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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).
12 (S) A severe warning (default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
17
18The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19(W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
20
21If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22category is included with the classification letter in the description
23below.
24
25Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
29
30Default warnings are always enabled unless they are explicitly disabled
31with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
32
33Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
36See L<warnings>.
37
38The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
43letter.
44
45=over 4
46
47=item accept() on closed socket %s
48
49(W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50to check the return value of your socket() call? See
51L<perlfunc/accept>.
52
53=item Allocation too large: %lx
54
55(X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
56
57=item '!' allowed only after types %s
58
59(F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
60See L<perlfunc/pack>.
61
62=item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
63
64(W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67subroutine is not imported.
68
69To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
73
74To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
77L<attributes>).
78
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
86=item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
87
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.
91
92=item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
93
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.
97
98=item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
99
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
105
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;
112
113=item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
114
115(W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
116transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
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.
122
123=item Args must match #! line
124
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>.
129
130=item Arg too short for msgsnd
131
132(F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
133
134=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element
135
136(F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element, such as:
137
138 $foo{$bar}
139 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
140
141=item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
142
143(F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
144such as:
145
146 $foo{$bar}
147 $ref->{"susie"}[12]
148
149or a hash or array slice, such as:
150
151 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
152 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
153
154=item %s argument is not a subroutine name
155
156(F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
157name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
158error.
159
160=item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
161
162(W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
163that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
164will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
165
166=item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
167
168(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
169spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
170
171=item assertion botched: %s
172
173(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
174
175=item Assertion failed: file "%s"
176
177(P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
178
179=item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
180
181(F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
182must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
183know which context to supply to the right side.
184
185=item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
186
187(F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
188greater than or equal to zero.
189
190=item Attempt to bless into a reference
191
192(F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
193the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
194supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
195
196 bless $self, $proto;
197
198when you intended
199
200 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
201
202If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
203of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
204example by:
205
206 bless $self, "$proto";
207
208=item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
209
210(P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
211that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
212outside any of those arenas.
213
214=item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
215
216(P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
217strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
218strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
219of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
220
221=item Attempt to free temp prematurely
222
223(W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
224free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
225SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
226free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
227try to free it.
228
229=item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
230
231(P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
232
233=item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
234
235(W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
236see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
237earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
238This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
239that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
240mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
241corrupted.
242
243=item Attempt to join self
244
245(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
246impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
247to move the join() to some other thread.
248
249=item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
250
251(W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
252function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
253means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
254invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
255literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
256avoid this warning.
257
258=item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
259
260(W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
261used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
262dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
263
264=item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %s
265
266(F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
267or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
268S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
269S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
270
271=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
272
273(F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
274substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
275most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
276
277=item Bad filehandle: %s
278
279(F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
280symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
281open(), or did it in another package.
282
283=item Bad free() ignored
284
285(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
286been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
287setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
288
289This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
290dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
291which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
292
293=item Bad hash
294
295(P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
296
297=item Bad index while coercing array into hash
298
299(F) The index looked up in the hash found as the 0'th element of a
300pseudo-hash is not legal. Index values must be at 1 or greater.
301See L<perlref>.
302
303=item Badly placed ()'s
304
305(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
306of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
307Perl yourself.
308
309=item Bad name after %s::
310
311(F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
312didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
313of quotes, so
314
315 $var = 'myvar';
316 $sym = mypack::$var;
317
318is not the same as
319
320 $var = 'myvar';
321 $sym = "mypack::$var";
322
323=item Bad realloc() ignored
324
325(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
326never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
327by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
328
329=item Bad symbol for array
330
331(P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
332wasn't a symbol table entry.
333
334=item Bad symbol for filehandle
335
336(P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
337that wasn't a symbol table entry.
338
339=item Bad symbol for hash
340
341(P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
342wasn't a symbol table entry.
343
344=item Bareword found in conditional
345
346(W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
347conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
348of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
349
350 open FOO || die;
351
352It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
353a bareword:
354
355 use constant TYPO => 1;
356 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
357
358The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
359
360=item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
361
362(F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
363subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
364symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
365
366=item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
367
368(W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
369compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
370you need to predeclare a package?
371
372=item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
373
374(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
375subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
376exited.
377
378=item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
379
380(F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
381implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
382occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
383be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
384depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
385
386=item \1 better written as $1
387
388(W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
389The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
390substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
391because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
392there are more than 9 backreferences.
393
394=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
395
396(W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
397(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
398L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
399
400=item bind() on closed socket %s
401
402(W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
403check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
404
405=item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
406
407(W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
408Check you control flow and number of arguments.
409
410=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
411
412(W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
413
414=item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
415
416(P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
417copyable.
418
419=item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
420
421(F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
422which provides a race condition that breaks security.
423
424=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
425
426(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
427iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
428which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
429
430=item Callback called exit
431
432(F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
433exited by calling exit.
434
435=item %s() called too early to check prototype
436
437(W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
438parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
439that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
440early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
441subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
442checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
443function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
444the warning. See L<perlsub>.
445
446=item / cannot take a count
447
448(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
449you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
450L<perlfunc/pack>.
451
452=item Can't bless non-reference value
453
454(F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
455encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
456
457=item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
458
459(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
460functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
461in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
462
463=item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
464
465(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
466object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
467like this will reproduce the error:
468
469 $BADREF = undef;
470 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
471 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
472
473=item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
474
475(F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
476ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
477didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
478object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
479
480=item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
481
482(F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
483object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
484defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
485Something like this will reproduce the error:
486
487 $BADREF = 42;
488 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
489 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
490
491=item Can't chdir to %s
492
493(F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
494that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
495
496=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
497
498(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
499nosuid.
500
501=item Can't coerce array into hash
502
503(F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
504information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
505only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
506
507=item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
508
509(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
510(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
511say things like:
512
513 *foo += 1;
514
515You CAN say
516
517 $foo = *foo;
518 $foo += 1;
519
520but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
521
522=item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
523
524(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
525(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
526
527=item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
528
529(F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
530(typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
531
532=item Can't create pipe mailbox
533
534(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
535quotas or other plumbing problems.
536
537=item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
538
539(S) Currently, only scalar variables can declared with a specific class
540qualifier in a "my" or "our" declaration. The semantics may be extended
541for other types of variables in future.
542
543=item Can't declare %s in "%s"
544
545(F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my" or
546"our" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
547
548=item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
549
550(S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
551a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
552
553=item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
554
555(S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
556reason.
557
558=item Can't do inplace edit without backup
559
560(F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
561reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
562C<-i.bak>, or some such.
563
564=item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
565
566(S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
567characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
568inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
569
570=item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
571
572(F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
573regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
574regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
575
576=item Can't do setegid!
577
578(P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
579suidperl.
580
581=item Can't do seteuid!
582
583(P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
584
585=item Can't do setuid
586
587(F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to do
588setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the form
589sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides under
590the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines. If the
591file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask your
592sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
593
594=item Can't do waitpid with flags
595
596(F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
597waitpid() without flags is emulated.
598
599=item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
600
601(F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
602point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
603line.
604
605=item Can't exec "%s": %s
606
607(W exec) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
608named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
609permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
610C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
611architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
612can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
613#! at all.)
614
615=item Can't exec %s
616
617(F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
618that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
619need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
620
621=item Can't execute %s
622
623(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
624found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
625
626=item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
627
628(F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
629is no builtin with the name C<word>.
