3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by 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).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %x
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous overloaded argument to %s resolved as %s
81 (W ambiguous) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> on an object that had
82 overloading of C<%{}> or C<@{}> or both. In such a case, the object is
83 dereferenced according to its overloading, not its underlying reference type.
84 The warning is issued when C<%{}> overloading exists on a blessed arrayref,
85 when C<@{}> overloading exists on a blessed hashref, or when both overloadings
86 are defined (in which case C<%{}> is used). You can force the interpretation
87 of the object by explicitly dereferencing it as an array or hash instead of
88 passing the object itself to C<keys>, C<values> or C<each>.
90 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
92 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
93 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
94 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
95 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
97 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
99 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
100 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
101 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
103 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
105 (W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
106 bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
107 (denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
108 like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
109 assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
110 clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
111 really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
113 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
115 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
116 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
117 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
118 the varable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
119 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
120 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
122 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s%s} resolved to %c%s%s
124 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo
125 represents the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for
126 element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write
127 C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to
128 the function named foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it
129 returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
131 In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
132 to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
133 C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length>
134 followed by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what
135 you want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/>
136 to the unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to
137 something that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by
138 simply turning off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
140 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
142 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
143 string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
144 the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
147 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
149 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
150 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
151 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
153 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
155 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
156 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
157 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
158 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
159 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
161 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
168 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
170 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
171 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
172 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
173 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
174 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
175 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
178 =item Args must match #! line
180 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
181 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
182 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
183 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
185 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
187 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
189 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
191 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
192 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
198 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
200 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
206 or a hash or array slice, such as:
208 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
209 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
211 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
213 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
214 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
217 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
219 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
220 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
221 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
223 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
225 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
226 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
227 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
228 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
229 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
230 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
232 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
234 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
235 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
237 =item assertion botched: %s
239 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
241 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
243 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
245 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
247 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
248 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
249 know which context to supply to the right side.
251 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
253 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
254 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
255 Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
256 created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
257 thread. See L<threads>.
259 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
261 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
262 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
264 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
266 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
267 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
268 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
274 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
276 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
277 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
280 bless $self, "$proto";
282 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
284 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
285 which is not in its key set.
287 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
289 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
290 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
292 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
294 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
295 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
296 outside any of those arenas.
298 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
300 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
301 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
302 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
303 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
305 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
307 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
308 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
309 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
310 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
313 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
315 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
317 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
319 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
320 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
321 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
322 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
323 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
324 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
327 =item Attempt to join self
329 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
330 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
331 to move the join() to some other thread.
333 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
335 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
336 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
337 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
338 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
339 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
342 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
344 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
345 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
346 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
349 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
351 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
352 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
353 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
355 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
358 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
360 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
361 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
362 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
364 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
366 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the "locked"
367 attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
368 effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in a future
371 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
373 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the "unique"
374 attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
375 had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in a future release
378 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
380 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
381 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
382 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
383 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
385 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
387 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
388 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
389 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
391 =item Bad filehandle: %s
393 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
394 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
395 open(), or did it in another package.
397 =item Bad free() ignored
399 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
400 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
401 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
403 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
404 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
405 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
409 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
411 =item Badly placed ()'s
413 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
414 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
417 =item Bad name after %s::
419 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
420 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
429 $sym = "mypack::$var";
431 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
433 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
436 =item Bad realloc() ignored
438 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
439 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
440 by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
442 =item Bad symbol for array
444 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
445 wasn't a symbol table entry.
447 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
449 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
450 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
453 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
455 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
456 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
458 =item Bad symbol for hash
460 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
461 wasn't a symbol table entry.
463 =item Bareword found in conditional
465 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
466 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
467 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
471 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
474 use constant TYPO => 1;
475 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
477 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
479 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
481 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
482 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
483 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
485 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
487 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
488 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
489 you need to predeclare a package?
491 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
493 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
494 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
497 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
499 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
500 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
501 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
502 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
503 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
505 =item \1 better written as $1
507 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
508 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
509 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
510 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
511 there are more than 9 backreferences.
513 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
515 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
516 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
517 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
519 =item bind() on closed socket %s
521 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
522 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
524 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
526 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
527 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
529 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
531 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
533 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
535 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
538 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
540 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
541 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
542 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
544 =item Callback called exit
546 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
547 exited by calling exit.
549 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
551 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
552 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
553 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
554 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
555 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
556 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
557 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
558 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
560 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
562 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
563 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
564 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
565 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
567 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
569 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
570 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
572 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
574 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
575 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
576 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
577 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
579 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
581 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
582 be directly assigned to.
584 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
586 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
587 either with open() or binmode().
589 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
591 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
592 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
593 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
595 =item Can't bless non-reference value
597 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
598 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
600 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
602 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
603 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
605 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
607 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
609 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
611 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
612 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
613 like this will reproduce the error:
616 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
617 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
619 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
621 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
622 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
623 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
624 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
626 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
628 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
629 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
630 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
631 Something like this will reproduce the error:
634 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
635 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
637 =item Can't chdir to %s
639 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
640 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
642 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
644 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
647 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
649 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
650 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
660 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
662 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
664 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
667 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
669 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
670 quotas or other plumbing problems.
