3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
23 below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %x
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
94 (S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
95 string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
96 the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
99 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
101 (S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
102 bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
103 (denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
104 like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
105 assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
106 clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
107 really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
109 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
111 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
112 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
113 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
114 the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
115 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
116 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
118 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
120 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
122 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
123 the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
124 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
125 might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
126 foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
127 that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
129 In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
130 to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
131 C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
132 by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
133 want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
134 unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
135 that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
136 off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
138 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
140 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
141 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
142 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
144 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
146 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
147 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
148 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
149 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
150 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
152 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
159 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
161 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
162 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
163 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
164 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
165 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
166 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
169 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
171 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
173 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
175 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
176 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
177 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
179 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
181 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
182 system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
183 take care of transforming data between external and internal
184 representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
185 point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
186 didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
187 result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
189 =item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
191 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
192 operator which expects either a number or a string matching
193 C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
194 Auto-decrement> for details.
196 =item assertion botched: %s
198 (X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
200 =item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
202 (X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
204 =item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
206 (F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
207 the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
209 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
211 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
212 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
213 know which context to supply to the right side.
215 =item <> at require-statement should be quotes
217 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
220 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
222 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
223 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
225 =item Attempt to bless into a freed package
227 (F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
228 the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
229 do, so it throws up in hands in despair.
231 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
233 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
234 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
235 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
241 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
243 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
244 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
247 bless $self, "$proto";
249 =item Attempt to clear deleted array
251 (S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
252 Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
253 can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
254 callback on the array.
256 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
258 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
259 which is not in its key set.
261 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
263 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
264 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
266 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
268 (S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
269 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
270 outside any of those arenas.
272 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
274 (S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
275 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
276 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
277 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
279 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
281 (S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
282 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
283 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
284 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
287 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
289 (S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
291 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
293 (S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
294 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
295 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
296 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
297 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
298 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
301 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
303 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
304 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
305 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
306 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
307 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
310 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
312 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
313 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
314 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
317 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
319 (W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
320 been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
321 scalar representing the last index of an array and later
322 assigning through that reference. For example
324 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
327 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
329 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
330 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
331 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
333 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
335 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
336 "locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
337 obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
338 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
340 =item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
342 (W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
343 example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
344 declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
346 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
348 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
349 the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
350 The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
351 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
353 =item av_reify called on tied array
355 (S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
356 confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
358 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
360 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
361 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
362 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
363 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
365 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
367 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
368 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
369 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
371 =item Bad filehandle: %s
373 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
374 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
375 open(), or did it in another package.
377 =item Bad free() ignored
379 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
380 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
381 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
383 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
384 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
385 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
389 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
391 =item Badly placed ()'s
393 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
394 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
397 =item Bad name after %s
399 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
400 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
409 $sym = "mypack::$var";
411 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
413 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
416 =item Bad realloc() ignored
418 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
419 had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
420 be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
422 =item Bad symbol for array
424 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
425 wasn't a symbol table entry.
427 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
429 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
430 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
432 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
434 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
435 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
437 =item Bad symbol for hash
439 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
440 wasn't a symbol table entry.
442 =item Bareword found in conditional
444 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
445 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
446 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
450 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
453 use constant TYPO => 1;
454 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
456 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
458 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
460 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
461 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
462 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
464 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
466 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
467 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
468 you need to predeclare a package?
470 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
472 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
473 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
476 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
478 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
479 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
480 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
481 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
482 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
484 =item \%d better written as $%d
486 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
487 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
488 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
489 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
490 there are more than 9 backreferences.
492 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
494 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
495 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
496 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
498 =item bind() on closed socket %s
500 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
501 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
503 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
505 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
506 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
508 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
510 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
512 =item Bizarre copy of %s
514 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
517 =item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
519 (P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
520 encountered an invalid data type.
522 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
524 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
525 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
526 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
528 =item Callback called exit
530 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
531 exited by calling exit.
533 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
535 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
536 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
537 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
538 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
539 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
540 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
541 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
542 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
544 =item Calling POSIX::%s() is deprecated
546 (D deprecated) You called a function whose use is deprecated. See
547 the function's name in L<POSIX> for details.
551 (F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
553 =item Cannot compress %f
555 (F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an
556 unsigned character, which makes no sense.
558 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
560 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
561 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
562 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
563 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
565 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
567 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
568 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
570 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
572 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
573 in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
574 The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
575 no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
577 =item Cannot copy to %s
579 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
580 be directly assigned to.
582 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
584 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
585 either with open() or binmode().
587 =item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
589 (F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to a character,
590 which makes no sense.
592 =item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
594 (F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
595 which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
597 =item Cannot set tied @DB::args
599 (F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
600 is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
602 =item Cannot tie unreifiable array
604 (P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
605 keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
606 do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
607 Perl code, but are only used internally.
609 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
611 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
612 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
613 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
615 =item Can't bless non-reference value
617 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
618 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
620 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
622 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
623 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
625 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
627 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
629 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
631 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
632 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
633 like this will reproduce the error:
636 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
637 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
639 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
641 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
642 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
643 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
644 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
646 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
648 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
649 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
650 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
651 Something like this will reproduce the error:
654 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
655 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
657 =item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
659 (P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
660 symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
662 =item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
664 (F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
665 not attached to the symbol table.
667 =item Can't chdir to %s
669 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
670 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
672 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
674 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
677 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
679 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
680 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
690 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
692 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
694 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
697 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
699 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
700 quotas or other plumbing problems.
