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 (optional).
12 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
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 Optional warnings are enabled by using the B<-w> switch. Warnings may
19 be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}> to a reference to a routine that
20 will be called on each warning instead of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
21 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
24 Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are denoted with a %s,
25 just as in a printf format. Note that some messages start with a %s!
26 The symbols C<"%-?@> sort before the letters, while C<[> and C<\> sort after.
30 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
32 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make sense
33 to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use local()
34 if you want to localize a package variable.
36 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
38 (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
39 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
40 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
41 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
44 =item "no" not allowed in expression
46 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
47 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
49 =item "use" not allowed in expression
51 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and returns
52 no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
54 =item % may only be used in unpack
56 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
57 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other
58 way. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
60 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
62 (W) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator followed
63 by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list operators arguments
64 found inside the parentheses. See L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
66 =item %s argument is not a HASH element
68 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash element, such as
73 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
75 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
80 or a hash slice, such as
82 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
83 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
85 =item %s did not return a true value
87 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
88 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
89 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
90 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
92 =item %s found where operator expected
94 (S) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator. If it
95 sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an operator,
96 it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an operator or
97 delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
99 =item %s had compilation errors
101 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
103 =item %s has too many errors
105 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
106 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
108 =item %s matches null string many times
110 (W) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
111 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. See L<perlre>.
113 =item %s never introduced
115 (S) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of scope
116 before it could possibly have been used.
120 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
122 =item %s: Command not found
124 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
125 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
128 =item %s: Expression syntax
130 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
131 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
134 =item %s: Undefined variable
136 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
137 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
142 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
143 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
146 =item B<-P> not allowed for setuid/setgid script
148 (F) The script would have to be opened by the C preprocessor by name,
149 which provides a race condition that breaks security.
151 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
153 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
154 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
156 =item C<-p> destination: %s
158 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
159 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
160 redirected it with select().)
162 =item 500 Server error
166 =item ?+* follows nothing in regexp
168 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it
169 if you meant it literally. See L<perlre>.
171 =item @ outside of string
173 (F) You had a pack template that specified an absolute position outside
174 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
176 =item accept() on closed fd
178 (W) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
179 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/accept>.
181 =item Allocation too large: %lx
183 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
185 =item Allocation too large
187 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
189 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
191 (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and translation (tr///)
192 operators work on scalar values. If you apply one of them to an array
193 or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar value -- the
194 length of an array, or the population info of a hash -- and then work on
195 that scalar value. This is probably not what you meant to do. See
196 L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for alternatives.
198 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
200 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
202 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
204 (W)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
205 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
206 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
208 =item Args must match #! line
210 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
211 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
212 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
213 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
215 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
217 (W) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator that
218 expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
219 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
221 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
223 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some spots. This
224 is now heavily deprecated.
226 =item assertion botched: %s
228 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
230 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
232 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
234 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
236 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
237 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
238 know which context to supply to the right side.
240 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
242 (P) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas that will
243 be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be outside any
246 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
248 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
249 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
250 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
251 that can no longer be found in the table.
253 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
255 (W) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the free_tmps()
256 routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the SV before
257 the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the free_tmps()
258 routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does try to free
261 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
263 (P) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
265 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
267 (W) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to see if it
268 would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0 earlier,
269 and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed. This
270 could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or that
271 SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was mortalized
272 when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been corrupted.
274 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
276 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
277 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
278 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
280 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
282 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl() or
283 shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
284 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
285 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
287 =item Bad filehandle: %s
289 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the symbol
290 has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an open(), or
291 did it in another package.
293 =item Bad free() ignored
295 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had never been
296 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
297 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
299 This message can be quite often seen with DB_File on systems with
300 "hard" dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of
301 C<Berkeley DB> which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving>
306 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
308 =item Bad name after %s::
310 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then didn't
311 finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside of quotes,
320 $sym = "mypack::$var";
322 =item Bad symbol for array
324 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
325 wasn't a symbol table entry.
327 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
329 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something that
330 wasn't a symbol table entry.
332 =item Bad symbol for hash
334 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
335 wasn't a symbol table entry.
337 =item Badly placed ()'s
339 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
340 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
343 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
345 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
346 subroutine identifier, in curly braces or to the left of the "=>" symbol.
347 Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
349 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
351 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN subroutine.
352 Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is exited.
354 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
356 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
357 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had
358 already occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}>
359 could not be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code
360 likely depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
362 =item bind() on closed fd
364 (W) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
365 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
367 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
369 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not copiable.
371 =item Callback called exit
373 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via perl_call_sv()
374 exited by calling exit.
376 =item Can't "goto" outside a block
378 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look
379 like a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually
380 occurs if you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which
381 is a no-no. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
383 =item Can't "last" outside a block
385 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
386 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a
387 current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a
388 "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can usually double
389 the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner curlies
390 will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/last>.
392 =item Can't "next" outside a block
394 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
395 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
396 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
397 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
398 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
400 =item Can't "redo" outside a block
402 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
403 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
404 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(). You can
405 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the inner
406 curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
408 =item Can't bless non-reference value
410 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
411 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
413 =item Can't break at that line
415 (S) A warning intended to only be printed while running within the debugger, indicating
416 the line number specified wasn't the location of a statement that could
419 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
421 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
422 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
423 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
425 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
427 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
428 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but
429 you didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't
430 an object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
432 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
434 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
435 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns
436 neither an object reference nor a package name. (Perhaps it's null?)