672 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
674 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
675 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
677 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
679 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
680 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
682 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
684 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
687 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
689 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
690 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
691 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
693 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
695 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
696 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
697 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
699 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
701 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
702 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
703 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
705 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
707 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
708 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
710 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
712 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
713 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
716 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
718 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
719 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
720 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
721 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
723 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
725 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
726 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
727 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
728 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
729 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
730 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
735 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
736 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
737 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
739 =item Can't execute %s
741 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
742 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
744 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
746 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
747 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
749 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
751 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
752 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
753 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
754 for a complete list of available properties.
756 =item Can't find label %s
758 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
759 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
761 =item Can't find %s on PATH
763 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
766 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
768 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
769 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
770 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
772 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
774 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
775 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
776 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
778 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
780 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
781 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
782 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
784 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
786 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
787 example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
788 Unicode property, see
789 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
790 for a complete list of available properties.
791 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
792 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
797 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
800 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
802 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
805 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
807 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
808 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
809 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
810 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
811 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
812 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
813 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
814 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
815 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
816 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
817 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
818 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
819 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
820 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
821 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
823 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
825 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
826 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
828 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
830 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
831 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
833 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
835 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
836 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
838 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
840 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
841 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
842 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
843 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
845 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
847 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
848 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
849 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
851 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
853 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
856 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
858 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
859 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
860 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
861 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
863 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
865 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
866 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
867 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
868 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
869 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
870 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
872 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
874 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
875 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
878 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
880 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
881 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
882 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
883 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
884 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
885 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
888 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
890 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
891 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
893 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
895 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
896 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
897 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
898 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
899 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
900 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
903 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
905 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
906 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
907 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
910 =item Can't localize through a reference
912 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
913 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
914 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
915 that $ref will still be a reference.
917 =item Can't locate %s
919 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
920 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
921 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
922 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
923 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
924 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
925 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
927 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
929 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
930 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
931 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
932 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
934 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
936 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
937 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
938 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
940 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
942 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
943 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
944 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
946 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
948 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
949 doesn't seem to exist.
951 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
953 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
954 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
956 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
958 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
961 =item Can't modify %s in %s
963 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
964 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
966 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
968 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
971 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
973 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
974 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
976 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
978 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
981 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
983 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
984 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
985 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
986 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
987 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
988 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
990 =item Can't open %s: %s
992 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
993 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
994 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
995 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
998 =item Can't open a reference
1000 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1001 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
1005 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1006 open is not supported.
1008 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1010 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1011 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1012 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1013 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1015 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1017 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1018 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1019 the command line for writing.
1021 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1023 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1024 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1025 command line for reading.
1027 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1029 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1030 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1031 the command line for writing.
1033 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1035 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1036 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1039 =item Can't open perl script%s
1041 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1043 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1044 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1045 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1047 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1049 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1050 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1051 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1052 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1055 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1057 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1058 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1059 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1060 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1061 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1062 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1064 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1066 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1067 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1068 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1070 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1072 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1073 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1075 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1077 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1078 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1080 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1082 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1083 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1084 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1086 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1088 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1089 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1092 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1094 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1095 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1097 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1099 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1100 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1101 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1102 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1105 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1107 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1108 open already. Bizarre.
1110 =item Can't take log of %g
1112 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1113 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1114 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1117 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1119 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1120 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1121 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1123 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1125 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1126 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1127 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1131 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1132 as the main Perl stack.
1134 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1136 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1137 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1138 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1139 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1141 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1143 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1144 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1145 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1147 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1149 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1150 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1152 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1154 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1155 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1157 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1159 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1160 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1161 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1163 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1165 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1166 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1167 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1169 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1171 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1174 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1176 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1177 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1178 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1179 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1182 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1184 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1185 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1186 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1187 is inside a big-endian group.
1189 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1191 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1192 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1193 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1194 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1197 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1199 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1200 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1201 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1203 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1205 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1206 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1208 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1210 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1211 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1212 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1214 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1216 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1217 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1218 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1219 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1220 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1223 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1225 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1226 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1227 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1228 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1230 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1232 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1233 references can be weakened.
1235 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1237 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1238 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1239 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1241 =item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
1243 (F|W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1244 It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.16. In the
1245 cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1246 derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1248 Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
1250 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1256 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1257 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1258 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1262 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1265 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1271 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1272 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1275 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1277 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1283 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1284 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1285 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1287 pack("c", $x & 255);
1289 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1292 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1294 (W unpack) You tried something like
1296 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1298 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1299 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1300 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1302 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1304 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1306 (W pack) You tried something like
1308 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1310 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1311 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1312 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1314 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1316 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1318 (W unpack) You tried something like
1320 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1322 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1323 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1324 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1326 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1328 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1330 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1332 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1334 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1335 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1337 =item Closure prototype called
1339 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1340 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1341 This subroutine cannot be called.