702 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
704 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
705 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
707 =item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
709 (F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
710 C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
711 issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
712 error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
714 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
716 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
717 a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
719 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
721 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
724 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
726 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
727 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
728 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
730 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
732 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
733 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
734 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
736 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
738 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
739 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
741 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
743 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
744 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
747 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
749 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
750 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
751 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
752 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
754 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
756 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
757 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
758 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
759 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
760 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
761 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
766 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
767 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
768 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
770 =item Can't execute %s
772 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
773 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
775 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
777 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
778 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
780 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
782 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
783 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
784 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
785 for a complete list of available official properties.
787 =item Can't find label %s
789 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
790 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
792 =item Can't find %s on PATH
794 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
797 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
799 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
800 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
801 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
803 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
805 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
806 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
807 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
809 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
811 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
812 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
813 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
814 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
815 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
817 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
819 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
820 property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
821 letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
822 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
823 for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
824 mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by
825 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
830 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
833 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
835 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
838 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
840 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
841 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
842 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
843 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
844 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
845 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
846 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
847 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
848 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
849 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
850 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
851 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
852 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
853 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
854 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
856 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
858 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
859 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
861 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
863 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
864 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
866 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
868 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
869 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
871 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
873 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
874 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
875 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
876 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
878 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
880 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
883 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
885 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
886 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
887 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
889 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
891 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
892 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
893 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
894 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
896 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
898 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
899 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
900 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
901 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
902 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
903 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
905 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
907 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
908 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
911 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
913 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
914 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
915 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
916 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
917 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
918 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
921 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
923 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
924 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
926 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
928 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
929 This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
930 that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
931 to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
932 dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
933 that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
936 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
938 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
939 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
940 want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
943 =item Can't localize through a reference
945 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
946 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
947 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
948 that $ref will still be a reference.
950 =item Can't locate %s
952 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
953 Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
954 the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
955 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
956 extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
957 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
958 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
960 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
962 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
963 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
964 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
965 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
967 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
969 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
970 for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
971 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
973 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
975 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
976 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
977 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
979 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
982 (F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
983 could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
984 requires a package that has not been loaded.
986 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
988 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
989 doesn't seem to exist.
991 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
993 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
994 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
996 =item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
998 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1001 =item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1003 (S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
1004 that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1005 process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1006 the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1007 from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1008 functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1010 =item Can't modify %s in %s
1012 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1013 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
1015 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
1017 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1020 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
1022 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
1023 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1025 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
1027 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
1030 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1032 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1033 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1034 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1035 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1036 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1037 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1039 =item Can't open %s: %s
1041 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1042 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1043 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1044 this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1045 you named on the command line.
1047 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1048 your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
1050 =item Can't open a reference
1052 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1053 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1057 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1058 open is not supported.
1060 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1062 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1063 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1064 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1065 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1067 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1069 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1070 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1071 the command line for writing.
1073 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1075 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1076 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1077 command line for reading.
1079 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1081 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1082 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1083 the command line for writing.
1085 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1087 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1088 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1091 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
1093 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1095 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1096 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1097 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1099 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1101 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1102 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1103 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1104 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1107 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1109 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1110 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1111 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1112 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1113 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1114 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1116 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1118 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1119 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1120 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1122 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1124 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1125 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1127 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1129 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1130 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1132 =item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1134 (F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1135 all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1136 the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1137 supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1139 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1141 (F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1142 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1143 package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1145 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1147 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1148 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1151 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1153 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1154 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1156 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1158 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1159 subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1160 think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1161 write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1162 Perl that the call should be in list context.
1164 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1166 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1167 open already. Bizarre.
1169 =item Can't take log of %g
1171 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1172 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1173 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1176 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1178 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1179 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1180 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1182 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1184 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1185 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1186 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1188 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1190 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1191 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1192 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1193 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1195 =item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1197 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1198 other than "=" after the module name.
1200 =item Can't use a hash as a reference
1202 (F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1203 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1204 <= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1205 have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1207 =item Can't use an array as a reference
1209 (F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1210 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1211 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1212 was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1214 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1216 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1217 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1218 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1220 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1222 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1223 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1225 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1227 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1228 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1230 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1232 (F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1233 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1234 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1236 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1238 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1239 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1240 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1242 =item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1244 (F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1245 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1246 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1248 =item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1250 (F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1252 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1253 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1254 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1255 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1256 generates a fatal error.
1258 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1259 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1265 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1266 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1267 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1270 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1272 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1275 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1277 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1278 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1279 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1280 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1283 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1285 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1286 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1287 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1288 is inside a big-endian group.
1290 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1292 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1293 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1294 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1295 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1298 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1300 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1301 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1302 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1304 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1306 =item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1308 (F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1309 C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1310 L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1311 in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1312 for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1313 of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1314 symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
1316 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1318 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1319 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1320 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1322 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1324 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1325 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1326 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1327 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1328 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1331 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1333 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1334 references can be weakened.
1336 =item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1338 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1339 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1340 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1341 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1343 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1345 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1346 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1347 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1349 =item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
1351 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
1353 Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
1354 discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
1355 L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
1357 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1363 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1364 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1365 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1369 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1372 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1378 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1379 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1380 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1382 pack("c", $x & 255);
1384 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1387 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1389 (W unpack) You tried something like
1391 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1393 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1394 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1395 value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1397 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1399 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1405 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1406 expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1409 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1411 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1413 (W pack) You tried something like
1415 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1417 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1418 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1419 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1421 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1423 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1425 (W unpack) You tried something like
1427 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1429 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1430 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1431 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1433 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1435 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple spaces
1437 (F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1438 in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1439 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1440 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1441 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1443 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space
1445 (F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1446 character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1447 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1448 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1449 See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1451 =item \C is deprecated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1453 (D deprecated, regexp) The \C character class is deprecated, and will
1454 become a compile-time error in a future release of perl (tentatively
1455 v5.24). This construct allows you to match a single byte of what makes up
1456 a multi-byte single UTF8 character, and breaks encapsulation. It is
1457 currently also very buggy. If you really need to process the individual
1458 bytes, you probably want to convert your string to one where each
1459 underlying byte is stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1461 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1463 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1464 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1465 is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1466 for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1467 between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
1469 =item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1471 (F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1473 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1475 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1476 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1478 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1480 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1482 =item Closure prototype called
1484 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1485 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1486 This subroutine cannot be called.