437 Something like this will reproduce the error:
440 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
441 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
443 =item Can't chdir to %s
445 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
446 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
448 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
450 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
451 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
461 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
463 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
465 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
466 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
468 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
470 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
471 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
473 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
475 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted quotas
476 or other plumbing problems.
478 =item Can't declare %s in my
480 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as lexical variables.
481 They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
483 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
485 (S) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated reason.
487 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
489 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try reading
490 from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say C<-i.bak>, or some
493 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s E<gt> 14 characters
495 (S) There isn't enough room in the filename to make a backup name for the file.
497 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
499 (S) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as a file in
500 /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
502 =item Can't do setegid!
504 (P) The setegid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
507 =item Can't do seteuid!
509 (P) The setuid emulator of suidperl failed for some reason.
511 =item Can't do setuid
513 (F) This typically means that ordinary perl tried to exec suidperl to
514 do setuid emulation, but couldn't exec it. It looks for a name of the
515 form sperl5.000 in the same directory that the perl executable resides
516 under the name perl5.000, typically /usr/local/bin on Unix machines.
517 If the file is there, check the execute permissions. If it isn't, ask
518 your sysadmin why he and/or she removed it.
520 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
522 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only waitpid()
523 without flags is emulated.
525 =item Can't do {n,m} with n E<gt> m
527 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want
528 your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. See L<perlre>.
530 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
532 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this point.
533 For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #! line.
535 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
537 (W) An system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the named
538 program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the permissions
539 were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in C<$ENV{PATH}>, the
540 executable in question was compiled for another architecture, or the
541 #! line in a script points to an interpreter that can't be run for
542 similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support #! at all.)
546 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because that's
547 what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may need to
548 mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
550 =item Can't execute %s
552 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be found
553 in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions.
555 =item Can't find label %s
557 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's possible
558 for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
560 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
562 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means that
563 the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count nesting
564 levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
566 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.)
570 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a pipeline.
572 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
574 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference between
575 access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes. Under VMS,
576 access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in the stat buffer, so
577 that ACLs and other protections can be taken into account. Unfortunately, Perl
578 assumes that the stat buffer contains all the necessary information, and passes
579 it, instead of the filespec, to the access checking routine. It will try to
580 retrieve the filespec using the device name and FID present in the stat buffer,
581 but this works only if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat()
582 routine, because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
583 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up and
584 returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking routine
585 knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you shouldn't ever
586 see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises only if some internal
587 code takes stat buffers lightly.)
589 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
591 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a pipe, Perl
592 can't retrieve its name for later use.
594 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
596 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
597 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
599 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
601 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one subroutine
602 call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole cloth. In general
603 you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD routine anyway. See
606 =item Can't localize through a reference
608 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
609 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
610 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be
611 sure that $ref will still be a reference.
613 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
615 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
616 lexical variable using "my". This is not allowed. If you want to
617 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
620 =item Can't locate %s in @INC
622 (F) You said to do (or require, or use) a file that couldn't be found
623 in any of the libraries mentioned in @INC. Perhaps you need to set the
624 PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the extra library
625 is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name to @INC. Or maybe
626 you just misspelled the name of the file. See L<perlfunc/require>.
628 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
630 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
631 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
632 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
634 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
636 (W) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that doesn't seem
639 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
641 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably VMS.
645 (F) The mktemp() routine failed for some reason while trying to process
646 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
648 =item Can't modify %s in %s
650 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try to
651 change it, such as with an auto-increment.
653 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
655 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
658 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
660 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
663 =item Can't open %s: %s
665 (S) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<E<lt>E<gt>>
666 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
667 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
668 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named
671 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
673 (W) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported. You can
674 try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such as
675 IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using "E<gt>",
676 and then read it in under a different file handle.
678 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
680 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
681 couldn't open the file specified after '2E<gt>' or '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the
682 command line for writing.
684 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
686 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
687 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<lt>' on the command line for reading.
689 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
691 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
692 couldn't open the file specified after 'E<gt>' or 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command
695 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
697 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
698 couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined for stdout.
700 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
702 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
704 =item Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
706 (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort subroutines and keeps
707 pointers into them. You tried to redefine one such sort subroutine when it
708 was currently active, which is not allowed. If you really want to do
709 this, you should write C<sort { &func } @x> instead of C<sort func @x>.
711 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
713 (S) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason, probably because
714 you don't have write permission to the directory.
716 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
718 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried to
719 reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
721 =item Can't reswap uid and euid
723 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
726 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
728 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
729 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
731 =item Can't stat script "%s"
733 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have
734 it open already. Bizarre.
736 =item Can't swap uid and euid
738 (P) The setreuid() call failed for some reason in the setuid emulator
741 =item Can't take log of %g
743 (F) Logarithms are defined on only positive real numbers.
745 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
747 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
748 negative number. There's a Complex package available for Perl, though,
749 if you really want to do that.
751 =item Can't undef active subroutine
753 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
754 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
755 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
759 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
760 as the main Perl stack.
762 =item Can't upgrade that kind of scalar
764 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making
765 it into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are
766 so specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This
767 message indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
769 =item Can't upgrade to undef
771 (P) The undefined SV is the bottom of the totem pole, in the scheme
772 of upgradability. Upgrading to undef indicates an error in the
773 code calling sv_upgrade.