1343 =item Code missing after '/'
1345 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1346 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1348 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1350 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, no properties match it; all inverse properties do
1352 (W utf8) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum of U+10FFFF.
1354 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code
1355 points, up to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on
1356 your system, but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems.
1357 At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
1358 0x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require
1359 larger than a 32 bit word.
1361 None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1362 code point. For example,
1364 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1366 will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1368 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1372 =item %s: Command not found
1374 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1375 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1377 =item Compilation failed in require
1379 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1380 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1381 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1383 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1385 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1386 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1387 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1388 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1389 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1390 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1391 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1392 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1393 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1395 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1397 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1398 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1399 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1400 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1401 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1402 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1403 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1406 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1408 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1409 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1410 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1411 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1412 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1413 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1414 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1417 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1419 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1420 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1421 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1423 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1425 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1426 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1427 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1428 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1431 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1433 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1434 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1435 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1439 =item Constant is not %s reference
1441 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1442 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1443 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1444 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1445 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1447 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1449 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1450 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1451 commentary and workarounds.
1453 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1455 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1456 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1459 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1461 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1462 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1464 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1466 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1468 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1470 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1471 expression compiler gave it.
1473 =item corrupted regexp program
1475 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1478 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1480 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1482 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1484 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1485 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1488 =item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1490 (D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1491 to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1492 evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
1493 ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.16. Just use a
1494 semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1496 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1498 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1499 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1500 written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1503 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1505 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1506 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1507 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1508 which case it indicates something else.
1510 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1511 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1513 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1515 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1516 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1517 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1519 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1521 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1522 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1523 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1525 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1527 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1528 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1530 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1532 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1533 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1534 that triggers this error.
1536 =item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
1538 (D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1539 But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names are
1540 deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character and
1541 continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or
1544 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1546 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1547 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1548 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1549 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1550 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1551 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1552 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1554 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1558 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1560 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1561 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1563 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1565 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1567 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1568 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1569 to create a dangling reference.
1571 =item Did not produce a valid header
1575 =item %s did not return a true value
1577 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1578 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1579 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1580 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1582 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1584 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1587 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1589 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1590 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1593 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1595 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1596 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1601 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1602 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1604 =item Document contains no data
1608 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1610 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1611 define a C<$VERSION.>
1613 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1615 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1616 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1618 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1620 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1622 =item do_study: out of memory
1624 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1626 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1628 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1629 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1630 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1631 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1632 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1633 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1634 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1635 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1637 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1639 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1640 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1642 =item dump is not supported
1644 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1646 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1648 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1651 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1653 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1654 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1656 =item elseif should be elsif
1658 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1659 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1660 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1661 unlikely to be what you want.
1665 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1666 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1667 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1669 =item entering effective %s failed
1671 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1672 effective uids or gids failed.
1674 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1676 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1677 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1678 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1680 =item Error converting file specification %s
1682 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1683 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1684 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1685 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1686 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1688 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1690 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1691 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1692 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1694 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1696 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1697 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1698 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1699 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1700 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1701 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1703 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1705 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1706 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1707 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1709 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1711 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1712 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1714 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1717 =item Excessively long <> operator
1719 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1720 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1721 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1722 variable and glob that.
1724 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1726 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1728 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1730 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1732 =item Exiting eval via %s
1734 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1735 goto, or a loop control statement.
1737 =item Exiting format via %s
1739 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1740 goto, or a loop control statement.
1742 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1744 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1745 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1746 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1748 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1750 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1751 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1753 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1755 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1756 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1758 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1760 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1761 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1762 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1763 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1765 =item %s: Expression syntax
1767 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1768 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1770 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1772 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1773 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1774 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1776 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1778 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1779 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1780 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1781 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1782 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1784 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
1786 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1787 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1788 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1789 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1791 =item fcntl is not implemented
1793 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1794 PDP-11 or something?
1796 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1798 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1801 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1803 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1804 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1805 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1808 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1810 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1811 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1812 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1813 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1815 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1817 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1818 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1819 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1820 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1821 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1822 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1824 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1826 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1827 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1830 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1832 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1833 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1835 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1837 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1838 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1839 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1842 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1844 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1845 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1846 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1849 =item Format not terminated
1851 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1852 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1854 =item Format %s redefined
1856 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1859 no warnings 'redefine';
1860 eval "format NAME =...";
1863 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1873 (or something like that).
1875 =item %s found where operator expected
1877 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1878 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1879 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1880 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1882 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1884 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1886 =item gethostent not implemented
1888 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1889 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1892 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1894 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1895 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1897 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1899 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1900 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1902 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1904 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1905 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1906 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1908 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1910 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1911 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1912 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1913 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1915 =item glob failed (%s)
1917 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1918 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1919 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1920 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1921 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1922 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1923 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1924 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1925 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1926 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1927 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1929 =item Glob not terminated
1931 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1932 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1933 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1934 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1936 =item gmtime(%f) too large
1938 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was larger than
1939 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1940 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1941 not-a-number value).