630
631=item Can't find %s character property "%s"
632
633(F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
634could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property
635(remember that the names of character properties consist only of
636alphanumeric characters), or maybe you forgot the C<Is> or C<In> prefix?
637
638=item Can't find label %s
639
640(F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
641possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
642
643=item Can't find %s on PATH
644
645(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
646found in the PATH.
647
648=item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
649
650(F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
651found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
652script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
653
654=item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
655
656(F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
657that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
658nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
659
660 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
661
662If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
663unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
664editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
665
666=item Can't find %s property definition %s
667
668(F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property for
669example \p{Lu} is all uppercase letters. Escape the C<\p>, either
670C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
671possible C<\E>).
672
673=item Can't fork
674
675(F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
676pipeline.
677
678=item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
679
680(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
681between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
682Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
683the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
684account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
685the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
686the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
687the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
688if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
689because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
690appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
691and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
692routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
693shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
694only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
695
696=item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
697
698(P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
699pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
700
701=item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
702
703(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
704mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
705
706=item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
707
708(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
709loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
710
711=item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
712
713(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
714a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
715you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
716See L<perlfunc/goto>.
717
718=item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-string
719
720(F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
721"string". (You can use it to jump out of an eval {BLOCK}, but you
722probably don't want to.)
723
724=item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
725
726(F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
727subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
728cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
729routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
730
731=item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
732
733(W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
734signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
735signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
736processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
737situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
738may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
739
740=item Can't "last" outside a loop block
741
742(F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
743except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
744block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
745block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
746usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
747inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
748L<perlfunc/last>.
749
750=item Can't localize lexical variable %s
751
752(F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
753lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
754localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
755package name.
756
757=item Can't localize pseudo-hash element
758
759(F) You said something like C<< local $ar->{'key'} >>, where $ar is a
760reference to a pseudo-hash. That hasn't been implemented yet, but you
761can get a similar effect by localizing the corresponding array element
762directly -- C<< local $ar->[$ar->[0]{'key'}] >>.
763
764=item Can't localize through a reference
765
766(F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
767handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
768pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
769that $ref will still be a reference.
770
771=item Can't locate %s
772
773(F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
774found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
775unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
776need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
777the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
778to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
779L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
780
781=item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
782
783(F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
784autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
785are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
786the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
787
788=item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
789
790(F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
791functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
792method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
793
794=item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
795
796(F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
797"Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
798that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
799
800=item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
801
802(W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
803doesn't seem to exist.
804
805=item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
806
807(F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
808VMS.
809
810=item Can't modify %s in %s
811
812(F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
813to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
814
815=item Can't modify nonexistent substring
816
817(P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
818a NULL.
819
820=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
821
822(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
823such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
824
825=item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
826
827(F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
828buffer.
829
830=item Can't "next" outside a loop block
831
832(F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
833there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
834count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
835grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
836though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
837once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
838
839=item Can't open %s: %s
840
841(S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
842filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
843switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
844is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
845the command line.
846
847=item Can't open bidirectional pipe
848
849(W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
850You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
851as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
852">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
853
854=item Can't open error file %s as stderr
855
856(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
857redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
858the command line for writing.
859
860=item Can't open input file %s as stdin
861
862(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
863redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
864command line for reading.
865
866=item Can't open output file %s as stdout
867
868(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
869redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
870the command line for writing.
871
872=item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
873
874(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
875redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
876for stdout.
877
878=item Can't open perl script%s: %s
879
880(F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
881
882=item Can't read CRTL environ
883
884(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
885from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
886missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
887or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
888searched.
889
890=item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
891
892(F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
893pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when
894it was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
895this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
896
897=item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
898
899(F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
900there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
901count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
902or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
903though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
904loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
905
906=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
907
908(S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
909file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
910the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
911
912=item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
913
914(S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
915probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
916
917=item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
918
919(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
920to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
921
922=item Can't resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
923
924(F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
925to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
926method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
927
928=item Can't reswap uid and euid
929
930(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
931suidperl.
932
933=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
934
935(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
936temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
937is not allowed.
938
939=item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
940
941(F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
942but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
943to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
944the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
945list context.
946
947=item Can't return outside a subroutine
948
949(F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
950there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
951
952=item Can't stat script "%s"
953
954(P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
955open already. Bizarre.
956
957=item Can't swap uid and euid
958
959(P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator of
960suidperl.
961
962=item Can't take log of %g
963
964(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
965negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
966standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
967negative numbers.
968
969=item Can't take sqrt of %g
970
971(F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
972negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
973with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
974
975=item Can't undef active subroutine
976
977(F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
978however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
979redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
980
981=item Can't unshift
982
983(F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
984as the main Perl stack.
985
986=item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
987
988(P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
989into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
990specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
991indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
992
993=item Can't upgrade to undef
994
995(P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme of
996upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the code
997calling sv_upgrade.
998
999=item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1000
1001(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1002be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1003
1004=item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1005
1006(P) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1007table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1008for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1009
1010=item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1011
1012(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1013references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1014
1015=item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1016
1017(F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1018Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1019provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1020
1021=item Can't use %s for loop variable
1022
1023(F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1024foreach.
1025
1026=item Can't use global %s in "my"
1027
1028(F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1029is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1030(namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1031have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1032weren't.
1033
1034=item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1035
1036(F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1037You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1038and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1039Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1040lexical variable.
1041
1042=item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1043
1044(F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1045reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1046test the type of the reference, if need be.
1047
1048=item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1049
1050(F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1051references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1052
1053=item Can't use subscript on %s
1054
1055(F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1056subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1057didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1058
1059=item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1060
1061(W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1062creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1063backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1064expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1065value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1066instead.
1067
1068=item Can't weaken a nonreference
1069
1070(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1071references can be weakened.
1072
1073=item Can't x= to read-only value
1074
1075(F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1076with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1077Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1078
1079=item Character in "C" format wrapped
1080
1081(W pack) You said
1082
1083 pack("C", $x)
1084
1085where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1086only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1087and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1088
1089 pack("C", $x & 255)
1090
1091If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1092instead.
1093
1094=item Character in "c" format wrapped
1095
1096(W pack) You said
1097
1098 pack("c", $x)
1099
1100where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1101is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1102and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1103
1104 pack("c", $x & 255);
1105
1106If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1107instead.
1108
1109=item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1110
1111(W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1112
1113=item %s: Command not found
1114
1115(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1116Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1117
1118=item Compilation failed in require
1119
1120(F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1121Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1122encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1123
1124=item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1125
1126(W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1127situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1128to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1129arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1130recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1131under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1132in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1133that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1134on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1135
1136=item connect() on closed socket %s
1137
1138(W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1139to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1140L<perlfunc/connect>.
1141
1142=item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1143
1144(F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1145an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1146specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1147corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1148L<overload>.
1149
1150=item Constant is not %s reference
1151
1152(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1153is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1154The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1155usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1156See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1157
1158=item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1159
1160(S|W redefine) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1161eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1162commentary and workarounds.
1163
1164=item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1165
1166(W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1167for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1168workarounds.
1169
1170=item Copy method did not return a reference
1171
1172(F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1173L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1174
1175=item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1176
1177(F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1178
1179=item corrupted regexp pointers
1180
1181(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1182expression compiler gave it.