775 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
777 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
778 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the E<lt>=E<gt> or cmp operator,
779 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
780 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
783 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
785 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a foreach.
787 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
789 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
790 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
791 test the type of the reference, if need be.
793 =item Can't use \1 to mean $1 in expression
795 (W) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that creates
796 a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a backreference
797 to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular expression pattern.
798 Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a value that prints
799 out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form instead.
801 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while \"strict refs\" in use
803 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
804 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
806 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
808 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
809 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
811 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
813 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
814 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
816 =item Can't use global %s in "my"
818 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This is
819 not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location (namely
820 the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to have
821 variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
824 =item Can't use subscript on %s
826 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
827 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
828 didn't look like an array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
830 =item Can't write to temp file for B<-e>: %s
832 (F) The write routine failed for some reason while trying to process
833 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
835 =item Can't x= to read-only value
837 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value) with
838 an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
839 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
841 =item Cannot open temporary file
843 (F) The create routine failed for some reason while trying to process
844 a B<-e> switch. Maybe your /tmp partition is full, or clobbered.
846 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
848 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
849 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
850 package. If method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
852 =item chmod: mode argument is missing initial 0
854 (W) A novice will sometimes say
858 not realizing that 777 will be interpreted as a decimal number, equivalent
859 to 01411. Octal constants are introduced with a leading 0 in Perl, as in C.
861 =item Close on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
863 (W) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
865 =item Compilation failed in require
867 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
868 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it encountered
869 were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
871 =item connect() on closed fd
873 (W) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
874 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/connect>.
876 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
878 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
879 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
882 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
884 (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
885 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
888 =item Copy method did not return a reference
890 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
892 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
894 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
896 =item corrupted regexp pointers
898 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
899 expression compiler gave it.
901 =item corrupted regexp program
903 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without
904 a valid magic number.
906 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
908 (W) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly) 100
909 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an infinite
910 recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in which
911 case it indicates something else.
913 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
915 (F) In a here document construct like C<E<lt>E<lt>FOO>, the label
916 C<FOO> is too long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously
917 twisted to write code that triggers this error.
919 =item Did you mean &%s instead?
921 (W) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or some such.
923 =item Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?
925 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or @hash{@keys}.
926 On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got carried away.
930 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
931 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
933 =item Do you need to predeclare %s?
935 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
936 found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
937 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
938 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
939 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're
940 referencing something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have
941 to define the subroutine or package before the current location. You
942 can use an empty "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward"
945 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
947 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
949 =item do_study: out of memory
951 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
953 =item Duplicate free() ignored
955 (S) An internal routine called free() on something that had already
958 =item elseif should be elsif
960 (S) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
961 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
962 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
963 unlikely to be what you want.
965 =item END failed--cleanup aborted
967 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing an END subroutine.
968 The interpreter is immediately exited.
970 =item Error converting file specification %s
972 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
973 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
974 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've
975 passed an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a
976 case the conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
978 =item Excessively long <> operator
980 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
981 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
982 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
983 variable and glob that.
985 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors
987 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
989 =item Exiting eval via %s
991 (W) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as
992 a goto, or a loop control statement.
994 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
996 (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a sort block or
997 subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a loop control
998 statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1000 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1002 (W) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such as
1003 a goto, or a loop control statement.
1005 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1007 (W) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such as
1008 a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1010 =item Fatal VMS error at %s, line %d
1012 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS system
1013 service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more details. The
1014 filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell you which section of
1015 the Perl source code is distressed.
1017 =item fcntl is not implemented
1019 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1020 PDP-11 or something?
1022 =item Filehandle %s never opened
1024 (W) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was never initialized.
1025 You need to do an open() or a socket() call, or call a constructor from
1026 the FileHandle package.
1028 =item Filehandle %s opened for only input
1030 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1031 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1032 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1033 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1036 =item Filehandle opened for only input
1038 (W) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you
1039 intended it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1040 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1041 you intended only to write the file, use "E<gt>" or "E<gt>E<gt>". See
1044 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1046 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1047 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1048 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1051 =item Final @ should be \@ or @name
1053 (F) You must now decide whether the final @ in a string was meant to be
1054 a literal "at" sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name
1055 that happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or
1058 =item Format %s redefined
1060 (W) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1064 eval "format NAME =...";
1067 =item Format not terminated
1069 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1070 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1072 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1082 (or something like that).
1084 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1086 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1088 =item gethostent not implemented
1090 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1091 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1094 =item get{sock,peer}name() on closed fd
1096 (W) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed socket.
1097 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1099 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1101 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1102 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1105 =item Glob not terminated
1107 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1108 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
1109 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
1110 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1112 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1114 (F) You've said "use strict vars", which indicates that all variables
1115 must either be lexically scoped (using "my"), or explicitly qualified to
1116 say which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1118 =item goto must have label
1120 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1121 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1123 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1125 (S) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought to have
1126 existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be created on
1127 an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1129 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1131 (D) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some spots. This
1132 is now heavily deprecated.
1134 =item Identifier too long
1136 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1137 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1138 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future
1139 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1141 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
1143 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
1144 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
1145 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
1146 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
1147 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
1148 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
1150 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
1152 (F) A carriage return character was found in the input. This is an
1153 error, and not a warning, because carriage return characters can break
1154 multi-line strings, including here documents (e.g., C<print E<lt>E<lt>EOF;>).