1488 =item Code missing after '/'
1490 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1491 another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1493 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1495 (S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1498 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1499 to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1500 but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1501 it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1502 but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
1505 =item %s: Command not found
1507 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1508 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1509 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1513 =item Compilation failed in require
1515 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1516 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1517 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1519 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1521 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1522 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1523 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1524 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1525 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1526 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1527 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1528 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1529 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1531 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1533 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1534 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1535 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1537 =item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1539 (F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1540 (see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1541 L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1543 =item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1545 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1546 overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
1549 =item Constant is not %s reference
1551 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1552 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1553 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1554 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1555 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1557 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1559 (W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1560 been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1561 for commentary and workarounds.
1563 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1565 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1566 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1569 =item Constant(%s) unknown
1571 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1572 to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1573 character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1574 forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?.
1576 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1578 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1579 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1581 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1583 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1584 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
1585 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1586 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1588 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1589 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1591 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1593 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1595 =item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1597 (P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1598 one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1599 latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1601 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1603 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1604 expression compiler gave it.
1606 =item corrupted regexp program
1608 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1611 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1613 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1615 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1617 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1618 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1622 The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1623 share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1625 =item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1627 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1629 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1630 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1631 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1632 which case it indicates something else.
1634 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1635 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1637 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1638 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1640 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1641 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1642 of the C<....> part.
1644 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1647 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1649 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1650 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1652 =item delete argument is index/value array slice, use array slice
1654 (F) You used index/value array slice syntax (C<%array[...]>) as
1655 the argument to C<delete>. You probably meant C<@array[...]> with
1656 an @ symbol instead.
1658 =item delete argument is key/value hash slice, use hash slice
1660 (F) You used key/value hash slice syntax (C<%hash{...}>) as the argument to
1661 C<delete>. You probably meant C<@hash{...}> with an @ symbol instead.
1663 =item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1665 (F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
1671 or a hash or array slice, such as:
1673 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1674 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
1676 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1678 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1679 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1680 that triggers this error.
1682 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1684 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1685 has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1686 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1687 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1688 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1689 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1690 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1692 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1696 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1698 Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
1699 lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1701 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1703 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1705 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1706 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1707 than to create a dangling reference.
1709 =item Did not produce a valid header
1713 =item %s did not return a true value
1715 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1716 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1717 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1718 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1720 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1722 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1725 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1727 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1728 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1731 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1733 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1734 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1739 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1740 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
1742 =item Document contains no data
1746 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1748 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1749 define a C<$VERSION>.
1751 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1753 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1754 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1756 =item Don't know how to get file name
1758 (P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
1759 somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
1761 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
1763 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1765 =item do_study: out of memory
1767 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1769 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1771 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1772 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1773 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1774 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1775 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1776 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1777 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1778 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1780 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1782 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1783 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1785 =item dump is not supported
1787 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1789 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1791 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1794 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1796 (W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
1797 type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1799 =item each on reference is experimental
1801 (S experimental::autoderef) C<each> with a scalar argument is experimental
1802 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
1803 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
1805 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
1807 =item elseif should be elsif
1809 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
1810 it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1811 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1812 unlikely to be what you want.
1814 =item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1816 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1817 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1818 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1820 =item entering effective %s failed
1822 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1823 effective uids or gids failed.
1825 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1827 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1828 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1829 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1831 =item Error converting file specification %s
1833 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1834 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1835 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1836 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1837 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1839 =item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1841 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1842 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1843 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1845 =item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
1847 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1848 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1849 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1850 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1851 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1852 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1853 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1855 =item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
1857 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1858 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1859 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1861 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
1862 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1864 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1865 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1867 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1870 =item Excessively long <> operator
1872 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1873 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1874 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1875 variable and glob that.
1877 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1879 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
1880 OS. See L<perlport>.
1882 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1884 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1886 =item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
1888 (F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
1889 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
1895 =item exists argument is not a subroutine name
1897 (F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
1898 and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
1900 =item Exiting eval via %s
1902 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1903 goto, or a loop control statement.
1905 =item Exiting format via %s
1907 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1908 goto, or a loop control statement.
1910 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1912 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1913 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1914 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1916 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1918 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1919 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1921 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1923 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1924 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1926 =item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1928 (F) You wrote something like
1932 to denote a capturing group of the form
1933 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
1934 but omitted the C<")">.
1936 =item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1938 (F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
1939 only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
1940 C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
1941 containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
1942 This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
1943 interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
1944 have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
1945 L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
1947 =item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
1949 (F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
1951 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
1952 use feature "signatures";
1953 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
1955 =item Experimental "%s" subs not enabled
1957 (F) To use lexical subs, you must first enable them:
1959 no warnings 'experimental::lexical_subs';
1960 use feature 'lexical_subs';
1963 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1965 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1966 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1967 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1968 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1970 =item %s: Expression syntax
1972 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1973 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1975 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1977 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1978 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1979 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1981 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1983 (W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1984 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1985 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
1986 construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
1987 the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
1988 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1990 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
1992 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1993 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1994 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1995 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1997 =item fcntl is not implemented
1999 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2000 PDP-11 or something?