1183
1184=item corrupted regexp program
1185
1186(P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1187valid magic number.
1188
1189=item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1190
1191(P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1192
1193=item C<-p> destination: %s
1194
1195(F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
1196command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
1197redirected it with select().)
1198
1199=item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
1200
1201(F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
1202know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
1203
1204=item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1205
1206(W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1207100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1208infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1209which case it indicates something else.
1210
1211=item defined(@array) is deprecated
1212
1213(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1214checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1215array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1216
1217=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1218
1219(D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1220checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1221is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1222
1223=item Delimiter for here document is too long
1224
1225(F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1226long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1227that triggers this error.
1228
1229=item Did not produce a valid header
1230
1231See Server error.
1232
1233=item %s did not return a true value
1234
1235(F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1236it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1237traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1238do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1239
1240=item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1241
1242(W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some
1243such.
1244
1245=item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1246
1247(W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1248variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1249seems superfluous.
1250
1251=item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1252
1253(W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1254@hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1255carried away.
1256
1257=item Died
1258
1259(F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1260you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1261
1262=item Document contains no data
1263
1264See Server error.
1265
1266=item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1267
1268(P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1269
1270=item do_study: out of memory
1271
1272(P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1273
1274=item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1275
1276(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1277found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1278name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1279because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1280"sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1281something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1282subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1283"sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1284
1285=item Duplicate free() ignored
1286
1287(S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1288already been freed.
1289
1290=item elseif should be elsif
1291
1292(S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's ugly.
1293Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1294"elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1295unlikely to be what you want.
1296
1297=item entering effective %s failed
1298
1299(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1300effective uids or gids failed.
1301
1302=item Error converting file specification %s
1303
1304(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1305specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1306single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1307an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1308conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1309
1310=item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1311
1312(F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1313expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1314is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1315
1316=item %s: Eval-group not allowed at run time
1317
1318(F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1319C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1320pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1321is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1322building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1323that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1324
1325=item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1326
1327(F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1328assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1329pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1330
1331=item Excessively long <> operator
1332
1333(F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1334Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1335filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1336variable and glob that.
1337
1338=item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
1339
1340(F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1341
1342=item Exiting eval via %s
1343
1344(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1345goto, or a loop control statement.
1346
1347=item Exiting format via %s
1348
1349(W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1350goto, or a loop control statement.
1351
1352=item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1353
1354(W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1355sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1356loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1357
1358=item Exiting subroutine via %s
1359
1360(W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1361as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1362
1363=item Exiting substitution via %s
1364
1365(W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1366as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1367
1368=item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1369
1370(W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1371the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1372usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1373e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1374
1375=item %s: Expression syntax
1376
1377(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1378Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1379
1380=item %s failed--call queue aborted
1381
1382(F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a CHECK, INIT, or
1383END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the queue of such
1384routines has been prematurely ended.
1385
1386=item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1387
1388(W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1389character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1390in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1391"-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1392problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1393
1394=item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1395
1396(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1397system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1398details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1399you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1400
1401=item fcntl is not implemented
1402
1403(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1404PDP-11 or something?
1405
1406=item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1407
1408(W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended it
1409to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or "+>"
1410or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to write
1411the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1412
1413=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1414
1415(W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If
1416you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1417with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1418intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1419
1420=item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1421
1422(F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1423a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1424happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1425name.
1426
1427=item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1428
1429(F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1430a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1431happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1432name.
1433
1434=item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1435
1436(W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1437some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1438filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1439same name?
1440
1441=item Quantifier follows nothing in regex;
1442
1443marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1444
1445(F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
1446meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
1447where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1448
1449=item Format not terminated
1450
1451(F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1452to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1453
1454=item Format %s redefined
1455
1456(W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1457
1458 {
1459 no warnings;
1460 eval "format NAME =...";
1461 }
1462
1463=item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1464
1465(W syntax) You said
1466
1467 if ($foo = 123)
1468
1469when you meant
1470
1471 if ($foo == 123)
1472
1473(or something like that).
1474
1475=item %s found where operator expected
1476
1477(S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
1478sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1479operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1480operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1481
1482=item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1483
1484(S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1485
1486=item gethostent not implemented
1487
1488(F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1489because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1490on the Internet.
1491
1492=item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1493
1494(W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1495socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1496
1497=item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1498
1499(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1500C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1501
1502=item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1503
1504(W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1505forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1506L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1507
1508=item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1509
1510(F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1511must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), declared beforehand using
1512"our", or explicitly qualified to say which package the global variable
1513is in (using "::").
1514
1515=item glob failed (%s)
1516
1517(W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1518C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1519C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1520nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1521resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1522broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1523config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1524were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1525empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1526think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1527C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1528
1529=item Glob not terminated
1530
1531(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1532a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1533not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1534earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1535
1536=item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1537
1538(P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1539version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1540
1541=item goto must have label
1542
1543(F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1544unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1545
1546=item %s had compilation errors
1547
1548(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1549
1550=item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1551
1552(S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1553to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1554created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1555
1556=item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1557
1558(D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1559spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1560
1561=item %s has too many errors
1562
1563(F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1564Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1565
1566=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1567
1568(W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1569(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1570L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1571
1572=item Identifier too long
1573
1574(F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1575about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1576names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1577of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1578
1579=item Illegal binary digit %s
1580
1581(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1582
1583=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1584
1585(W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
1586binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
1587offending digit.
1588
1589=item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1590
1591(F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
1592would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
1593when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
1594version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
1595to your Perl administrator.
1596
1597=item Illegal division by zero
1598
1599(F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
1600your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
1601meaningless input.
1602
1603=item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
1604
1605(W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
1606A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
1607number stopped before the illegal character.
1608
1609=item Illegal modulus zero
1610
1611(F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
1612numbers don't take to this kindly.
1613
1614=item Illegal number of bits in vec
1615
1616(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1617two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1618
1619=item Illegal octal digit %s
1620
1621(F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1622
1623=item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
1624
1625(W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1626Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1627
1628=item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1629
1630(X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1631following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1632
1633=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1634
1635(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
1636internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
1637delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1638
1639=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1640
1641(W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
1642name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1643didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
1644ignored.
1645
1646=item (in cleanup) %s
1647
1648(W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1649the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
1650system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
1651times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
1652would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
1653
1654Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
1655also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1656
1657=item Insecure dependency in %s
1658
1659(F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1660The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
1661setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
1662tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
1663from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
1664such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
1665L<perlsec> for more information.
1666
1667=item Insecure directory in %s
1668
1669(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1670setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
1671the world. See L<perlsec>.
1672
1673=item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
1674
1675(F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1676setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
1677C<$ENV{ENV}> or C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> are derived from data supplied (or
1678potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1679known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1680
1681=item Integer overflow in %s number
1682
1683(W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
1684either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
1685your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
1686On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1687representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
16880b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1689transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1690internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1691operations.
1692
1693=item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1694
1695(P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1696The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1697discovered.
1698
1699
1700=item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1701
1702(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
1703you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
1704to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
1705L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
1706Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
1707terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
1708
1709=item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1710
1711(P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
1712<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1713discovered.