1156 Under Unix, this error is usually caused by executing Perl code --
1157 either the main program, a module, or an eval'd string -- that was
1158 transferred over a network connection from a non-Unix system without
1159 properly converting the text file format.
1161 Under systems that use something other than '\n' to delimit lines of
1162 text, this error can also be caused by reading Perl code from a file
1163 handle that is in binary mode (as set by the C<binmode> operator).
1165 In either case, the Perl code in question will probably need to be
1166 converted with something like C<s/\x0D\x0A?/\n/g> before it can be
1169 =item Illegal division by zero
1171 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in your
1172 logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against meaningless input.
1174 =item Illegal modulus zero
1176 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers
1177 don't take to this kindly.
1179 =item Illegal octal digit
1181 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in a octal number.
1183 =item Illegal octal digit ignored
1185 (W) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in a octal number. Interpretation
1186 of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
1188 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
1190 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
1191 following switches: B<-[DIMUdmw]>.
1193 =item In string, @%s now must be written as \@%s
1195 (F) It used to be that Perl would try to guess whether you wanted an
1196 array interpolated or a literal @. It did this when the string was first
1197 used at runtime. Now strings are parsed at compile time, and ambiguous
1198 instances of @ must be disambiguated, either by prepending a backslash to
1199 indicate a literal, or by declaring (or using) the array within the
1200 program before the string (lexically). (Someday it will simply assume
1201 that an unbackslashed @ interpolates an array.)
1203 =item Insecure dependency in %s
1205 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
1206 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or setgid,
1207 or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The tainting mechanism
1208 labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly from the user,
1209 who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any such data is
1210 used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See L<perlsec>
1211 for more information.
1213 =item Insecure directory in %s
1215 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or setgid
1216 script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by the world.
1221 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
1222 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> is derived from data supplied (or
1223 potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set the path to a
1224 known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
1226 =item Integer overflow in hex number
1228 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
1229 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
1232 =item Integer overflow in octal number
1234 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
1235 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
1238 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
1240 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number
1241 of times you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine
1242 whether the current call to C<exec> should affect the current
1243 script or a subprocess (see L<perlvms/exec>). Somehow, this count
1244 has become scrambled, so Perl is making a guess and treating
1245 this C<exec> as a request to terminate the Perl script
1246 and execute the specified command.
1248 =item internal disaster in regexp
1250 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
1252 =item internal error: glob failed
1254 (P) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for C<glob>
1255 and C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>>. This may mean that your csh (C shell) is
1256 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1257 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1258 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1259 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1260 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1261 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1263 =item internal urp in regexp at /%s/
1265 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser.
1267 =item invalid [] range in regexp
1269 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
1270 greater than the maximum character. See L<perlre>.
1272 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
1274 (W) Perl does not understand the given format conversion.
1275 See L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
1277 =item Invalid type in pack: '%s'
1279 (F) The given character is not a valid pack type. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1281 =item Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
1283 (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1285 =item ioctl is not implemented
1287 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
1288 strange for a machine that supports C.
1290 =item junk on end of regexp
1292 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
1294 =item Label not found for "last %s"
1296 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a
1297 loop of that name, not even if you count where you were called from.
1298 See L<perlfunc/last>.
1300 =item Label not found for "next %s"
1302 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
1303 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1306 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
1308 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
1309 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
1312 =item listen() on closed fd
1314 (W) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget to check
1315 the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/listen>.
1317 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
1319 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1320 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1322 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
1324 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
1325 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
1326 ended earlier on the current line.
1328 =item Misplaced _ in number
1330 (W) An underline in a decimal constant wasn't on a 3-digit boundary.
1332 =item Missing $ on loop variable
1334 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables are always
1335 mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it can vary from
1336 one line to the next.
1338 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
1340 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
1341 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
1343 =item Missing operator before %s?
1345 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1346 found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
1348 =item Missing right bracket
1350 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly brackets (braces) than closing ones.
1351 As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you were last
1354 =item Missing semicolon on previous line?
1356 (S) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message "%s
1357 found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
1358 the previous line just because you saw this message.
1360 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
1362 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
1363 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
1364 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
1366 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
1369 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
1371 =item Modification of noncreatable array value attempted, subscript %d
1373 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
1374 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
1377 =item Modification of noncreatable hash value attempted, subscript "%s"
1379 (F) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it couldn't
1380 be created for some peculiar reason.
1382 =item Module name must be constant
1384 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
1386 =item msg%s not implemented
1388 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
1390 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
1392 (W) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>. They're written
1393 like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
1395 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
1397 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
1398 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
1399 it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<use vars> pragma is
1400 provided for just this purpose.
1402 =item Negative length
1404 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer length
1405 that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
1407 =item nested *?+ in regexp
1409 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
1410 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal.
1412 Note, however, that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and C<??> appear
1413 to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
1417 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1418 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
1420 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
1422 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or setgid
1423 script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there will be
1424 another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least securable.
1427 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
1429 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
1431 =item No comma allowed after %s
1433 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
1434 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
1435 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
1437 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
1438 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
1439 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
1440 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
1441 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
1442 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
1443 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
1444 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
1445 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
1446 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
1447 this error was triggered?
1449 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
1451 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1452 and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know where you
1453 want to pipe the output from this command.