2002 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2004 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2007 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2009 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
2010 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2011 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
2012 C<u63> as the format.
2014 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
2016 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2017 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2018 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2019 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2021 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
2023 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2024 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
2025 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2026 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2027 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2028 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
2030 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2032 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2033 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
2036 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2038 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2039 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
2041 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2043 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
2044 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2045 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2048 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2050 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
2051 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
2052 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2055 =item Format not terminated
2057 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2058 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2060 =item Format %s redefined
2062 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
2065 no warnings 'redefine';
2066 eval "format NAME =...";
2069 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2079 (or something like that).
2081 =item %s found where operator expected
2083 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2084 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
2085 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2086 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
2088 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2090 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2092 =item gethostent not implemented
2094 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2095 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2098 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
2100 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2101 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2103 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2105 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2106 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2108 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2110 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2111 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2112 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2114 =item given is experimental
2116 (S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2117 is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2118 in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2119 L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
2121 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2124 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
2125 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
2126 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2127 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
2129 =item glob failed (%s)
2131 (S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
2132 for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2133 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
2134 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
2135 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2136 is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2137 in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2138 if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2139 all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
2140 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
2141 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
2143 =item Glob not terminated
2145 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2146 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2147 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2148 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2150 =item gmtime(%f) failed
2152 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2153 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2155 =item gmtime(%f) too large
2157 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
2158 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
2159 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2160 not-a-number value).
2162 =item gmtime(%f) too small
2164 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
2165 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
2167 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2169 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2170 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2172 =item goto must have label
2174 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2175 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2177 =item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2179 (F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2180 the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2181 has since been undefined.
2183 =item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
2184 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2186 (F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2187 they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2188 this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2190 =item ()-group starts with a count
2192 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2193 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2195 =item %s had compilation errors.
2197 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2199 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2201 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2202 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2203 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2205 =item %s has too many errors
2207 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2208 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2210 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2212 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
2213 than the floating point supports.
2215 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2217 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
2218 than the floating point supports.
2220 =item Hexadecimal float: internal error
2222 (F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2224 =item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2226 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2227 the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2228 the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2230 =item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2232 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2233 digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2234 long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2235 (needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2237 =item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2239 (F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
2240 the internals of the long double format are unknown;
2241 therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2243 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2245 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2246 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2247 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2249 =item Identifier too long
2251 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2252 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2253 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2254 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2256 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2257 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2259 (W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
2260 zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
2261 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
2262 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2264 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2266 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2268 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2270 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2271 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2274 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2276 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2277 declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2278 indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2279 or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
2281 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2283 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2284 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2285 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2286 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2287 to your Perl administrator.
2289 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2291 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2292 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2293 Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2294 that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2295 instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2297 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2299 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2300 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2302 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2304 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2306 =item Illegal division by zero
2308 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2309 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2312 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2314 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2315 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2316 number stopped before the illegal character.
2318 =item Illegal modulus zero
2320 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2321 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2323 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2325 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2326 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2328 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2330 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2332 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2334 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2335 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2337 =item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2339 (F) You wrote something like
2343 The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2344 capturing group. See
2345 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2347 =item Illegal suidscript
2349 (F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2351 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2353 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2354 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2356 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2358 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2359 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2360 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2362 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2364 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2365 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2366 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2369 =item (in cleanup) %s
2371 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2372 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2373 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2374 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2375 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2377 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2378 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2380 =item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2383 (F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
2384 expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2385 too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2386 enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2388 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2391 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2392 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2393 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2395 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2397 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2398 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2399 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2401 =item Infinite recursion in regex
2403 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2404 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2405 either consume text or fail.
2407 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2409 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2410 initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2411 C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2412 context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2413 supported in a future perl release.
2415 =item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2417 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2418 (indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2419 it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2420 is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2421 returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2422 a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2423 expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2424 returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2426 =item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2428 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2429 (indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2430 better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2431 is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2432 it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2433 provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2434 if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2435 it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2437 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2439 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2440 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2441 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2442 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2443 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2444 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2445 L<perlsec> for more information.
2447 =item Insecure directory in %s
2449 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2450 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2451 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2454 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2456 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2457 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2458 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2459 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2460 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2462 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2464 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2465 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2466 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2467 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2469 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2471 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2472 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2473 integers for your architecture.
2475 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2477 (S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2478 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2479 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2480 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2481 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2482 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2483 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2484 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2487 =item Integer overflow in srand
2489 (S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2490 in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2491 replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2492 architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2493 you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2494 return the same sequence of random numbers.
2496 =item Integer overflow in version
2498 =item Integer overflow in version %d
2500 (W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2501 the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2502 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
2503 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2504 to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
2506 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2508 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2509 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2512 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2514 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2515 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2516 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2517 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2518 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2519 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2521 =item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2523 (S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2524 formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2525 C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2526 by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2527 message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2530 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2532 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2533 S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2536 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2538 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2539 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2540 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2541 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2543 =item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2544 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2546 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2547 expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2548 intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2551 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2553 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2554 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2556 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2558 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2559 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2561 =item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
2564 (F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
2565 the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
2566 the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2568 =item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
2570 (W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
2571 arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
2572 formerly ignored by system calls.
2574 =item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
2576 (F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
2577 indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2579 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2581 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2582 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2584 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
2585 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2587 (W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2588 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2589 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2590 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
2591 instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
2592 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2593 escape was discovered.
2595 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2597 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
2598 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2600 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2601 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
2602 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2604 =item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2606 (F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2607 cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2608 arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2609 B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2611 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2613 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2614 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2615 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2616 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2618 =item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
2620 (W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
2621 not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
2624 =item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2626 (S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
2627 with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
2628 See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
2630 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2632 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2633 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2634 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2635 up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2636 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2638 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2640 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2641 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2643 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2645 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2646 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2647 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2650 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2652 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2653 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2654 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2655 list was terminated too soon.