1714
1715
1716=item %s (...) interpreted as function
1717
1718(W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
1719followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
1720operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
1721L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
1722
1723=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1724
1725The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1726by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1727
1728=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1729
1730The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
1731recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1732
1733=item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1734
1735(W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
1736L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1737
1738=item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1739
1740(F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1741greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
1742C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
1743up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1744problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1745
1746=item Invalid [] range "%s" in transliteration operator
1747
1748(F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
1749character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
1750
1751=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1752
1753(F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
1754elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
1755parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
1756See L<attributes>.
1757
1758=item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1759
1760(F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1761(W pack) The given character is not a valid pack type but used to be
1762silently ignored.
1763
1764=item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1765
1766(F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See
1767L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1768(W unpack) The given character is not a valid unpack type but used to be
1769silently ignored.
1770
1771=item ioctl is not implemented
1772
1773(F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1774strange for a machine that supports C.
1775
1776=item ioctl() on unopened %s
1777
1778(W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1779Check you control flow and number of arguments.
1780
1781=item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
1782
1783(F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
1784neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
1785
1786=item `%s' is not a code reference
1787
1788(W) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant needs
1789to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
1790to a subroutine.
1791
1792=item `%s' is not an overloadable type
1793
1794(W) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is unaware of.
1795
1796=item junk on end of regexp
1797
1798(P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1799
1800=item Label not found for "last %s"
1801
1802(F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
1803of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1804L<perlfunc/last>.
1805
1806=item Label not found for "next %s"
1807
1808(F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1809that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1810L<perlfunc/last>.
1811
1812=item Label not found for "redo %s"
1813
1814(F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1815that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1816L<perlfunc/last>.
1817
1818=item leaving effective %s failed
1819
1820(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1821effective uids or gids failed.
1822
1823=item listen() on closed socket %s
1824
1825(W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
1826to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1827L<perlfunc/listen>.
1828
1829=item lstat() on filehandle %s
1830
1831(W io) You tried to do a lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
1832by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
1833instead on the filehandle.)
1834
1835=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1836
1837(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1838values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
1839L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1840
1841=item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex;
1842
1843marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1844
1845(F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
1846handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release. The <-- HERE
1847shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1848
1849=item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
1850
1851(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
1852
1853 prefix1;prefix2
1854
1855or
1856
1857 prefix1 prefix2
1858
1859with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
1860a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
1861appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
1862"PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
1863
1864=item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
1865
1866Perl detected something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding rules.
1867
1868=item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
1869
1870Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
1871doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
1872
1873=item %s matches null string many times in regex;
1874
1875marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1876
1877(W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
1878regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
1879shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
1880See L<perlre>.
1881
1882=item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
1883
1884(W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
1885interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
1886"use" or "my".
1887
1888=item % may only be used in unpack
1889
1890(F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
1891checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
1892See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1893
1894=item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1895
1896(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1897doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1898
1899=item Method %s not permitted
1900
1901See Server error.
1902
1903=item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1904
1905(S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1906by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1907ended earlier on the current line.
1908
1909=item Misplaced _ in number
1910
1911(W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
1912separate two digits.
1913
1914=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1915
1916(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1917double-quotish context.
1918
1919=item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1920
1921(F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1922"indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1923
1924=item Missing command in piped open
1925
1926(W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
1927C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
1928blank.
1929
1930=item Missing name in "my sub"
1931
1932(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
1933they have a name with which they can be found.
1934
1935=item Missing $ on loop variable
1936
1937(F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
1938are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
1939can vary from one line to the next.
1940
1941=item (Missing operator before %s?)
1942
1943(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1944found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1945
1946=item Missing right curly or square bracket
1947
1948(F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
1949ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
1950were last editing.
1951
1952=item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
1953
1954(S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1955found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1956the previous line just because you saw this message.
1957
1958=item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1959
1960(F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1961constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1962catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1963
1964 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1965 mod(2);
1966
1967Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1968
1969Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
1970is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
1971
1972 $x = 1;
1973 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
1974 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
1975 }
1976
1977=item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
1978
1979(F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1980subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1981backwards.
1982
1983=item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
1984
1985(P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
1986couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
1987
1988=item Module name must be constant
1989
1990(F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1991
1992=item Module name required with -%c option
1993
1994(F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
1995you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
1996about C<-M> and C<-m>.
1997
1998=item msg%s not implemented
1999
2000(F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2001
2002=item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2003
2004(W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2005They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2006
2007=item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
2008
2009(F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
2010Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A*
2011or Z*. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2012
2013=item / must be followed by a, A or Z
2014
2015(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, which
2016must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z to indicate what sort
2017of string is to be unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2018
2019=item / must follow a numeric type
2020
2021(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#', but this did not
2022follow some numeric unpack specification. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2023
2024=item "my sub" not yet implemented
2025
2026(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2027that yet.
2028
2029=item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2030
2031(F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2032sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2033local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2034
2035=item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2036
2037(W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2038If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2039again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2040provided for this purpose.
2041
2042=item Negative length
2043
2044(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2045length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2046
2047=item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2048
2049(F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2050things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2051expression about where the problem was discovered.
2052
2053Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2054C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2055
2056=item %s never introduced
2057
2058(S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2059scope before it could possibly have been used.
2060
2061=item No %s allowed while running setuid
2062
2063(F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2064setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2065will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2066securable. See L<perlsec>.
2067
2068=item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2069
2070(F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2071
2072=item No comma allowed after %s
2073
2074(F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2075allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2076Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2077
2078One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2079constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2080importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2081does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2082explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2083L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2084would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2085remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2086constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2087list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2088this error was triggered?
2089
2090=item No command into which to pipe on command line
2091
2092(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2093redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2094doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2095
2096=item No DB::DB routine defined
2097
2098(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2099for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof) didn't
2100define a routine to be called at the beginning of each statement. Which
2101is odd, because the file should have been required automatically, and
2102should have blown up the require if it didn't parse right.
2103
2104=item No dbm on this machine
2105
2106(P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2107supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2108
2109=item No DBsub routine
2110
2111(F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
2112but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
2113didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
2114ordinary subroutine call.
2115
2116=item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2117
2118(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2119redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2120find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2121
2122=item No input file after < on command line
2123
2124(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2125redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2126name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2127
2128=item No #! line
2129
2130(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2131even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2132
2133=item "no" not allowed in expression
2134
2135(F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2136returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2137
2138=item No output file after > on command line
2139
2140(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2141redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2142doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2143
2144=item No output file after > or >> on command line
2145
2146(F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2147redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2148find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2149
2150=item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2151
2152(F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2153declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2154semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2155
2156=item No Perl script found in input
2157
2158(F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2159with #! and containing the word "perl".
2160
2161=item No setregid available
2162
2163(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2164your system.
2165
2166=item No setreuid available
2167
2168(F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2169your system.
2170
2171=item No space allowed after -%c
2172
2173(F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2174immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2175
2176=item No %s specified for -%c
2177
2178(F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2179you haven't specified one.
2180
2181=item No such pipe open
2182
2183(P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2184close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2185earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2186
2187=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s"
2188
2189(F) You tried to access an array as a hash, but the field name used is
2190not defined. The hash at index 0 should map all valid field names to
2191array indices for that to work.
2192
2193=item No such pseudo-hash field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2194
2195(F) You tried to access a field of a typed variable where the type does
2196not know about the field name. The field names are looked up in the
2197%FIELDS hash in the type package at compile time. The %FIELDS hash is
2198%usually set up with the 'fields' pragma.