1455 =item No DB::DB routine defined
1457 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1458 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1459 didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
1460 statement. Which is odd, because the file should have been required
1461 automatically, and should have blown up the require if it didn't parse
1464 =item No dbm on this machine
1466 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
1467 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
1469 =item No DBsub routine
1471 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch,
1472 but for some reason the perl5db.pl file (or some facsimile thereof)
1473 didn't define a DB::sub routine to be called at the beginning of each
1474 ordinary subroutine call.
1476 =item No error file after 2E<gt> or 2E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1478 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1479 and found a '2E<gt>' or a '2E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find
1480 the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
1482 =item No input file after E<lt> on command line
1484 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1485 and found a 'E<lt>' on the command line, but can't find the name of the file
1486 from which to read data for stdin.
1488 =item No output file after E<gt> on command line
1490 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1491 and found a lone 'E<gt>' at the end of the command line, so it doesn't know
1492 where you wanted to redirect stdout.
1494 =item No output file after E<gt> or E<gt>E<gt> on command line
1496 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line redirection,
1497 and found a 'E<gt>' or a 'E<gt>E<gt>' on the command line, but can't find the
1498 name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
1500 =item No Perl script found in input
1502 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
1503 with #! and containing the word "perl".
1505 =item No setregid available
1507 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
1510 =item No setreuid available
1512 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
1515 =item No space allowed after B<-I>
1517 (F) The argument to B<-I> must follow the B<-I> immediately with no
1520 =item No such pipe open
1522 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
1523 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught earlier as
1524 an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
1526 =item No such signal: SIG%s
1528 (W) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was not recognized.
1529 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
1531 =item Not a CODE reference
1533 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1534 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1535 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1536 See also L<perlref>.
1538 =item Not a format reference
1540 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
1541 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
1543 =item Not a GLOB reference
1545 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is,
1546 a symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
1547 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out
1548 what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1550 =item Not a HASH reference
1552 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but
1553 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1554 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1556 =item Not a perl script
1558 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
1559 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
1562 =item Not a SCALAR reference
1564 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but
1565 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1566 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1568 =item Not a subroutine reference
1570 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
1571 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
1572 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was.
1573 See also L<perlref>.
1575 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
1577 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
1578 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
1580 =item Not an ARRAY reference
1582 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but
1583 found a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref()
1584 function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
1586 =item Not enough arguments for %s
1588 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
1590 =item Not enough format arguments
1592 (W) A format specified more picture fields than the next line supplied.
1595 =item Null filename used
1597 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many machines
1598 that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
1600 =item Null picture in formline
1602 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
1603 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
1604 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
1606 =item NULL OP IN RUN
1608 (P) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode pointer.
1612 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
1614 =item NULL regexp argument
1616 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
1618 =item NULL regexp parameter
1620 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
1622 =item Number too long
1624 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to about
1625 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future versions of
1626 Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In the meantime,
1627 try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of "1_000_000").
1629 =item Odd number of elements in hash list
1631 (S) You specified an odd number of elements to a hash list, which is odd,
1632 because hash lists come in key/value pairs.
1634 =item Offset outside string
1636 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
1637 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
1638 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
1639 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
1643 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1647 (S) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
1649 =item Operation `%s': no method found,%s
1651 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which
1652 no handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in
1653 terms of other handlers, there is no default handler for any
1654 operation, unless C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be
1655 true. See L<overload>.
1657 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
1659 (S) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser was
1660 expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant
1661 to use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect.
1662 For example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as
1663 if you said "*foo * 'foo'".
1665 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
1667 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue parsing,
1668 but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or otherwise.
1670 =item Out of memory!
1672 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1673 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
1675 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
1676 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
1677 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
1678 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
1679 error is trappable I<once>.
1681 =item Out of memory during request for %s
1683 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
1684 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
1685 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
1686 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
1690 (W) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a page.
1693 =item panic: ck_grep
1695 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
1697 =item panic: ck_split
1699 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
1701 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
1703 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than there
1704 are in the savestack.
1708 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
1709 it wasn't an eval context.
1711 =item panic: do_match
1713 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1715 =item panic: do_split
1717 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
1719 =item panic: do_subst
1721 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1723 =item panic: do_trans
1725 (P) The internal do_trans() routine was called with invalid operational data.
1729 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
1733 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
1734 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
1736 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
1738 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
1740 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
1742 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
1746 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
1747 it wasn't a block context.
1749 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
1751 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the scope.
1753 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
1755 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
1756 invalid enum on the top of it.
1760 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
1762 =item panic: mapstart
1764 (P) The compiler is screwed up with respect to the map() function.
1766 =item panic: null array
1768 (P) One of the internal array routines was passed a null AV pointer.
1770 =item panic: pad_alloc
1772 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1773 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1775 =item panic: pad_free curpad
1777 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1778 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1780 =item panic: pad_free po
1782 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1784 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
1786 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1787 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1789 =item panic: pad_sv po
1791 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1793 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
1795 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
1796 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
1798 =item panic: pad_swipe po
1800 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
1802 =item panic: pp_iter
1804 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
1806 =item panic: realloc
1808 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
1810 =item panic: restartop
1812 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
1813 didn't supply the destination.