1943 =item gmtime(%f) too small
1945 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was smaller than
1946 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1947 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1948 not-a-number value).
1950 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1952 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1953 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1955 =item goto must have label
1957 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1958 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1960 =item ()-group starts with a count
1962 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1963 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1964 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1966 =item %s had compilation errors.
1968 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1970 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1972 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1973 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1974 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1976 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1978 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1979 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1981 =item %s has too many errors
1983 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1984 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1986 =item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
1990 You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following a pattern
1991 without an intervening space. For example, the two constructs:
1993 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
1994 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
1996 both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow the first form
1999 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
2001 will be disallowed too.
2003 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2005 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2006 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2007 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2009 =item Identifier too long
2011 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2012 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2013 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2014 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2016 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
2018 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
2019 zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
2020 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
2021 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2023 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2025 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2027 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2029 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2030 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2033 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2035 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2036 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2037 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2038 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2039 to your Perl administrator.
2041 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2043 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2044 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
2046 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2048 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2049 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2051 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2053 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2055 =item Illegal division by zero
2057 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2058 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2061 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2063 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2064 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2065 number stopped before the illegal character.
2067 =item Illegal modulus zero
2069 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2070 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2072 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2074 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2075 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2077 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2079 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2081 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2083 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2084 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2086 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2088 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2089 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2091 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2093 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2094 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2095 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2097 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2099 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2100 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2101 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2104 =item (in cleanup) %s
2106 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2107 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2108 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2109 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2110 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2112 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2113 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2115 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2117 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2118 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2119 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2121 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2123 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2124 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2125 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2127 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2129 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2130 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2131 either consume text or fail.
2133 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2136 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2138 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2139 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2140 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2141 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2143 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2145 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2146 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2147 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2148 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2149 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2150 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2151 L<perlsec> for more information.
2153 =item Insecure directory in %s
2155 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2156 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2157 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2160 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2162 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2163 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2164 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2165 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2166 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2168 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2170 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2171 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2172 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2173 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2174 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2175 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2176 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2177 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2180 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2182 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2183 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2184 integers for your architecture.
2186 =item Integer overflow in version
2188 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2189 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2190 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2191 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2192 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2195 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2197 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2198 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2201 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2203 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2204 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2205 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2206 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2207 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2208 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2210 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2212 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2213 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2216 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2218 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2219 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2220 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2221 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2223 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2225 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2226 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2228 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2230 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2231 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2233 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2235 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2236 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2238 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2240 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2241 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2242 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2243 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2244 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2245 escape was discovered.
2247 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2249 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2250 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2251 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2253 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2255 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2256 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2257 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2258 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2259 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2261 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2263 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2264 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2266 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2268 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2269 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2270 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2273 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2275 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2276 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2277 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2278 list was terminated too soon.
2280 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2282 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2283 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2284 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2285 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2286 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2287 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2289 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2291 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2292 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2293 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2296 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2298 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2299 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2300 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2301 v-string. If the v-string has less than three components, it must have a
2302 leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional. Both
2303 decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2304 component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2305 dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
2306 criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2307 allowed version formats.
2309 =item Invalid version object
2311 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2312 the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2313 was blessed into the "version" class.
2315 =item ioctl is not implemented
2317 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2318 strange for a machine that supports C.
2320 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2322 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2323 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2325 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2327 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2328 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2331 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2333 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2334 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2336 =item $* is no longer supported
2338 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2339 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In previous versions of perl the use of
2340 C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line matching within a string.
2342 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2343 modifiers. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value then all regular
2344 expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2346 =item $# is no longer supported
2348 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2349 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2350 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2352 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2354 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2355 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2358 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2360 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2363 =item junk on end of regexp
2365 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2367 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2369 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2370 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2373 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2375 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2376 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2379 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2381 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2382 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2385 =item leaving effective %s failed
2387 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2388 effective uids or gids failed.
2390 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2392 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2393 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2394 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2396 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2398 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2399 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but
2400 tried to insert a character that couldn't be part of the current input.
2401 This is an inherent pitfall of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the
2402 reasons to avoid it. Where it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only
2403 plain ASCII is recommended.
2405 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2407 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2410 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2412 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2413 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2416 =item localtime(%f) too large
2418 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was larger
2419 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2420 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2421 not-a-number value).
2423 =item localtime(%f) too small
2425 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was smaller
2426 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2427 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2428 not-a-number value).
2430 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2432 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2433 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2435 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2437 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2438 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2439 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2440 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2441 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2442 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2444 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2446 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2447 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2448 instead on the filehandle.)
2450 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2452 (W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
2453 by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute is not
2454 possible. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine add the
2455 lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the declaration before
2458 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2460 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2461 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2462 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2464 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2466 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2467 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2469 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2471 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2472 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2474 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2476 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2483 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2484 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2485 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2486 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2488 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2490 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2491 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2492 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2493 when the function is called.