2199
2200=item No such signal: SIG%s
2201
2202(W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2203not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2204names on your system.
2205
2206=item Not a CODE reference
2207
2208(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2209subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2210use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2211also L<perlref>.
2212
2213=item Not a format reference
2214
2215(F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2216format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2217
2218=item Not a GLOB reference
2219
2220(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2221symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2222something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2223kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2224
2225=item Not a HASH reference
2226
2227(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2228reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2229find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2230
2231=item Not an ARRAY reference
2232
2233(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2234a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2235to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2236
2237=item Not a perl script
2238
2239(F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2240even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
2241mention perl.
2242
2243=item Not a SCALAR reference
2244
2245(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
2246a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2247to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2248
2249=item Not a subroutine reference
2250
2251(F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2252subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2253use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2254also L<perlref>.
2255
2256=item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
2257
2258(F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2259doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2260
2261=item Not enough arguments for %s
2262
2263(F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
2264
2265=item Not enough format arguments
2266
2267(W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
2268supplied. See L<perlform>.
2269
2270=item %s: not found
2271
2272(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
2273of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
2274yourself.
2275
2276=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
2277
2278(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
2279timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
2280to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
2281F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
2282need to be added to UTC to get local time.
2283
2284=item Null filename used
2285
2286(F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
2287machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
2288
2289=item NULL OP IN RUN
2290
2291(P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
2292pointer.
2293
2294=item Null picture in formline
2295
2296(F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
2297specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
2298supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
2299
2300=item Null realloc
2301
2302(P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
2303
2304=item NULL regexp argument
2305
2306(P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
2307
2308=item NULL regexp parameter
2309
2310(P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
2311
2312=item Number too long
2313
2314(F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
2315about about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
2316versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
2317the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
2318"1_000_000").
2319
2320=item Octal number in vector unsupported
2321
2322(F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
2323The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
2324future version.
2325
2326=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
2327
2328(W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2329(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2330L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2331
2332See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
2333
2334=item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
2335
2336(W) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of arguments.
2337The arguments should come in pairs.
2338
2339=item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
2340
2341(W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
2342which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
2343
2344=item Offset outside string
2345
2346(F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
2347pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. The sole
2348exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer will extend
2349the buffer and zero pad the new area.
2350
2351=item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
2352
2353(W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
2354that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2355
2356=item %s() on unopened %s
2357
2358(W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
2359never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
2360call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
2361
2362=item oops: oopsAV
2363
2364(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2365
2366=item oops: oopsHV
2367
2368(S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
2369
2370=item Operation `%s': no method found, %s
2371
2372(F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
2373handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
2374of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
2375C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
2376
2377=item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
2378
2379(S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
2380was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
2381use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
2382example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
2383"*foo * 'foo'".
2384
2385=item "our" variable %s redeclared
2386
2387(W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
2388in the current lexical scope.
2389
2390=item Out of memory!
2391
2392(X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2393remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
2394no option but to exit immediately.
2395
2396=item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
2397
2398(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
2399remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
2400the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
2401possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
2402
2403=item Out of memory during request for %s
2404
2405(X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
2406insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
2407request.
2408
2409The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
2410depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
2411However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
2412emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
2413is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
2414where the failed request happened.
2415
2416=item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
2417
2418(F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
2419is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
2420C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
2421
2422=item Out of memory for yacc stack
2423
2424(F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
2425parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
2426otherwise.
2427
2428=item @ outside of string
2429
2430(F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
2431the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2432
2433=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
2434
2435(W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
2436package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
2437some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
2438mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
2439
2440=item Package '%s' not found (did you use the incorrect case?)
2441
2442(W misc) You included a package file via C<use>, but the package name
2443did not match the file name. It's possible that you misspelled the
2444package name.
2445
2446=item page overflow
2447
2448(W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
2449page. See L<perlform>.
2450
2451=item panic: %s
2452
2453(P) An internal error.
2454
2455=item panic: ck_grep
2456
2457(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
2458
2459=item panic: ck_split
2460
2461(P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
2462
2463=item panic: corrupt saved stack index
2464
2465(P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
2466there are in the savestack.
2467
2468=item panic: del_backref
2469
2470(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
2471reference.
2472
2473=item panic: die %s
2474
2475(P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
2476it wasn't an eval context.
2477
2478=item panic: pp_match
2479
2480(P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
2481data.
2482
2483=item panic: do_subst
2484
2485(P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
2486data.
2487
2488=item panic: do_trans_%s
2489
2490(P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
2491data.
2492
2493=item panic: frexp
2494
2495(P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
2496
2497=item panic: goto
2498
2499(P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
2500and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
2501
2502=item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
2503
2504(P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
2505
2506=item panic: INTERPCONCAT
2507
2508(P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
2509
2510=item panic: kid popen errno read
2511
2512(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
2513
2514=item panic: last
2515
2516(P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
2517it wasn't a block context.
2518
2519=item panic: leave_scope clearsv
2520
2521(P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
2522scope.
2523
2524=item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
2525
2526(P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
2527invalid enum on the top of it.
2528
2529=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
2530
2531(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
2532references to an object.
2533
2534=item panic: malloc
2535
2536(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
2537
2538=item panic: mapstart
2539
2540(P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
2541
2542=item panic: null array
2543
2544(P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
2545
2546=item panic: pad_alloc
2547
2548(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2549and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2550
2551=item panic: pad_free curpad
2552
2553(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2554and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2555
2556=item panic: pad_free po
2557
2558(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2559
2560=item panic: pad_reset curpad
2561
2562(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2563and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2564
2565=item panic: pad_sv po
2566
2567(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2568
2569=item panic: pad_swipe curpad
2570
2571(P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
2572and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
2573
2574=item panic: pad_swipe po
2575
2576(P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
2577
2578=item panic: pp_iter
2579
2580(P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
2581
2582=item panic: pp_split
2583
2584(P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
2585
2586=item panic: realloc
2587
2588(P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
2589
2590=item panic: restartop
2591
2592(P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
2593didn't supply the destination.
2594
2595=item panic: return
2596
2597(P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
2598then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
2599
2600=item panic: scan_num
2601
2602(P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
2603
2604=item panic: sv_insert
2605
2606(P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
2607was string.
2608
2609=item panic: top_env
2610
2611(P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
2612
2613=item panic: yylex
2614
2615(P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
2616
2617=item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
2618
2619(P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
2620to even) byte length.
2621
2622=item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
2623
2624(W parenthesis) You said something like
2625
2626 my $foo, $bar = @_;
2627
2628when you meant
2629
2630 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
2631
2632Remember that "my", "our", and "local" bind tighter than comma.
2633
2634=item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
2635
2636(F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
2637recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
2638you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
2639
2640=item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2641
2642(F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2643C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
2644
2645=item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2646
2647(S) The whole warning message will look something like:
2648
2649 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
2650 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
2651 LC_ALL = "En_US",
2652 LANG = (unset)
2653 are supported and installed on your system.
2654 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
2655
2656Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
2657settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
2658This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
2659system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
2660locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
2661dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
2662Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
2663the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
2664you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
2665L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
2666
2667=item perlio: argument list not closed for layer "%s"
2668
2669(S) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you forgot
2670the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
2671data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
2672the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
2673If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
2674the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2675
2676=item perlio: invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2677
2678(S) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2679colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of an layer list.