1817 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
1818 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
1820 =item panic: scan_num
1822 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
1824 =item panic: sv_insert
1826 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
1829 =item panic: top_env
1831 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
1835 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
1837 =item Pareneses missing around "%s" list
1839 (W) You said something like
1845 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
1847 Remember that "my" and "local" bind closer than comma.
1849 =item Perl %3.3f required--this is only version %s, stopped
1851 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more recent
1852 than the currently running version. How long has it been since you upgraded,
1853 anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
1855 =item Permission denied
1857 (F) The setuid emulator in suidperl decided you were up to no good.
1859 =item pid %d not a child
1861 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a process which
1862 isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is fine from VMS'
1863 perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
1865 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
1867 (F) Your C compiler uses POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
1868 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
1870 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
1872 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
1873 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
1874 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
1875 exclamation marks parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1878 You probably wrote something like this:
1885 when you should have written this:
1892 If you really want comments, build your list the
1893 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
1897 'b', # another comment
1900 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
1902 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
1903 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
1904 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
1907 You probably wrote something like this:
1911 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
1912 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
1916 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
1918 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
1919 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
1920 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
1921 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
1923 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
1925 (S) The old irregular construct
1929 is now misinterpreted as
1933 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary
1934 and list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must
1935 put parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator
1938 =item print on closed filehandle %s
1940 (W) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime before now.
1941 Check your logic flow.
1943 =item printf on closed filehandle %s
1945 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
1946 Check your logic flow.
1948 =item Probable precedence problem on %s
1950 (W) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a conditional,
1951 which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part of the
1952 last argument of the previous construct, for example:
1956 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
1958 (S) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been declared
1959 or defined with a different function prototype.
1961 =item Read on closed filehandle E<lt>%sE<gt>
1963 (W) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime before now.
1964 Check your logic flow.
1966 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
1968 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
1970 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
1972 (F) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce the
1973 desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
1974 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
1976 =item Recursive inheritance detected
1978 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were used. Probably indicates
1979 an unintended loop in your inheritance hierarchy.
1981 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
1983 (W) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
1984 reference count of other than 1.
1986 =item regexp memory corruption
1988 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1989 expression compiler gave it.
1991 =item regexp out of space
1993 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it earlier.
1995 =item regexp too big
1997 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
1998 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
1999 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
2000 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
2001 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
2003 =item Reversed %s= operator
2005 (W) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must always
2006 comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
2008 =item Runaway format
2010 (F) Your format contained the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence, but it
2011 produced 200 lines at once, and the 200th line looked exactly like the
2012 199th line. Apparently you didn't arrange for the arguments to exhaust
2013 themselves, either by using ^ instead of @ (for scalar variables), or by
2014 shifting or popping (for array variables). See L<perlform>.
2016 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
2018 (W) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2019 an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2020 The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2021 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves
2022 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2023 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2025 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
2026 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2027 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2030 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
2032 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
2033 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
2034 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
2035 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
2036 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
2037 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
2039 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash
2040 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
2041 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
2044 =item Script is not setuid/setgid in suidperl
2046 (F) Oddly, the suidperl program was invoked on a script without a setuid
2047 or setgid bit set. This doesn't make much sense.
2049 =item Search pattern not terminated
2051 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
2052 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2054 =item %sseek() on unopened file
2056 (W) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a filehandle that
2057 was either never opened or has since been closed.
2059 =item select not implemented
2061 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
2063 =item sem%s not implemented
2065 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
2067 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
2069 (S) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a scalar
2070 that had previously been marked as free.
2072 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
2074 (W) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing semicolon,
2075 or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
2077 =item Send on closed socket
2079 (W) The filehandle you're sending to got itself closed sometime before now.
2080 Check your logic flow.
2082 =item Sequence (? incomplete
2083 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?.
2086 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated
2088 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
2089 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See L<perlre>.
2091 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented
2093 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
2094 but has not yet been written. See L<perlre>.
2096 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized
2098 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
2103 Also known as "500 Server error".
2105 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
2107 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the user
2108 CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user account you
2109 tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables (like PATH)
2110 from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a location where the CGI
2111 server can't find it, basically, more or less. Please see the following
2112 for more information:
2114 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/idiots-guide.html
2115 http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/perl-cgi-faq.html
2116 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/cgi-faq
2117 http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html
2118 http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html
2120 =item setegid() not implemented
2122 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't support
2123 the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2126 =item seteuid() not implemented
2128 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<gt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2129 the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2132 =item setrgid() not implemented
2134 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't support
2135 the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2138 =item setruid() not implemented
2140 (F) You tried to assign to C<$E<lt>>, and your operating system doesn't support
2141 the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure didn't
2144 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
2146 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the world,
2147 because the world might have written on it already.
2149 =item shm%s not implemented
2151 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
2153 =item shutdown() on closed fd
2155 (W) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit superfluous.
2157 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
2159 (W) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist. Perhaps you
2160 put it into the wrong package?
2162 =item sort is now a reserved word
2164 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
2165 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
2167 =item Sort subroutine didn't return a numeric value
2169 (F) A sort comparison routine must return a number. You probably blew
2170 it by not using C<E<lt>=E<gt>> or C<cmp>, or by not using them correctly.
2171 See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2173 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
2175 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
2176 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2180 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't iterate
2181 more times than there are characters of input, which is what happened.)
2182 See L<perlfunc/split>.
2184 =item Stat on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2186 (W) You tried to use the stat() function (or an equivalent file test)
2187 on a filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
2189 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
2191 (W) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a die().
2192 This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns unless
2193 there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system() instead,
2194 which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in a block
2197 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
2199 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation stubs.