2495 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2497 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2498 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2500 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2501 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2502 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2504 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2505 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2506 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2509 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2511 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2513 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2514 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2516 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2518 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2520 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2522 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2523 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2525 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2527 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2528 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2530 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2532 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2533 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2535 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2537 (F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2538 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2539 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2540 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2541 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2543 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2545 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2546 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2547 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2550 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2552 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2553 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2556 =item % may not be used in pack
2558 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2559 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2560 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2562 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2564 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2565 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2567 =item Method %s not permitted
2571 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2573 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2574 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2575 ended earlier on the current line.
2577 =item Misplaced _ in number
2579 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2580 separate two digits.
2582 =item Missing argument in %s
2584 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2587 =item Missing argument to -%c
2589 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2590 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2592 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2594 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2595 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2596 comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2597 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2600 =item Missing braces on \o{}
2602 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2604 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2606 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2607 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2609 =item Missing command in piped open
2611 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2612 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2615 =item Missing control char name in \c
2617 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2620 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2622 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2623 they have a name with which they can be found.
2625 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2627 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2628 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2629 can vary from one line to the next.
2631 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2633 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2634 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2636 =item Missing right brace on %s
2638 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2640 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
2643 C<\N> has two meanings.
2645 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2646 in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
2647 Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2648 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2649 have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2651 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
2652 patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2653 C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2655 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
2656 left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
2657 the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2658 that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2659 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
2660 and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2662 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
2663 omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
2664 raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2665 the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2667 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2669 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2670 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2673 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2675 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2676 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2677 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2679 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2681 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2682 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2683 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2685 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2688 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2690 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2691 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2694 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2695 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2698 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2700 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2701 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2704 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2706 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2707 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2709 =item Module name must be constant
2711 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2713 =item Module name required with -%c option
2715 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2716 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2717 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2719 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
2721 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2722 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2723 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2724 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2726 =item msg%s not implemented
2728 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2730 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2732 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2733 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2735 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2737 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2738 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2739 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2741 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2743 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2746 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2748 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2749 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2750 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2752 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
2754 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2755 character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2756 specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2758 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2760 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2761 was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
2762 such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
2764 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
2765 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
2768 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
2770 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2773 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2777 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2779 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2780 doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2782 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2783 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2785 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2788 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2790 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2791 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2792 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2793 provided for this purpose.
2795 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2796 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2797 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2798 will not trigger this warning.
2800 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2802 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2803 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2804 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2806 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2808 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2809 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2811 =item Negative length
2813 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2814 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2816 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2818 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2819 greater than or equal to zero.
2821 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2823 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2824 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2825 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2827 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2828 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2830 =item %s never introduced
2832 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2833 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2835 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2837 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2838 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2841 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2843 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2844 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2845 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2846 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2848 =item No comma allowed after %s
2850 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2851 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2852 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2854 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2855 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2856 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2857 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2858 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2859 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2860 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2861 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2862 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2863 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2864 this error was triggered?
2866 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2868 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2869 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2870 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2872 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2874 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2875 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2876 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2879 =item No dbm on this machine
2881 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2882 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2884 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2886 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2887 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2888 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2889 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2891 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2893 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2895 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2897 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2898 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2899 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2901 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2903 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2904 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2906 =item No input file after < on command line
2908 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2909 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2910 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2914 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2915 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2917 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2919 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2920 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2921 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2922 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2924 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2926 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2927 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2929 =item No output file after > on command line
2931 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2932 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2933 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2935 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2937 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2938 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2939 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2941 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2943 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2944 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2945 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2947 =item No Perl script found in input
2949 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2950 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2952 =item No setregid available
2954 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2957 =item No setreuid available
2959 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2962 =item No %s specified for -%c
2964 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2965 you haven't specified one.
2966 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2968 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2969 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2970 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2972 =item No such class %s
2974 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2975 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2977 =item No such hook: %s
2979 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2980 accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2982 =item No such pipe open
2984 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2985 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2986 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2988 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2990 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2991 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2992 names on your system.
2994 =item Not a CODE reference
2996 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2997 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2998 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3001 =item Not a format reference
3003 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
3004 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
3006 =item Not a GLOB reference
3008 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3009 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3010 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3011 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3013 =item Not a HASH reference
3015 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3016 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3017 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3019 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3021 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3022 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3023 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3025 =item Not a perl script
3027 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
3028 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
3031 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3033 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3034 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3035 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3037 =item Not a subroutine reference
3039 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3040 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3041 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3044 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3046 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3047 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3049 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3051 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3053 =item Not enough format arguments
3055 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3056 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3060 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3061 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3064 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3066 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3067 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3068 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3069 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3070 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3072 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3074 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was unexpectedly
3075 encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as indicated.
3077 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3079 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3080 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3081 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
3083 =item Null filename used
3085 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3086 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
3088 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3090 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3093 =item Null picture in formline
3095 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3096 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3097 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3101 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3103 =item NULL regexp argument
3105 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3107 =item NULL regexp parameter
3109 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3111 =item Number too long
3113 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3114 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3115 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3116 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3119 =item Number with no digits
3121 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like a number.