2680If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2681list was terminated too soon.
2682
2683=item perlio: unknown layer "%s"
2684
2685(S) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
2686system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
2687internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
2688are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
2689explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
2690value of the environment variable PERLIO.
2691
2692=item Permission denied
2693
2694(F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
2695
2696=item pid %x not a child
2697
2698(W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
2699process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
2700fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
2701
2702=item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex;
2703
2704marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2705
2706(W unsafe) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
2707I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
2708/[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
2709implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
2710cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
2711where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2712
2713=item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2714
2715marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2716
2717(F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
2718beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
2719If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2720expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2721backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
2722about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2723
2724=item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex;
2725
2726marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2727
2728(F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2729with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
2730need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
2731character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
2732and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2733problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2734
2735=item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex;
2736
2737marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2738
2739(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
2740shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2741See L<perlre>.
2742
2743=item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
2744
2745(F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
2746the BSD version, which takes a pid.
2747
2748=item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
2749
2750(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
2751strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
2752literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
2753parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
2754
2755You probably wrote something like this:
2756
2757 @list = qw(
2758 a # a comment
2759 b # another comment
2760 );
2761
2762when you should have written this:
2763
2764 @list = qw(
2765 a
2766 b
2767 );
2768
2769If you really want comments, build your list the
2770old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
2771
2772 @list = (
2773 'a', # a comment
2774 'b', # another comment
2775 );
2776
2777=item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
2778
2779(W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
2780commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
2781different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
2782frequently used.)
2783
2784You probably wrote something like this:
2785
2786 qw! a, b, c !;
2787
2788which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
2789commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
2790
2791 qw! a b c !;
2792
2793=item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
2794
2795(F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
2796Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
2797end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
2798Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
2799
2800=item Possible Y2K bug: %s
2801
2802(W y2k) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
2803could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
2804
2805=item pragma "attrs" is deprecated, use "sub NAME : ATTRS" instead
2806
2807(D deprecated) You have written something like this:
2808
2809 sub doit
2810 {
2811 use attrs qw(locked);
2812 }
2813
2814You should use the new declaration syntax instead.
2815
2816 sub doit : locked
2817 {
2818 ...
2819
2820The C<use attrs> pragma is now obsolete, and is only provided for
2821backward-compatibility. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes">.
2822
2823=item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
2824
2825(S precedence) The old irregular construct
2826
2827 open FOO || die;
2828
2829is now misinterpreted as
2830
2831 open(FOO || die);
2832
2833because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
2834list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
2835parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
2836of "||".
2837
2838=item Premature end of script headers
2839
2840See Server error.
2841
2842=item printf() on closed filehandle %s
2843
2844(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
2845before now. Check your control flow.
2846
2847=item print() on closed filehandle %s
2848
2849(W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
2850before now. Check your control flow.
2851
2852=item Process terminated by SIG%s
2853
2854(W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2855applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2856port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2857L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
2858in L<perlos2>.
2859
2860=item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
2861
2862(S unsafe) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
2863declared or defined with a different function prototype.
2864
2865=item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex;
2866
2867marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2868
2869(F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
2870{min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
2871the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2872
2873=item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression;
2874
2875marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2876
2877(W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
2878it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
2879quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
2880"abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
2881C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
2882
2883The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2884discovered.
2885
2886=item Range iterator outside integer range
2887
2888(F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
2889are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
2890One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
2891by prepending "0" to your numbers.
2892
2893=item readline() on closed filehandle %s
2894
2895(W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
2896before now. Check your control flow.
2897
2898=item Reallocation too large: %lx
2899
2900(F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
2901
2902=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
2903
2904(S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
2905already been freed.
2906
2907=item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
2908
2909(F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
2910the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
2911which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
2912
2913=item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
2914
2915(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
2916an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
2917
2918=item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
2919
2920(F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
2921a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
2922hierarchy.
2923
2924=item Reference found where even-sized list expected
2925
2926(W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
2927with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
2928means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
2929parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
2930
2931 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
2932 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
2933 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
2934 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
2935
2936=item Reference is already weak
2937
2938(W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
2939Doing so has no effect.
2940
2941=item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
2942
2943(W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
2944a reference count of other than 1.
2945
2946=item Reference to nonexistent group in regex;
2947
2948marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2949
2950(F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
2951not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
2952wanted to have the character with value 7 inserted into the regular expression,
2953prepend a zero to make the number at least two digits: C<\07>
2954
2955The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2956discovered.
2957
2958=item regexp memory corruption
2959
2960(P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
2961expression compiler gave it.
2962
2963=item Regexp out of space
2964
2965(P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
2966earlier.
2967
2968=item Repeat count in pack overflows
2969
2970(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2971signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2972
2973=item Repeat count in unpack overflows
2974
2975(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
2976signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2977
2978=item Reversed %s= operator
2979
2980(W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
2981always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2982
2983=item Runaway format
2984
2985(F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2986produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2987199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2988themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2989shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2990
2991=item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2992
2993(W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
2994single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
2995value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
2996behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
2997argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
2998and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2999if you're expecting only one subscript.
3000
3001On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3002element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3003Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3004L<perlref>.
3005
3006=item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3007
3008(W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3009element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3010(indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3011like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3012argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3013and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3014if you're expecting only one subscript.
3015
3016On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3017as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3018not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3019L<perlref>.
3020
3021=item Scalars leaked: %d
3022
3023(P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3024not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3025What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3026especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3027
3028=item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
3029
3030(F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
3031or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
3032
3033=item Search pattern not terminated
3034
3035(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3036construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3037Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3038
3039=item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3040
3041(W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3042filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3043
3044=item select not implemented
3045
3046(F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
3047
3048=item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
3049
3050(F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
3051the current implementation.
3052
3053=item Semicolon seems to be missing
3054
3055(W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
3056semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
3057
3058=item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
3059
3060(S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
3061scalar that had previously been marked as free.
3062
3063=item sem%s not implemented
3064
3065(F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
3066
3067=item send() on closed socket %s
3068
3069(W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
3070before now. Check your control flow.
3071
3072=item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3073
3074(F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
3075shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3076L<perlre>.
3077
3078=item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex;
3079
3080marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3081
3082(F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
3083for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
3084the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3085L<perlre>.
3086
3087=item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex;
3088
3089marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3090
3091(F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
3092has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3093where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3094
3095=item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex;
3096
3097marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3098
3099(F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
3100<-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3101discovered. See L<perlre>.
3102
3103=item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex;
3104
3105marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3106
3107(F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
3108parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
3109the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
3110L<perlre>.
3111
3112=item 500 Server error
3113
3114See Server error.
3115
3116=item Server error
3117
3118This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
3119to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
3120varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
3121are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
3122contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
3123produce a valid header".
3124
3125B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
3126
3127You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
3128user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
3129account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
3130(like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
3131location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
3132Please see the following for more information:
3133
3134 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/idiots-guide.html
3135 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-cgi-faq.html
3136 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
3137 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
3138 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
3139
3140You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
3141
3142=item setegid() not implemented
3143
3144(F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
3145support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3146didn't think so.
3147
3148=item seteuid() not implemented
3149
3150(F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
3151support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3152didn't think so.
3153
3154=item setpgrp can't take arguments
3155
3156(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
3157arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
3158group ID.