2200 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
2203 =item Subroutine %s redefined
2205 (W) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
2209 eval "sub name { ... }";
2212 =item Substitution loop
2214 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a
2215 substitution shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of
2216 input, which is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
2217 L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators">.
2219 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
2221 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2222 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2224 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
2226 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a s/// or s{}{}
2227 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
2229 =item substr outside of string
2231 (S),(W) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of a
2232 string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
2233 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is
2234 mandatory if substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side
2235 of an assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
2237 =item suidperl is no longer needed since %s
2239 (F) Your Perl was compiled with B<-D>SETUID_SCRIPTS_ARE_SECURE_NOW, but a
2240 version of the setuid emulator somehow got run anyway.
2244 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
2246 A keyword is misspelled.
2247 A semicolon is missing.
2249 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
2250 An opening or closing brace is missing.
2251 A closing quote is missing.
2253 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
2254 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
2255 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
2256 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
2257 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
2258 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
2259 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
2260 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
2261 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
2263 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
2265 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell
2266 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
2269 =item System V IPC is not implemented on this machine
2271 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem", "shm",
2272 or "msg". See L<perlfunc/semctl>, for example.
2274 =item Syswrite on closed filehandle
2276 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2277 Check your logic flow.
2279 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
2281 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply
2282 nested for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
2284 =item tell() on unopened file
2286 (W) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that was either
2287 never opened or has since been closed.
2289 =item Test on unopened file E<lt>%sE<gt>
2291 (W) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle that isn't
2292 open. Check your logic. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
2294 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
2296 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted as
2297 a compiler directive. You may say only one of
2306 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base
2307 out from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
2309 =item The %s function is unimplemented
2311 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
2312 to the probings of Configure.
2314 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
2316 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
2317 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
2318 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
2319 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
2322 =item The stat preceding C<-l _> wasn't an lstat
2324 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic linkhood
2325 if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went past
2326 the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename instead.
2328 =item times not implemented
2330 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I suspect
2331 you're not running on Unix.
2333 =item Too few args to syscall
2335 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
2336 system call to call, silly dilly.
2338 =item Too late for "B<-T>" option
2340 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2341 B<-T> option, but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
2342 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
2343 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
2346 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
2347 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed
2348 by editing the #! line so that the B<-T> option is a part of Perl's
2349 first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -T> to C<perl -T -n>.
2351 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
2352 B<-T> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -T scriptname>.
2354 =item Too late for "-%s" option
2356 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
2357 B<-M> or B<-m> option. This is an error because B<-M> and B<-m> options
2358 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
2364 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2365 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2368 =item Too many args to syscall
2370 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
2372 =item Too many arguments for %s
2374 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
2376 =item trailing \ in regexp
2378 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash. Backslash
2381 =item Translation pattern not terminated
2383 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2386 =item Translation replacement not terminated
2388 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
2391 =item truncate not implemented
2393 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
2394 Configure knows about.
2396 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
2398 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
2399 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
2400 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
2401 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
2403 =item umask: argument is missing initial 0
2405 (W) A umask of 222 is incorrect. It should be 0222, because octal literals
2406 always start with 0 in Perl, as in C.
2408 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
2410 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
2412 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
2414 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many execution
2415 contexts were entered and left.
2417 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
2419 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many
2420 values were temporarily localized.
2422 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
2424 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many blocks
2425 were entered and left.
2427 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
2429 (W) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how many mortal
2430 scalars were allocated and freed.
2432 =item Undefined format "%s" called
2434 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2435 another package? See L<perlform>.
2437 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
2439 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps
2440 it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2442 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
2444 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2445 has since been undefined.
2447 =item Undefined subroutine called
2449 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
2450 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
2452 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
2454 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem to
2455 have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2457 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
2459 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
2460 another package? See L<perlform>.
2462 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
2464 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
2465 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
2467 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
2469 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte order.
2471 =item unmatched () in regexp
2473 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
2474 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
2475 the matching parenthesis. See L<perlre>.
2477 =item Unmatched right bracket
2479 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly brackets (braces) than opening
2480 ones, so you're probably missing an opening bracket. As a general
2481 rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place you were
2484 =item unmatched [] in regexp
2486 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
2487 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it first.
2490 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2492 (W) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a reserved word.
2493 It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it somehow, or insert
2494 an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a subroutine.
2496 =item Unrecognized character %s
2498 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
2499 in your Perl script (or eval). Perhaps you tried to run a compressed
2500 script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
2502 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
2504 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not recognized.
2505 Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names on your system.
2507 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s
2509 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that.
2510 (If you think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's
2511 supplying the bad switch on your behalf.)
2513 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
2515 (W) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that operation
2516 failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline, PROBABLY
2517 because you forgot to chop() or chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
2519 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
2521 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
2523 =item Unsupported function fork
2525 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
2527 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
2528 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
2529 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
2531 =item Unsupported function %s
2533 (F) This machines doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
2534 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
2536 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
2538 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
2539 least that's what Configure thought.
2541 =item Unterminated E<lt>E<gt> operator
2543 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2544 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and not
2545 finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out earlier in
2546 the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2548 =item Use of "$$<digit>" to mean "${$}<digit>" is deprecated
2550 (D) Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any type marker followed
2551 by "$" and a digit. For example, "$$0" was incorrectly taken to mean
2552 "${$}0" instead of "${$0}". This bug is (mostly) fixed in Perl 5.004.