2657 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2659 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2660 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2661 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2662 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2663 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2664 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2666 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2668 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2669 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2671 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2674 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2676 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2677 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2678 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2679 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2680 must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2681 optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2682 trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2683 after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2684 text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2685 for more details on allowed version formats.
2687 =item Invalid version object
2689 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2690 Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2691 an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
2693 =item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
2694 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2696 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in
2697 this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
2698 indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
2699 and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
2701 =item ioctl is not implemented
2703 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2704 strange for a machine that supports C.
2706 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2708 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2709 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
2711 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2713 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2714 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
2717 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2719 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2720 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2722 =item $* is no longer supported
2724 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2725 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. In
2726 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2727 matching within a string.
2729 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2730 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2731 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2732 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2734 =item $# is no longer supported
2736 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2737 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. You
2738 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
2740 =item '%s' is not a code reference
2742 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2743 overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2744 an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
2746 =item '%s' is not an overloadable type
2748 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2751 =item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
2753 (S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
2754 that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
2755 given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
2756 make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
2757 it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
2758 should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
2759 line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
2761 =item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
2763 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2765 =item keys on reference is experimental
2767 (S experimental::autoderef) C<keys> with a scalar argument is experimental
2768 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
2769 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
2771 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
2773 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2775 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2776 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2779 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2781 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2782 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2785 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2787 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2788 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2791 =item leaving effective %s failed
2793 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2794 effective uids or gids failed.
2796 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2798 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2799 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2800 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2802 =item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
2804 (W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2805 probably wanted a count of the items.
2807 Array size can be obtained by doing:
2811 The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2815 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2817 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2818 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2819 couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2820 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
2821 it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
2823 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2825 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2828 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2830 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2831 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2834 =item List form of piped open not implemented
2836 (F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
2837 form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
2838 Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
2840 =item localtime(%f) failed
2842 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2843 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2845 =item localtime(%f) too large
2847 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
2848 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2849 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2850 not-a-number value).
2852 =item localtime(%f) too small
2854 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
2855 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2858 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2860 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2861 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2863 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2865 (W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
2866 is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
2867 accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
2868 warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
2869 when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
2870 insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2872 =item lstat() on filehandle%s
2874 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2875 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2876 instead on the filehandle.)
2878 =item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
2880 (W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
2881 attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
2882 does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
2883 want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
2884 details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
2885 if you really know what you are doing.
2887 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2889 (W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
2890 subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
2891 not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
2892 add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
2893 foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
2895 See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
2897 =item Magical list constants are not supported
2899 (F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
2900 to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
2901 something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
2903 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2905 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2906 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2908 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2910 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2911 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2913 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2915 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2922 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2923 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2924 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2925 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2927 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2929 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2930 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2931 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2932 when the function is called.
2933 Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
2934 but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
2935 so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2937 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2939 (S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2940 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2942 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2943 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2944 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2946 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2947 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2948 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2951 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2953 =item Malformed UTF-8 character immediately after '%s'
2955 (F) You said C<use utf8>, but the program file doesn't comply with UTF-8
2956 encoding rules. The message prints out the properly encoded characters
2957 just before the first bad one. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a
2958 warning is generated that gives more details about the type of
2961 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
2963 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2965 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2967 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2968 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2970 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2972 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2973 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2975 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2977 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2978 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2980 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2982 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2983 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2985 =item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
2987 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
2988 $b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
2989 Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
2990 caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
2991 as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
2992 optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
2994 =item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
2997 (S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
2998 Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
2999 in an unsigned integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
3000 other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3001 containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3002 the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3003 C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3004 so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3005 in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3006 unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3007 given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3008 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3010 This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3011 immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3012 not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3013 the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3014 Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3015 every code point except these 22.)
3017 Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3018 should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3019 that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3020 category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3023 See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3025 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3028 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
3029 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
3030 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3033 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
3035 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
3036 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3037 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3038 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
3039 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
3041 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3043 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3044 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3047 =item '%' may not be used in pack
3049 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
3050 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3051 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3053 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3055 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3056 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3058 =item Method %s not permitted
3062 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3064 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3065 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3066 ended earlier on the current line.
3068 =item Misplaced _ in number
3070 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3071 separate two digits.
3073 =item Missing argument in %s
3075 (W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3076 arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3078 Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3079 arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3080 other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3081 functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
3083 =item Missing argument to -%c
3085 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3086 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3088 =item Missing braces on \N{}
3090 =item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3092 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
3093 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3094 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3095 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3098 =item Missing braces on \o{}
3100 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3102 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3104 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3105 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3107 =item Missing command in piped open
3109 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3110 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3113 =item Missing control char name in \c
3115 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3118 =item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3120 (W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
3122 =item Missing name in "%s sub"
3124 (F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
3125 they have a name with which they can be found.
3127 =item Missing $ on loop variable
3129 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3130 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3131 can vary from one line to the next.
3133 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
3135 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3136 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
3138 =item Missing or undefined argument to require
3140 (F) You tried to call require with no argument or with an undefined
3141 value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
3142 file-specification as an argument. See L<perlfunc/require>.
3144 =item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3146 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3148 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
3150 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3152 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3153 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
3154 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
3155 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3156 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3158 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3159 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3160 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3162 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3163 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3164 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3165 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
3166 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3167 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3169 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3170 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3171 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3172 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
3174 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
3176 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3177 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3180 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3182 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3183 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
3184 the previous line just because you saw this message.
3186 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3188 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
3189 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
3190 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3192 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3195 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3197 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3198 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3201 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3202 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3205 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
3207 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3208 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3211 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
3213 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3214 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
3216 =item Module name must be constant
3218 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3220 =item Module name required with -%c option
3222 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3223 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3224 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
3226 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
3228 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
3229 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3230 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3231 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3233 =item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3235 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3236 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3237 could not be made read-only.