3122 This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between the braces.
3124 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
3126 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3127 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3130 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3132 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3133 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3134 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3136 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3138 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3140 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3141 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3143 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3145 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3146 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3148 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3150 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3151 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3153 =item Offset outside string
3155 (F|W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3156 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3157 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3158 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3159 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3160 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3163 =item %s() on unopened %s
3165 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3166 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3167 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3169 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3171 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3172 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3176 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3180 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3182 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3184 (W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3185 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3186 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3189 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3191 (W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3192 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3193 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3196 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3198 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3199 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3200 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3201 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3203 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
3205 (W) You performed an operation requiring Unicode semantics on a Unicode
3206 surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of surrogates for anything but
3207 storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics are (reluctantly) defined for
3208 the surrogates, and they are to do nothing for this operation. Because
3209 the use of surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
3211 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3212 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3214 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3215 C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
3217 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
3219 (W) You performed an operation requiring Unicode semantics on a code
3220 point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not defined. Perl
3221 has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
3223 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3224 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3226 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3227 C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
3229 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3231 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3232 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3233 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3234 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3237 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3239 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3240 in the current lexical scope.
3242 =item Out of memory!
3244 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3245 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3246 no option but to exit immediately.
3248 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3249 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3250 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3251 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3252 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3254 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3256 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3257 the largest possible memory allocation.
3259 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3261 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3262 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3263 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3264 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3266 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3268 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3269 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3272 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3273 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3274 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3275 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3276 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3277 where the failed request happened.
3279 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3281 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3282 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3283 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3285 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3287 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3288 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3291 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3293 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3294 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3296 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3298 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3299 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3301 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3303 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3304 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3305 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3307 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3309 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3310 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3313 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3315 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3316 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3318 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3320 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3321 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3322 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3323 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3325 =item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
3327 (W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
3328 match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
3329 use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
3330 class, which should know about the locale's rules.
3331 (See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
3333 Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
3334 Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
3337 Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
3338 locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
3339 CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
3340 "MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
3341 meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
3342 should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
3343 positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
3344 incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
3345 is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
3346 case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
3347 change when upper cased.
3349 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3351 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3352 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3356 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3357 page. See L<perlform>.
3361 (P) An internal error.
3363 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3365 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3366 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3367 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3368 enter this branch on this platform.
3370 =item panic: ck_grep
3372 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3374 =item panic: ck_split
3376 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3378 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3380 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3381 there are in the savestack.
3383 =item panic: del_backref
3385 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3388 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3390 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3391 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3392 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3393 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3397 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3398 it wasn't an eval context.
3400 =item panic: do_subst
3402 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3405 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3407 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3410 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3412 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3417 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3421 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3422 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3424 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
3426 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
3427 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob. Most
3428 likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to the glob and a
3429 destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
3431 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3433 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hash's entries tried repeatedly,
3434 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3435 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3436 adds a new object to the hash.
3438 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3440 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3442 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3444 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3446 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3448 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3452 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3453 it wasn't a block context.
3455 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3457 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3460 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3462 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3463 invalid enum on the top of it.
3465 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3467 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3468 references to an object.
3472 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3474 =item panic: memory wrap
3476 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3478 =item panic: pad_alloc
3480 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3481 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3483 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3485 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3486 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3488 =item panic: pad_free po
3490 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3492 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3494 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3495 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3497 =item panic: pad_sv po
3499 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3501 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3503 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3504 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3506 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3508 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3510 =item panic: pp_iter
3512 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3514 =item panic: pp_match%s
3516 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3519 =item panic: pp_split
3521 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3523 =item panic: realloc
3525 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3527 =item panic: restartop
3529 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3530 didn't supply the destination.
3534 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3535 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3537 =item panic: scan_num
3539 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3541 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3543 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3544 scalar's string buffer.
3546 =item panic: sv_insert
3548 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3551 =item panic: top_env
3553 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3555 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3557 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3560 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3562 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3563 to even) byte length.
3565 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3567 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3568 to even) byte length.
3572 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3574 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3576 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3579 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3581 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3582 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3583 nesting limit is exceeded.
3585 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3588 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3590 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3596 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3598 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3600 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3602 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3603 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3604 redirected it with select().)
3606 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3608 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3609 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3610 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3612 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3614 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3615 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3616 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3617 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3619 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3621 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3622 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3623 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3625 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3627 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3628 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3630 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3632 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3634 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3636 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3638 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3639 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3642 are supported and installed on your system.
