2837The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2838future version.
6df41af2 2839
252aa082
JH
2840=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2841
75b44862 2842(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
be771a83
GS
2843(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2844L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
252aa082
JH
2845
2846See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2847
6ad11d81
JH
2848=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2849
04a80ee0
RGS
2850(W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
2851arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
6ad11d81 2852
b21befc1
MG
2853=item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
2854
2855(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2856which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2857
1930e939 2858=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
a0d0e21e 2859
be771a83
GS
2860(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2861which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
a0d0e21e 2862
bbce6d69 2863=item Offset outside string
2864
42bc49da
JH
2865(F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
2866with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
f5a7294f
JH
2867imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
2868take place when going past the end of the string when either
2869C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
1a7a2554
MB
2870for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
2871with real files).
bbce6d69 2872
c289d2f7 2873=item %s() on unopened %s
2dd78f96
JH
2874
2875(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2876never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2877call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2878
96ebfdd7
RK
2879=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2880
2881(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2882that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2883
a0d0e21e
LW
2884=item oops: oopsAV
2885
e476b1b5 2886(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e
LW
2887
2888=item oops: oopsHV
2889
e476b1b5 2890(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
a0d0e21e 2891
abc718f2
RGS
2892=item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
2893
2894(W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
2895a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
2896Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2897and is deprecated.
2898
2899=item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
2900
2901(W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
2902a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
2903Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
2904and is deprecated.
2905
a0288114 2906=item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
44a8e56a 2907
be771a83
GS
2908(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2909handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2910of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2911C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
44a8e56a 2912
748a9306
LW
2913=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2914
be771a83
GS
2915(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2916was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2917use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2918example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2919"*foo * 'foo'".
748a9306 2920
6df41af2
GS
2921=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2922
be771a83
GS
2923(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2924in the current lexical scope.
6df41af2 2925
a80b8354
GS
2926=item Out of memory!
2927
2928(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
be771a83
GS
2929remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2930no option but to exit immediately.
a80b8354 2931
19a52907
JH
2932At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
2933process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
2934C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
2935the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
2936and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
2937
6d3b25aa
RGS
2938=item Out of memory during %s extend
2939
2940(X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
2941the largest possible memory allocation.
2942
6df41af2 2943=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
a0d0e21e 2944
6df41af2
GS
2945(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2946remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
be771a83
GS
2947the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2948possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
a0d0e21e 2949
1b979e0a 2950=item Out of memory during request for %s
a0d0e21e 2951
be771a83
GS
2952(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2953insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2954request.
eff9c6e2
CS
2955
2956The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2957depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
be771a83
GS
2958However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2959emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
b022d2d2
IZ
2960is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2961where the failed request happened.
55497cff 2962
1b979e0a
IZ
2963=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2964
2965(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
be771a83
GS
2966is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2967C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
1b979e0a 2968
6df41af2
GS
2969=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2970
be771a83
GS
2971(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2972parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2973otherwise.
6df41af2 2974
28be1210
TH
2975=item '.' outside of string in pack
2976
2977(F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
2978position to before the start of the packed string being built.
2979
49704364 2980=item '@' outside of string in unpack
6df41af2 2981
49704364 2982(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
6df41af2
GS
2983the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2984
f337b084
TH
2985=item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
2986
2987(F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
2988the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
2989UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2990
6df41af2
GS
2991=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2992
be771a83
GS
2993(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2994package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2995some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2996mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
6df41af2 2997
96ebfdd7
RK
2998=item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
2999
3000(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3001signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3002
a0d0e21e
LW
3003=item page overflow
3004
be771a83
GS
3005(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3006page. See L<perlform>.
a0d0e21e 3007
6df41af2
GS
3008=item panic: %s
3009
3010(P) An internal error.
3011
c99a1475
NC
3012=item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3013
3014(P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3015an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3016platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3017enter this branch on this platform.
3018
a0d0e21e
LW
3019=item panic: ck_grep
3020
3021(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3022
3023=item panic: ck_split
3024
3025(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3026
3027=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3028
be771a83
GS
3029(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3030there are in the savestack.
a0d0e21e 3031
810b8aa5
GS
3032=item panic: del_backref
3033
3034(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3035reference.
3036
7619c85e
RG
3037=item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3038
3039(P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3040last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3041an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3042a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3043
a0d0e21e
LW
3044=item panic: die %s
3045
3046(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3047it wasn't an eval context.
3048
a0d0e21e
LW
3049=item panic: do_subst
3050
be771a83
GS
3051(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3052data.
a0d0e21e 3053
2269b42e 3054=item panic: do_trans_%s
a0d0e21e 3055
2269b42e 3056(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
be771a83 3057data.
a0d0e21e 3058
b7f7fd0b
NC
3059=item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3060
10203f38 3061(P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
b7f7fd0b
NC
3062failure was caught.
3063
c635e13b 3064=item panic: frexp
3065
3066(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3067
a0d0e21e
LW
3068=item panic: goto
3069
3070(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3071and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3072
23976bdd
NC
3073=item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3074
3075(P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3076but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3077contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3078adds a new object to the hash.
3079
a0d0e21e
LW
3080=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3081
3082(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3083
3084=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3085
3086(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3087
e446cec8
IZ
3088=item panic: kid popen errno read
3089
3090(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3091
a0d0e21e
LW
3092=item panic: last
3093
3094(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3095it wasn't a block context.
3096
3097=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3098
be771a83
GS
3099(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3100scope.
a0d0e21e
LW
3101
3102=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3103
3104(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3105invalid enum on the top of it.
3106
810b8aa5
GS
3107=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3108
3109(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3110references to an object.