3239 =item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3241 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3242 but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3244 =item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3246 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3247 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3248 buffer could not be made mutable.
3250 =item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3252 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
3253 L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3254 mutable before freeing the ops.
3256 =item msg%s not implemented
3258 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3260 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3262 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3263 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
3265 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
3267 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3268 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3269 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3271 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
3273 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3276 =item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3278 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3279 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3280 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3281 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3282 name, or rename the lexical variable.
3284 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
3286 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3287 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3288 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
3290 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3292 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3293 names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3294 just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
3295 declaration is also provided for this purpose.
3297 NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3298 only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3299 warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3300 %c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
3301 format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3302 but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3303 Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3304 identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
3306 =item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3308 (F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3309 exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3310 constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3312 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3313 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3314 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3316 The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
3317 need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3318 two separate things, you need to separate them:
3320 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3321 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3322 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3323 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3325 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
3327 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3328 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3330 =item Negative length
3332 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3333 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
3335 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3337 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3338 greater than or equal to zero.
3340 =item Negative repeat count does nothing
3342 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
3343 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3344 times, which doesn't make sense.
3346 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3348 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3349 So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3350 whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3352 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
3353 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
3355 =item %s never introduced
3357 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3358 scope before it could possibly have been used.
3360 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3362 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3363 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3366 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
3367 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3369 (F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
3370 bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
3371 class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
3372 probably not what you want.
3374 =item \N{} in inverted character class or as a range end-point is restricted to one character in regex; marked
3375 by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3377 (F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
3378 multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
3379 supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
3380 whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>),
3381 or the escape is the beginning or final end point of a range. The
3382 mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
3383 is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
3384 forbid it. Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
3385 C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
3387 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
3389 What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
3390 of code points, so this is made an error.
3392 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by
3393 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3395 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
3396 sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
3397 bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
3398 backslash in double-quotish:
3400 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
3401 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
3404 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
3406 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
3409 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
3413 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
3415 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and
3416 it doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
3418 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
3419 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
3421 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
3424 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
3426 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3427 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3428 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3429 securable. See L<perlsec>.
3431 =item NO-BREAK SPACE in a charnames alias definition is deprecated
3433 (D deprecated) You defined a character name which contained a no-break
3434 space character. Change it to a regular space. Usually these names are
3435 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
3436 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
3437 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3439 =item No code specified for -%c
3441 (F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3442 you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3443 argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3449 =item No comma allowed after %s
3451 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3452 not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
3453 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3455 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3456 a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3457 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3458 system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3459 use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3460 please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3461 explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3462 it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3463 still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3464 the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3465 constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
3467 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
3469 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3470 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3471 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
3473 =item No DB::DB routine defined
3475 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3476 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3477 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3480 =item No dbm on this machine
3482 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
3483 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
3485 =item No DB::sub routine defined
3487 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3488 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3489 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3490 of each ordinary subroutine call.
3492 =item No directory specified for -I
3494 (F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3495 I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3497 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
3499 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3500 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3501 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
3503 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3505 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
3506 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3508 =item No input file after < on command line
3510 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3511 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3512 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
3514 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3516 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3517 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3518 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3519 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3521 =item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3523 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
3524 a hex one was expected, like
3529 =item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3531 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
3532 an octal one was expected, like
3536 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3538 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3539 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3542 =item "no" not allowed in expression
3544 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3545 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3547 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3549 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3550 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3551 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
3553 =item No output file after > on command line
3555 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3556 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3557 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
3559 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
3561 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3562 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3563 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
3565 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3567 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3568 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3569 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
3571 =item No Perl script found in input
3573 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3574 with #! and containing the word "perl".
3576 =item No setregid available
3578 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3581 =item No setreuid available
3583 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3586 =item No such class %s
3588 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3589 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
3591 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3593 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3594 variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3595 The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3598 =item No such hook: %s
3600 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3601 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3603 =item No such pipe open
3605 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
3606 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3607 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
3609 =item No such signal: SIG%s
3611 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3612 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3613 names on your system.
3615 =item Not a CODE reference
3617 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3618 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3619 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3622 =item Not a GLOB reference
3624 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3625 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3626 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3627 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3629 =item Not a HASH reference
3631 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3632 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3633 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3635 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3637 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3638 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3639 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3641 =item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3643 (F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3644 another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3645 or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3647 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3649 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3650 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3651 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3653 =item Not a subroutine reference
3655 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3656 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3657 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3660 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3662 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3663 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3665 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3667 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3669 =item Not enough format arguments
3671 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3672 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3676 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3677 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3680 =item (?[...]) not valid in locale in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3682 (F) C<(?[...])> cannot be used within the scope of a C<S<use locale>> or with
3683 an C</l> regular expression modifier, as that would require deferring
3684 to run-time the calculation of what it should evaluate to, and it is
3685 regex compile-time only.