3643 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3645 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3646 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3647 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3648 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3649 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3650 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3651 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3652 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3653 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3654 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3656 =item pid %x not a child
3658 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3659 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3660 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3662 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3664 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3666 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3668 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3669 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3670 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3671 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3672 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3674 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3676 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3677 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3679 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3681 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3682 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3683 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3684 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3685 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3686 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3688 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3690 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3691 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3692 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3693 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3694 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3695 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3697 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3699 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3700 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3701 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3702 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3703 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3704 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3706 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3708 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3709 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3710 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3711 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3713 You probably wrote something like this:
3720 when you should have written this:
3727 If you really want comments, build your list the
3728 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3732 'b', # another comment
3735 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3737 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3738 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3739 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3742 You probably wrote something like this:
3746 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3747 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3751 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3753 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3754 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3755 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3756 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3758 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3760 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3761 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3763 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3765 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3766 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3767 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3768 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3770 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3772 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3773 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3774 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3775 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3777 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3779 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3780 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3781 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3782 followed by the word 'bar'.
3784 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3785 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3787 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3788 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3789 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3791 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3793 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3797 is now misinterpreted as
3801 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3802 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3803 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3806 =item Premature end of script headers
3810 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3812 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3813 before now. Check your control flow.
3815 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3817 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3818 before now. Check your control flow.
3820 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3822 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3823 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3824 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3825 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3828 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3830 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3831 since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3833 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3835 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3836 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3838 =item Prototype not terminated
3840 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3843 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3845 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3846 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3847 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3849 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3851 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3852 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3853 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3855 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3857 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3858 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3859 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3860 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3861 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3863 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3866 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3868 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3869 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3870 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3871 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3873 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3875 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3876 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3878 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3880 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3881 before now. Check your control flow.
3883 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3885 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3887 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3889 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3891 =item Reallocation too large: %x
3893 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3895 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3897 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3900 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3902 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3903 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3904 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3906 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3908 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3909 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3910 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3912 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3914 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3915 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3918 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3920 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3921 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3922 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3923 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3925 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3926 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3927 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3928 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3930 =item Reference is already weak
3932 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3933 Doing so has no effect.
3935 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3937 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3938 a reference count of other than 1.
3940 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3942 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3943 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3944 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3945 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3947 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3949 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3950 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3951 wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3952 prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
3954 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3957 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3959 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3960 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3961 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3963 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3966 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3968 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3969 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3970 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3971 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3973 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3976 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3978 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3979 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3980 of the C<....> part.
3982 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3985 =item regexp memory corruption
3987 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3988 expression compiler gave it.
3990 =item Regexp out of space
3992 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3995 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3997 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3998 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3999 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
4001 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
4003 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
4004 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
4007 =item Reversed %s= operator
4009 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
4010 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
4012 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4014 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
4015 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4017 =item Scalars leaked: %d
4019 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
4020 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
4021 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
4022 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
4024 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4026 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4027 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4028 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4029 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4030 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4031 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4032 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4034 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
4035 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
4036 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4039 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4041 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
4042 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4043 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4044 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4045 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4046 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4047 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4049 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4050 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4051 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4054 =item Search pattern not terminated
4056 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4057 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4058 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
4060 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
4061 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
4062 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4063 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4065 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
4067 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
4070 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
4071 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
4072 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
4073 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
4075 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4077 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4078 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4080 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4082 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4083 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4085 =item select not implemented
4087 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4089 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
4091 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4092 the current implementation.
4094 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
4096 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4097 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
4099 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4101 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4102 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
4104 =item sem%s not implemented
4106 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
4108 =item send() on closed socket %s
4110 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
4111 before now. Check your control flow.
4113 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4115 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
4116 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4119 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4121 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
4122 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4123 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4125 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4127 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4128 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4129 discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4130 Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
4131 redundantly specify a default modifier; or having a modifier that can't
4132 be turned off (such as C<"p"> or C<"l">) after a minus; or specifying
4133 more than one of the C<"d">, C<"l">, or C<"u"> modifiers. For other
4134 causes, see L<perlre>.
4136 =item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4138 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4139 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4141 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4143 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
4144 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
4145 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4148 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4150 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
4151 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
4152 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4155 =item "500 Server error"
4161 (A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
4162 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
4163 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
4164 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
4165 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
4166 produce a valid header".
4168 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4170 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
4171 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
4172 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
4173 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
4174 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
4175 Please see the following for more information:
4177 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4178 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4179 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
4181 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4183 =item setegid() not implemented
4185 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4186 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4189 =item seteuid() not implemented
4191 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4192 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4195 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4197 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4198 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4201 =item setrgid() not implemented
4203 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4204 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4207 =item setruid() not implemented
4209 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4210 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4213 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4215 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4216 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4217 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4219 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
4221 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
4222 world, because the world might have written on it already.
4224 =item Setuid script not plain file
4226 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
4227 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
4229 =item shm%s not implemented
4231 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4233 =item !=~ should be !~
4235 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4236 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4237 operators: probably not what you intended.
4239 =item <> should be quotes
4241 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4244 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4246 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4247 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4248 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4249 probably not what you had in mind.