2554 However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix this bug completely,
2555 because at least two widely-used modules depend on the old meaning of
2556 "$$0" in a string. So Perl 5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>" in the
2557 old (broken) way inside strings; but it generates this message as a
2558 warning. And in Perl 5.005, this special treatment will cease.
2560 =item Use of $# is deprecated
2562 (D) This was an ill-advised attempt to emulate a poorly defined B<awk> feature.
2563 Use an explicit printf() or sprintf() instead.
2565 =item Use of $* is deprecated
2567 (D) This variable magically turned on multi-line pattern matching, both for
2568 you and for any luckless subroutine that you happen to call. You should
2569 use the new C<//m> and C<//s> modifiers now to do that without the dangerous
2570 action-at-a-distance effects of C<$*>.
2572 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
2574 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
2575 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
2577 =item Use of bare E<lt>E<lt> to mean E<lt>E<lt>"" is deprecated
2579 (D) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted form if you
2580 wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
2582 =item Use of implicit split to @_ is deprecated
2584 (D) It makes a lot of work for the compiler when you clobber a
2585 subroutine's argument list, so it's better if you assign the results of
2586 a split() explicitly to an array (or list).
2588 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
2590 (D) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines are looked
2591 up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the subroutines to
2592 be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not
2593 as methods (e.g. C<Foo->bar()> or C<$obj->bar()>).
2595 This bug will be rectified in Perl 5.005, which will use method lookup
2596 only for methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base
2597 of existing code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an
2598 interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning when non-methods
2599 use inherited C<AUTOLOAD>s.
2601 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
2602 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used to
2603 depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class named
2604 C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during startup.
2606 =item Use of %s is deprecated
2608 (D) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use, generally
2609 because there's a better way to do it, and also because the old way has
2612 =item Use of uninitialized value
2614 (W) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was
2615 interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this
2616 warning assign an initial value to your variables.
2618 =item Useless use of %s in void context
2620 (W) You did something without a side effect in a context that does nothing
2621 with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a value
2622 from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very often
2623 this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl to parse
2624 your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd get this
2625 if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and said
2629 when you meant to say
2631 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
2633 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
2634 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
2639 when you should have said
2643 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
2644 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
2645 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
2646 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
2647 L<perlref> for more on this.
2649 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
2651 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
2652 valid when C<untie> was called.
2654 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
2656 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), C<each()>,
2657 or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
2658 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which is
2659 probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in conditional
2660 expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
2662 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
2664 (F) While "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
2665 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
2666 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported
2667 by that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character
2668 on the front of your variable.
2670 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
2672 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
2673 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
2674 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
2675 the outermost subroutine. For example:
2677 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
2679 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
2680 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
2681 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
2682 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
2683 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
2684 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
2687 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
2688 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
2689 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
2690 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
2692 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
2694 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
2695 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
2697 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
2698 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
2699 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
2700 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
2701 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
2702 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
2704 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
2705 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
2706 will I<never> share the given variable.
2708 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
2709 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
2710 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
2711 they are automatically rebound to the current values of such
2714 =item Variable syntax
2716 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
2717 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
2720 =item Warning: something's wrong
2722 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
2723 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
2725 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
2727 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on the
2728 close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk space.
2730 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
2732 (S) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that looks like a
2733 binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a term or
2734 unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand function
2735 has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
2739 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
2743 but in actual fact, you got
2747 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
2749 =item Write on closed filehandle
2751 (W) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime before now.
2752 Check your logic flow.
2754 =item X outside of string
2756 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position before
2757 the beginning of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2759 =item x outside of string
2761 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
2762 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2764 =item Xsub "%s" called in sort
2766 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2768 =item Xsub called in sort
2770 (F) The use of an external subroutine as a sort comparison is not yet supported.
2772 =item You can't use C<-l> on a filehandle
2774 (F) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file it
2775 already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
2776 Use a filename instead.
2778 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
2780 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
2781 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
2782 about what you want. Your best bet is to use the wrapsuid script in
2783 the eg directory to put a setuid C wrapper around your script.
2785 =item You need to quote "%s"
2787 (W) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name. Unfortunately, you
2788 already have a subroutine of that name declared, which means that Perl 5
2789 will try to call the subroutine when the assignment is executed, which is
2790 probably not what you want. (If it IS what you want, put an & in front.)
2792 =item [gs]etsockopt() on closed fd
2794 (W) You tried to get or set a socket option on a closed socket.
2795 Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2796 See L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2798 =item \1 better written as $1
2800 (W) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables. The use
2801 of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
2802 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
2803 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better
2804 if there are more than 9 backreferences.
2806 =item '|' and 'E<lt>' may not both be specified on command line
2808 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2809 found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to redirect STDIN using
2810 'E<lt>'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
2812 =item '|' and 'E<gt>' may not both be specified on command line
2814 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line redirection, and
2815 thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and into a pipe to another
2816 command. You need to choose one or the other, though nothing's stopping you
2817 from piping into a program or Perl script which 'splits' output into two
2820 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
2827 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2829 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2830 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2832 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2834 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2842 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix
2843 of a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error
2844 may appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2845 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in F<README.os2>.
2847 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
2849 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
2850 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in F<README.os2>.
2852 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
2854 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
2855 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
2856 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
2857 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"