3687 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3689 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3690 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3691 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3692 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3693 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3695 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3697 (S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3700 =item Null picture in formline
3702 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3703 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3704 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3708 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3710 =item NULL regexp argument
3712 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3714 =item NULL regexp parameter
3716 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3718 =item Number too long
3720 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3721 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3722 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3723 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3726 =item Number with no digits
3728 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
3729 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
3732 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3734 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3735 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3736 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3738 =item Odd name/value argument for subroutine
3740 (F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
3741 received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
3742 the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
3743 The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault. Inconveniently,
3744 this error will be reported at the location of the subroutine, not that
3747 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3749 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3750 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3752 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3754 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3755 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3757 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3759 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3760 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3762 =item Offset outside string
3764 (F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3765 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3766 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3767 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3768 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3769 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3772 =item %s() on unopened %s
3774 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3775 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3776 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3778 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3780 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3781 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3785 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3789 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3791 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3793 (D io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3794 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3795 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3798 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3800 (D io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3801 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3802 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3805 =item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3808 (F) You wrote something like
3810 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
3812 There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
3815 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3817 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3818 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3819 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3820 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3822 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
3824 (S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode semantics
3825 on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
3826 defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
3828 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3829 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3831 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3832 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
3834 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
3836 (S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3837 semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
3838 of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
3839 semantics are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
3840 they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
3841 surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
3843 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3844 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3846 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3847 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
3849 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3851 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3852 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3853 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3854 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3857 =item Optional parameter lacks default expression
3859 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
3860 named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
3861 parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
3862 have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
3864 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3866 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3867 in the current lexical scope.
3869 =item Out of memory!
3871 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3872 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3873 no option but to exit immediately.
3875 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3876 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3877 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3878 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3879 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3881 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3883 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3884 the largest possible memory allocation.
3886 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3888 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3889 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3890 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3891 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3893 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3895 (X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3896 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3899 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3900 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3901 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3902 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3903 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3904 where the failed request happened.
3906 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3908 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3909 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3910 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3912 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3914 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3915 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3918 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3920 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3921 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3923 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3925 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3926 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3928 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3930 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3931 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3932 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3934 =item overload arg '%s' is invalid
3936 (W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
3937 recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
3939 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3941 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3942 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3945 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3947 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3948 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3950 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3952 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3953 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3954 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3955 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3957 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3959 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3960 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3964 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3965 page. See L<perlform>.
3969 (P) An internal error.
3971 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3973 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3974 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3975 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3976 enter this branch on this platform.
3978 =item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
3980 (P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
3981 was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
3982 able to initialize properly.
3984 =item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
3986 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3988 =item panic: ck_split, type=%u
3990 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3992 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
3994 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3995 there are in the savestack.
3997 =item panic: del_backref
3999 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4004 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
4005 it wasn't an eval context.
4007 =item panic: do_subst
4009 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4012 =item panic: do_trans_%s
4014 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
4017 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4019 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
4022 =item panic: frexp: %f
4024 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4026 =item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
4028 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4029 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4031 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4033 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
4034 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4035 Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4036 the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
4038 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
4040 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4042 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
4044 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4046 =item panic: kid popen errno read
4048 (F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
4050 =item panic: last, type=%u
4052 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4053 it wasn't a block context.
4055 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4057 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4060 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
4062 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4063 invalid enum on the top of it.
4065 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4067 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4068 references to an object.
4070 =item panic: malloc, %s
4072 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4074 =item panic: memory wrap
4076 (P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4079 =item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
4081 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4082 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4084 =item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
4086 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4087 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4089 =item panic: pad_free po
4091 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4093 =item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
4095 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4096 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4098 =item panic: pad_sv po
4100 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4102 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
4104 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4105 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4107 =item panic: pad_swipe po
4109 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4111 =item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
4113 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4115 =item panic: pp_match%s
4117 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4120 =item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
4122 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
4124 =item panic: realloc, %s
4126 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4128 =item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4130 (P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4131 reference count other than 1.
4133 =item panic: restartop in %s
4135 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4136 didn't supply the destination.
4138 =item panic: return, type=%u
4140 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4141 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4143 =item panic: scan_num, %s
4145 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4147 =item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
4149 (P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
4150 blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4151 seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4153 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4155 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4156 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4157 is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4159 =item panic: sv_chop %s
4161 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4162 scalar's string buffer.
4164 =item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
4166 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4169 =item panic: top_env
4171 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
4173 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4175 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4176 permitted at run time.
4178 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4180 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
4181 to even) byte length.
4183 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4185 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4186 to even) byte length.
4188 =item panic: yylex, %s
4190 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4192 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4194 (W parenthesis) You said something like
4200 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4202 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4204 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4206 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4209 =item Passing malformed UTF-8 to "%s" is deprecated
4211 (D deprecated, utf8) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl
4212 core or in XS code. Such code was trying to find out if a character,
4213 allegedly stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such
4214 as being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded in
4215 legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used by
4216 knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked against
4217 was. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a further message is raised,
4218 giving details of the malformation.
4220 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
4222 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
4223 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4224 the nesting limit is exceeded.
4226 =item C<-p> destination: %s
4228 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4229 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4230 redirected it with select().)
4232 =item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
4233 utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4235 (S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4236 and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4237 folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
4238 Please report this as a bug using the L<perlbug> utility.
4240 =item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4242 (S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4243 experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4244 simply disable this warning:
4246 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4248 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
4250 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4251 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4252 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4253 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4255 =item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4257 (F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4258 Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4259 of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4260 interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4261 decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4262 is equivalent to v5.100.
4264 =item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
4266 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4267 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4268 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4270 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4272 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
4273 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
4275 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4277 (X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
4279 =item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4281 (F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4282 on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4283 Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4284 wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4286 =item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4288 (S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
4289 contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4290 hash seed you think you are.
4292 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4294 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4296 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4297 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4300 are supported and installed on your system.