4251 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4253 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4256 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4258 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4259 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4261 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4263 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4264 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4267 =item sort is now a reserved word
4269 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4270 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4272 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4274 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4275 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4277 =item splice() offset past end of array
4279 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4280 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4281 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4282 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4287 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4288 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4289 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4291 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4293 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4294 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4295 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4296 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4299 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4301 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4302 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4304 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4306 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4307 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4308 C<can> may break this.
4310 =item Subroutine %s redefined
4312 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
4315 no warnings 'redefine';
4316 eval "sub name { ... }";
4319 =item Substitution loop
4321 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4322 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4323 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
4324 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
4326 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
4328 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4329 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4330 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4332 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
4334 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4335 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4336 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4338 =item substr outside of string
4340 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4341 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4342 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4343 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4344 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
4346 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4348 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4349 inferior to its current type.
4351 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4353 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4354 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4355 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4356 clustering parentheses:
4358 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4360 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4361 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4363 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4365 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4366 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4367 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4369 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4371 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4372 and effective uids or gids.
4376 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4380 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4382 A keyword is misspelled.
4383 A semicolon is missing.
4385 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4386 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4387 A closing quote is missing.
4389 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4390 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4391 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4392 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4393 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4394 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4395 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4396 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4397 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4400 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4402 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4403 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4406 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4408 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4409 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4410 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4412 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4414 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4416 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4418 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4420 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4422 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4423 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4424 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4425 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4427 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4429 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4430 before now. Check your control flow.
4432 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4434 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4435 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4437 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4439 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4440 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4442 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4444 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4445 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4447 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4449 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4450 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4452 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4454 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4455 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4464 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4465 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4467 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4469 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4470 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4471 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4472 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4475 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4477 (F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4478 to the probings of Configure.
4480 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4482 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4483 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4484 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4487 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4489 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4491 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4493 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4495 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4496 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4497 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4498 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4499 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4500 target of the change to
4501 %ENV which produced the warning.
4503 =item thread failed to start: %s
4505 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4507 =item times not implemented
4509 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4510 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4512 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4514 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4515 B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4516 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4517 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4520 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4521 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4522 editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4523 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
4525 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4526 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
4528 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4530 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4531 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4532 specified an illegal mapping.
4533 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4535 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4537 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4539 =item Too few args to syscall
4541 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4542 system call to call, silly dilly.
4544 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4546 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4547 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4549 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4550 not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4552 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4553 (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4554 this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4555 script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
4557 =item Too late to run %s block
4559 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4560 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4561 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4562 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4565 =item Too many args to syscall
4567 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4569 =item Too many arguments for %s
4571 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4575 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4576 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4580 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4581 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4583 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4585 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4586 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4588 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4590 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4591 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4592 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4594 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4596 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4597 y/// or y[][] construct.
4599 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4601 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4602 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4604 =item truncate not implemented
4606 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4607 Configure knows about.
4609 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4611 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4612 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4613 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4614 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4616 =item Type of argument to %s must be hashref or arrayref
4618 (F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with an argument that was
4619 expected to be a reference to a hash or a reference to an array.
4621 =item umask not implemented
4623 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4624 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4626 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4628 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4630 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4632 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4633 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4635 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4637 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4638 many values were temporarily localized.
4640 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4642 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4643 many blocks were entered and left.
4645 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4647 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4648 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4650 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4652 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4653 another package? See L<perlform>.
4655 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4657 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4658 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4660 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4662 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4663 since been undefined.
4665 =item Undefined subroutine called
4667 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4668 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4670 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4672 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4673 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4675 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4677 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4678 another package? See L<perlform>.
4680 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4682 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4683 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4686 =item %s: Undefined variable
4688 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4689 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4691 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4693 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4694 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4696 =item Unicode non-character U+%X is illegal for open interchange
4698 (W utf8) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are defined by the
4699 Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4700 reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
4701 them. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4702 off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4704 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4706 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4709 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4711 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4712 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4713 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4715 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4717 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4718 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4719 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4720 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4721 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4722 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4724 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4726 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4727 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4728 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4729 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4731 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4733 (W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4735 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4737 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4738 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4739 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4740 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4741 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4744 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4745 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4747 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4749 (F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4750 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4752 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4754 (F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4755 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4757 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4759 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4760 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4762 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4763 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4765 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4767 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4768 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4769 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4773 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4775 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4776 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4777 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4778 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4780 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4782 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4783 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4784 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4785 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4787 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4789 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4790 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4791 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4792 you were last editing.
4794 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4796 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4797 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4798 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4801 =item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
4803 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4804 in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4805 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4807 =item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4809 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4810 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4811 understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
4812 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4813 escape was discovered.
4815 =item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
4817 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4818 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4819 change in a future version of Perl.
4821 =item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4823 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4824 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4825 change in a future version of Perl.
4826 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4827 escape was discovered.
4829 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4831 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4832 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4835 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4837 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4838 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4839 bad switch on your behalf.)
4841 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4843 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4844 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4845 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4847 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4849 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4851 =item Unsupported function %s
4853 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4854 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4856 =item Unsupported function fork
4858 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.