3159
3160=item setrgid() not implemented
3161
3162(F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
3163support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3164didn't think so.
3165
3166=item setruid() not implemented
3167
3168(F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
3169support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
3170didn't think so.
3171
3172=item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
3173
3174(W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
3175forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3176L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
3177
3178=item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
3179
3180(F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
3181world, because the world might have written on it already.
3182
3183=item shm%s not implemented
3184
3185(F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
3186
3187=item <> should be quotes
3188
3189(F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
3190C<require 'file'>.
3191
3192=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
3193
3194(W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
3195as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
3196result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
3197probably not what you had in mind.
3198
3199=item shutdown() on closed socket %s
3200
3201(W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
3202superfluous.
3203
3204=item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
3205
3206(W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
3207Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
3208
3209=item sort is now a reserved word
3210
3211(F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
3212But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
3213
3214=item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
3215
3216(F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
3217it by not using C<< <=> >> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
3218See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3219
3220=item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
3221
3222(F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
3223or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3224
3225=item Split loop
3226
3227(P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
3228iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
3229happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
3230
3231=item Statement unlikely to be reached
3232
3233(W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
3234die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
3235unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
3236instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
3237a block by itself.
3238
3239=item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
3240
3241(W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
3242was either never opened or has since been closed.
3243
3244=item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading %s
3245
3246(P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
3247stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
3248C<can> may break this.
3249
3250=item Subroutine %s redefined
3251
3252(W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
3253
3254 {
3255 no warnings;
3256 eval "sub name { ... }";
3257 }
3258
3259=item Substitution loop
3260
3261(P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
3262shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
3263is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
3264L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
3265
3266=item Substitution pattern not terminated
3267
3268(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3269construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3270Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3271
3272=item Substitution replacement not terminated
3273
3274(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
3275construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3276Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
3277
3278=item substr outside of string
3279
3280(W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
3281a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
3282length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
3283substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
3284assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
3285
3286=item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
3287
3288(F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but
3289a version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
3290
3291=item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex;
3292
3293marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3294
3295(F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
3296branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
3297contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
3298clustering parentheses:
3299
3300 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
3301
3302The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3303discovered. See L<perlre>.
3304
3305=item Switch condition not recognized in regex;
3306
3307marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3308
3309(F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
3310number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3311about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3312
3313=item switching effective %s is not implemented
3314
3315(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
3316and effective uids or gids.
3317
3318=item syntax error
3319
3320(F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
3321
3322 A keyword is misspelled.
3323 A semicolon is missing.
3324 A comma is missing.
3325 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
3326 An opening or closing brace is missing.
3327 A closing quote is missing.
3328
3329Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
3330error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
3331The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
3332it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
3333before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
3334Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
3335the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
3336C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
3337if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
3338questions>.
3339
3340=item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
3341
3342(A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3343of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3344yourself.
3345
3346=item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
3347
3348(F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
3349a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
3350or "my $var" or "our $var".
3351
3352=item %s syntax OK
3353
3354(F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
3355
3356=item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
3357
3358(F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
3359"shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
3360machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
3361unconfigured. Consult your system support.
3362
3363=item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
3364
3365(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3366before now. Check your control flow.
3367
3368=item Target of goto is too deeply nested
3369
3370(F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
3371for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
3372
3373=item tell() on unopened filehandle
3374
3375(W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
3376was either never opened or has since been closed.
3377
3378=item That use of $[ is unsupported
3379
3380(F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
3381as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
3382
3383 $[ = 0;
3384 $[ = 1;
3385 ...
3386 local $[ = 0;
3387 local $[ = 1;
3388 ...
3389
3390This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
3391from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
3392
3393=item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
3394
3395(F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
3396probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
3397think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
3398will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
3399will deny it.
3400
3401=item The %s function is unimplemented
3402
3403The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
3404to the probings of Configure.
3405
3406=item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
3407
3408(F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
3409linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
3410past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
3411instead.
3412
3413=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
3414
3415=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
3416
3417(W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
3418element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
3419wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
3420need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
3421F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
3422target of the change to
3423%ENV which produced the warning.
3424
3425=item times not implemented
3426
3427(F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
3428suspect you're not running on Unix.
3429
3430=item Too few args to syscall
3431
3432(F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
3433system call to call, silly dilly.
3434
3435=item Too late for "B<-T>" option
3436
3437(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3438B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
3439This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
3440script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
3441So Perl gives up.
3442
3443If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
3444mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
3445editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's first
3446argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
3447
3448If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
3449B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
3450
3451=item Too late for "-%s" option
3452
3453(X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
3454B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
3455are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
3456
3457=item Too late to run %s block
3458
3459(W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
3460when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
3461loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
3462instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
3463BEGIN block.
3464
3465=item Too many args to syscall
3466
3467(F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
3468
3469=item Too many arguments for %s
3470
3471(F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
3472
3473=item Too many )'s
3474
3475(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3476Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3477
3478=item Too many ('s
3479
3480=item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
3481
3482(F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
3483Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
3484
3485=item Transliteration pattern not terminated
3486
3487(F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3488or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
3489C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
3490
3491=item Transliteration replacement not terminated
3492
3493(F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
3494construct.
3495
3496=item truncate not implemented
3497
3498(F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
3499Configure knows about.
3500
3501=item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
3502
3503(F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
3504certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
3505%NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
3506{EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
3507
3508=item umask not implemented
3509
3510(F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
3511use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
3512
3513=item Unable to create sub named "%s"
3514
3515(F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
3516
3517=item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
3518
3519(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3520many execution contexts were entered and left.
3521
3522=item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
3523
3524(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3525many values were temporarily localized.
3526
3527=item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
3528
3529(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3530many blocks were entered and left.
3531
3532=item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
3533
3534(W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
3535many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
3536
3537=item Undefined format "%s" called
3538
3539(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3540another package? See L<perlform>.
3541
3542=item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
3543
3544(F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
3545Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3546
3547=item Undefined subroutine &%s called
3548
3549(F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
3550since been undefined.
3551
3552=item Undefined subroutine called
3553
3554(F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
3555or if it was, it has since been undefined.
3556
3557=item Undefined subroutine in sort
3558
3559(F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
3560to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
3561
3562=item Undefined top format "%s" called
3563
3564(F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
3565another package? See L<perlform>.
3566
3567=item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
3568
3569(W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
3570C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
3571C<undef *foo>.
3572
3573=item %s: Undefined variable
3574
3575(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
3576Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
3577
3578=item unexec of %s into %s failed!
3579
3580(F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
3581representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
3582
3583
3584=item Unknown BYTEORDER
3585
3586(F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
3587order.
3588
3589=item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
3590
3591You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
3592
3593=item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex;
3594
3595marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3596
3597(F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
3598is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
3599is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
3600condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
3601condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
3602matched).
3603
3604The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3605discovered. See L<perlre>.
3606
3607=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
3608
3609(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
3610of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
3611C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
3612
3613=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
3614
3615(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
3616iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
3617data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
3618subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
3619
3620=item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3621
3622(F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
3623include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
3624first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
3625was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3626
3627=item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3628
3629(F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
3630expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
3631matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3632where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3633
3634=item Unmatched right %s bracket
3635
3636(F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
3637ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
3638general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
3639you were last editing.