3111
6df41af2
GS
3112=item panic: malloc
3113
3114(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3115
27d5b266
JH
3116=item panic: memory wrap
3117
3118(P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3119
a0d0e21e
LW
3120=item panic: pad_alloc
3121
3122(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3123and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3124
3125=item panic: pad_free curpad
3126
3127(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3128and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3129
3130=item panic: pad_free po
3131
3132(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3133
3134=item panic: pad_reset curpad
3135
3136(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3137and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3138
3139=item panic: pad_sv po
3140
3141(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3142
3143=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3144
3145(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3146and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3147
3148=item panic: pad_swipe po
3149
3150(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3151
3152=item panic: pp_iter
3153
3154(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3155
96ebfdd7
RK
3156=item panic: pp_match%s
3157
3158(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3159data.
3160
2269b42e
JH
3161=item panic: pp_split
3162
3163(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3164
a0d0e21e
LW
3165=item panic: realloc
3166
3167(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3168
3169=item panic: restartop
3170
3171(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3172didn't supply the destination.
3173
3174=item panic: return
3175
3176(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3177then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3178
3179=item panic: scan_num
3180
3181(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3182
3183=item panic: sv_insert
3184
3185(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3186was string.
3187
3188=item panic: top_env
3189
6224f72b 3190(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
a0d0e21e 3191
65bca31a
NC
3192=item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3193
3194(P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3195at run time.
3196
dea0fc0b
JH
3197=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3198
3199(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
64977eb6 3200to even) byte length.
dea0fc0b 3201
2f7da168
RK
3202=item panic: yylex
3203
3204(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3205
1a147d38
YO
3206=item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3207
3208(F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3209consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3210nesting limit is exceeded.
3211
3212The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3213discovered.
3214
7b8d334a 3215=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
a0d0e21e 3216
e476b1b5 3217(W parenthesis) You said something like
a0d0e21e
LW
3218
3219 my $foo, $bar = @_;
3220
3221when you meant
3222
3223 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3224
30c282f6 3225Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
a0d0e21e 3226
96ebfdd7
RK
3227=item C<-p> destination: %s
3228
3229(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3230command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3231redirected it with select().)
3232
3233=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3234
3235(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3236"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3237that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3238
1109a392
MHM
3239=item Perl_my_%s() not available
3240
3241(F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3242so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3243conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3244'<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3245
6d3b25aa
RGS
3246=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3247
3248(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3249recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3250you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3251
6df41af2
GS
3252=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3253
3254(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
fecfaeb8 3255C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
6df41af2 3256
96ebfdd7
RK
3257=item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3258
3259See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3260
6df41af2
GS
3261=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3262
3263(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3264
3265 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3266 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3267 LC_ALL = "En_US",
3268 LANG = (unset)
3269 are supported and installed on your system.
3270 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3271
3272Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3273settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
0ea6b70f
JH
3274This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3275system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3276locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3277dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3278Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3279the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3280you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3281L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
6df41af2 3282
a0d0e21e
LW
3283=item Permission denied
3284
3285(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
3286
bd3fa61c 3287=item pid %x not a child
748a9306 3288
be771a83
GS
3289(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3290process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3291fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
748a9306 3292
49704364 3293=item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3bf38418
WL
3294
3295(F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3296
96ebfdd7
RK
3297=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3298
3299(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3300shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3301Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3302the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3303not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3304
3305=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3306
3307(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3308the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3309
49704364 3310=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3311
9a0b3859 3312(W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
7253e4e3
RK
3313I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3314/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3315implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3316cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3317where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3318
49704364 3319=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a
JF
3320
3321(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
7253e4e3
RK
3322beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3323If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3324expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3325backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3326about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3327
49704364 3328=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
b45f050a 3329
7253e4e3
RK
3330(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3331with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3332need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3333character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3334and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3335problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
b45f050a 3336
bbce6d69 3337=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3338
e476b1b5 3339(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
75b44862 3340strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
be771a83
GS
3341literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3342parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3343
774d564b 3344You probably wrote something like this:
3345
54310121 3346 @list = qw(
774d564b 3347 a # a comment
bbce6d69 3348 b # another comment
774d564b 3349 );
bbce6d69 3350
3351when you should have written this:
3352
774d564b 3353 @list = qw(
54310121 3354 a
3355 b
774d564b 3356 );
3357
3358If you really want comments, build your list the
3359old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3360
3361 @list = (
3362 'a', # a comment
3363 'b', # another comment
3364 );
bbce6d69 3365
3366=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3367
be771a83
GS
3368(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3369commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3370different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3371frequently used.)
bbce6d69 3372
54310121 3373You probably wrote something like this:
bbce6d69 3374
774d564b 3375 qw! a, b, c !;
3376
3377which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3378commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
bbce6d69 3379
774d564b 3380 qw! a b c !;
bbce6d69 3381
a0d0e21e
LW
3382=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3383
3384(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3385Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3386end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3387Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3388
276b2a0c
RGS
3389=item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3390
3391(W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3392with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3393
3394 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3395
3396This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3397higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
96a925ab
YST
3398really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3399parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
276b2a0c 3400
18623440
PS
3401=item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3402
3403(W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
32b0a12e
AMS
3404but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3405literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3406to the array you apparently lost track of.
18623440 3407
8cd79558
GS
3408=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
3409
a1063b2d 3410(D deprecated) You have written something like this:
8cd79558
GS
3411
3412 sub doit
3413 {
3414 use attrs qw(locked);
3415 }
3416
3417You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
3418
3419 sub doit : locked
3420 {
3421 ...
3422
3423The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
3424backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"S