4301 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4303 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4304 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
4305 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4306 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4307 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4308 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4309 Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4310 fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4311 time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
4312 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
4314 =item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4316 (S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
4317 but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
4320 Numeric | String | Result
4321 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4322 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4323 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
4324 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4327 Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
4328 case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
4330 =item pid %x not a child
4332 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4333 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4334 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
4336 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
4338 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4340 =item pop on reference is experimental
4342 (S experimental::autoderef) C<pop> with a scalar argument is experimental
4343 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
4344 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
4346 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
4348 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<< <-- HERE in m/%s/ >>
4350 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
4351 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4352 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4353 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4354 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4356 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4358 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4359 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4361 =item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by
4362 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4364 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
4365 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
4366 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
4367 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
4368 will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
4369 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4371 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4372 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4374 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4375 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4376 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4377 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
4378 and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4379 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4381 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4382 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4384 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4385 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4386 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4387 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
4388 and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4389 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4391 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
4393 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
4394 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
4395 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
4396 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
4398 You probably wrote something like this:
4405 when you should have written this:
4412 If you really want comments, build your list the
4413 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
4417 'b', # another comment
4420 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
4422 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
4423 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
4424 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
4427 You probably wrote something like this:
4431 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
4432 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
4436 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
4438 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
4439 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
4440 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
4441 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
4443 =item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
4445 (W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
4446 flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
4449 sub { return $a or $b; }
4453 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
4455 Which is effectively just:
4459 Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
4461 Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
4465 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
4467 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
4468 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
4470 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
4472 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
4473 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
4474 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
4475 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
4477 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
4479 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
4480 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
4481 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
4482 followed by the word 'bar'.
4484 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
4485 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
4487 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
4488 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
4489 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
4491 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
4493 (W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
4494 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
4495 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
4496 to the array you apparently lost track of.
4498 =item Postfix dereference is experimental
4500 (S experimental::postderef) This warning is emitted if you use
4501 the experimental postfix dereference syntax. Simply suppress the
4502 warning if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing
4503 so you are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which
4504 may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
4506 no warnings "experimental::postderef";
4507 use feature "postderef", "postderef_qq";
4513 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
4515 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
4519 is now misinterpreted as
4523 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
4524 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
4525 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
4528 =item Premature end of script headers
4532 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
4534 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4535 before now. Check your control flow.
4537 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
4539 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
4540 before now. Check your control flow.
4542 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
4544 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
4545 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
4546 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
4547 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
4550 =item Property '%s' is unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4552 (F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
4553 known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
4554 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
4555 for a complete list of available official
4556 properties. If it is a L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
4557 it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
4560 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
4562 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
4563 useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
4565 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4567 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
4568 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4570 =item Prototype not terminated
4572 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
4575 =item Prototype '%s' overridden by attribute 'prototype(%s)' in %s
4577 (W prototype) A prototype was declared in both the parentheses after
4578 the sub name and via the prototype attribute. The prototype in
4579 parentheses is useless, since it will be replaced by the prototype
4580 from the attribute before it's ever used.
4582 =item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
4584 (W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
4585 match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
4586 use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
4587 class, which should know about the locale's rules.
4588 (See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
4590 Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
4591 Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
4594 Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
4595 locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
4596 CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
4597 "MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
4598 meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
4599 should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
4600 positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
4601 incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
4602 is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
4603 case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
4604 change when upper cased.
4606 =item push on reference is experimental
4608 (S experimental::autoderef) C<push> with a scalar argument is experimental
4609 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
4610 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
4612 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
4614 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by S<< <-- HERE in m/%s/ >>
4616 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
4617 you meant it literally. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
4618 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4620 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4623 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
4624 the {min,max} construct. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
4625 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4627 =item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex
4629 =item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex; marked by
4630 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4632 (W regexp) Minima should be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
4633 want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}.
4635 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression in regex; marked by <--
4638 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
4639 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
4640 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
4641 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
4642 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
4644 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4647 =item Range iterator outside integer range
4649 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
4650 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
4651 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
4652 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
4654 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4656 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
4657 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4659 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
4661 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
4662 before now. Check your control flow.
4664 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
4666 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4668 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
4670 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4672 =item Reallocation too large: %x
4674 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
4676 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
4678 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
4681 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
4683 (S debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
4684 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
4685 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
4687 =item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
4689 (P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
4690 a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
4691 $fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
4692 loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
4694 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
4696 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
4697 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
4698 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
4700 =item Redundant argument in %s
4702 (W redundant) You called a function with more arguments than other
4703 arguments you supplied indicated would be needed. Currently only
4704 emitted when a printf-type format required fewer arguments than were
4705 supplied, but might be used in the future for e.g. L<perlfunc/pack>.
4707 =item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
4709 =item refcnt: fd %d%s
4711 =item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
4713 (P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
4714 you see this message, something is very wrong.
4716 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
4718 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
4719 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
4720 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
4721 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
4723 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
4724 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
4725 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
4726 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
4728 =item Reference is already weak
4730 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
4731 Doing so has no effect.
4733 =item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4735 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
4736 to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
4737 (normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4738 backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
4740 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4743 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
4744 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
4745 you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4746 expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
4748 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4751 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4754 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
4755 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
4756 such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
4757 spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
4759 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4762 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by
4763 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4765 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4766 are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4767 expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
4769 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4772 =item regexp memory corruption
4774 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4775 expression compiler gave it.
4777 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4779 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may appear a maximum of twice in regex; marked
4780 by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4782 (F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
4783 of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
4785 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <--
4788 (F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
4789 another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
4790 expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4791 the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4793 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4795 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear twice in regex; marked by <--
4798 (F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
4799 of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
4801 =item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4803 =item Regexp modifiers "%c" and "%c" are mutually exclusive in regex;
4804 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4806 (F) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
4807 mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4808 supposed to be there.
4810 =item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
4812 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4815 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @#)
4817 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
4818 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
4819 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
4821 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
4823 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
4824 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
4827 =item '%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'
4829 (W misc, regexp) You wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179> in a
4830 double-quotish string. All but the last digit is treated as a single
4831 character, specified in octal. The last digit is the next character in
4832 the string. To tell Perl that this is indeed what you want, you can use
4833 the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use exactly three digits to specify the octal