3640
3641=item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3642
3643(W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
3644reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
3645somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
3646subroutine.
3647
3648=item Unrecognized character %s
3649
3650(F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
3651in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
3652script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
3653
3654=item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
3655
3656(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3657recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
3658understood literally.
3659
3660=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through in regex;
3661
3662marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3663
3664(W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3665recognized by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or
3666a C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood
3667literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3668escape was discovered.
3669
3670=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
3671
3672(W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
3673recognized by Perl.
3674
3675=item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
3676
3677(F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
3678recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
3679on your system.
3680
3681=item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
3682
3683(F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
3684think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
3685bad switch on your behalf.)
3686
3687=item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
3688
3689(W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
3690operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
3691PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
3692
3693=item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
3694
3695(F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
3696
3697=item Unsupported function %s
3698
3699(F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
3700At least, Configure doesn't think so.
3701
3702=item Unsupported function fork
3703
3704(F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
3705
3706Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
3707of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
3708changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
3709
3710=item Unsupported script encoding
3711
3712(F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
3713declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot yet read.
3714
3715=item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
3716
3717(F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
3718least that's what Configure thought.
3719
3720=item Unterminated attribute list
3721
3722(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
3723start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
3724block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
3725attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
3726
3727=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
3728
3729(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
3730an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
3731character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
3732character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
3733
3734=item Unterminated compressed integer
3735
3736(F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
3737compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
3738See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3739
3740=item Unterminated <> operator
3741
3742(F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
3743a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
3744not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
3745earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
3746
3747=item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
3748
3749(W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
3750still valid when C<untie> was called.
3751
3752=item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex;
3753
3754marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3755
3756(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
3757meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
3758
3759 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
3760
3761must be written as
3762
3763 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
3764
3765The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3766where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3767
3768=item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex;
3769
3770marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3771
3772(W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
3773meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
3774
3775 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
3776
3777must be written as
3778
3779 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
3780
3781The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3782where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3783
3784=item Useless use of %s in void context
3785
3786(W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
3787nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
3788value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
3789often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
3790to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
3791get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
3792said
3793
3794 $one, $two = 1, 2;
3795
3796when you meant to say
3797
3798 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
3799
3800Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
3801reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
3802example, if you say
3803
3804 $array = (1,2);
3805
3806when you should have said
3807
3808 $array = [1,2];
3809
3810The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
3811while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
3812a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
3813throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
3814L<perlref> for more on this.
3815
3816This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
3817since they are often used in statements like
3818
3819 1 while sub_with_side_effects() ;
3820
3821String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
3822about.
3823
3824=item Useless use of "re" pragma
3825
3826(W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
3827
3828=item Useless use of %s with no values
3829
3830(W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
3831apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
3832usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
3833possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
3834if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
3835you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
3836
3837=item "use" not allowed in expression
3838
3839(F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3840returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3841
3842=item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
3843
3844(D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form
3845if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
3846
3847=item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
3848
3849(D deprecated) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber
3850a subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results
3851of a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
3852
3853=item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
3854
3855(D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
3856are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
3857subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
3858C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
3859$obj->bar() >>).
3860
3861This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
3862methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
3863code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
3864currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
3865C<AUTOLOAD>s.
3866
3867The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
3868non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
3869to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
3870named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
3871startup.
3872
3873In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
3874you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
3875C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
3876
3877=item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
3878
3879(D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
3880name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
3881otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
3882instead.
3883
3884=item Use of %s in printf format not supported
3885
3886(F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
3887only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
3888
3889=item Use of $* is deprecated
3890
3891(D deprecated) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern
3892matching, both for you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen
3893to call. You should use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do
3894that without the dangerous action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
3895
3896=item Use of %s is deprecated
3897
3898(D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
3899generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
3900old way has bad side effects.
3901
3902=item Use of $# is deprecated
3903
3904(D deprecated) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly
3905defined B<awk> feature. Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
3906
3907=item Use of reference "%s" as array index
3908
3909(W) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
3910isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
3911to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
3912
3913If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
3914C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
3915either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
3916operators and then you assumedly know what you are doing.
3917
3918=item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
3919
3920(D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
3921versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
3922explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
3923use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
3924suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
3925a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
3926
3927=item Use of uninitialized value%s
3928
3929(W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
3930defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
3931To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
3932
3933To help you figure out what was undefined, perl tells you what operation
3934you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your
3935program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily
3936appear literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is
3937usually optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to
3938the C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in your
3939program.
3940
3941=item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
3942
3943(D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
3944C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
3945used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
3946be removed in a future version.
3947
3948=item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
3949
3950(D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
3951C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
3952allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
3953removed in a future version.
3954
3955=item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
3956
3957(W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
3958C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
3959can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
3960false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
3961constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
3962C<defined> operator.
3963
3964=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
3965
3966(W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
3967%ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
3968longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
39691024 characters.
3970
3971=item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
3972
3973(F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable that
3974you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
3975something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
3976that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
3977front of your variable.
3978
3979=item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
3980
3981(W misc) A "my" or "our" variable has been redeclared in the current
3982scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
3983instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
3984earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
3985all closure referents to it are destroyed.
3986
3987=item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
3988
3989(W closure) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a
3990I<named> subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
3991anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
3992defined in the outermost subroutine. For example:
3993
3994 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
3995
3996If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
3997indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable as
3998you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
3999referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see the
4000value of the shared variable as it was before and during the *first*
4001call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you want.
4002
4003In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle subroutine
4004anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific support for
4005shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named subroutine in
4006between interferes with this feature.
4007
4008=item Variable syntax
4009
4010(A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
4011of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
4012Perl yourself.
4013
4014=item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
4015
4016(W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
4017lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.
4018
4019When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
4020the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
4021call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
4022outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
4023longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
4024variable will no longer be shared.
4025
4026Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
4027lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
4028will I<never> share the given variable.
4029
4030This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
4031anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
4032reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced, they
4033are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
4034
4035=item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex;
4036
4037marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4038
4039(F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
4040known at compile time. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4041where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4042
4043=item Version number must be a constant number
4044
4045(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
4046its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
4047the version number.
4048
4049=item Warning: something's wrong
4050
4051(W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
4052you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
4053
4054=item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
4055
4056(S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
4057the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
4058space.
4059
4060=item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
4061
4062(S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
4063looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
4064term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
4065function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
4066
4067 rand + 5;
4068
4069you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
4070
4071 rand() + 5;
4072
4073but in actual fact, you got
4074
4075 rand(+5);
4076
4077So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
4078
4079=item Wide character in %s
4080
4081(W utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting one.
4082
4083=item write() on closed filehandle %s
4084
4085(W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4086before now. Check your control flow.
4087
4088=item X outside of string
4089
4090(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
4091the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4092
4093=item x outside of string
4094
4095(F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
4096the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4097
4098=item Xsub "%s" called in sort
4099
4100(F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4101supported.
4102
4103=item Xsub called in sort
4104
4105(F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet
4106supported.
4107
4108=item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
4109
4110(F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
4111it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
4112Use a filename instead.
4113
4114=item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
4115
4116(F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
4117sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
4118about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
4119your script.
4120
4121=item You need to quote "%s"
4122
4123(W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
4124Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
4125which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
4126assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
4127what you want, put an & in front.)
4128
4129=back
4130
4131=cut