3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %x
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous overloaded argument to %s resolved as %s
81 (W ambiguous) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> on an object that had
82 overloading of C<%{}> or C<@{}> or both. In such a case, the object is
83 dereferenced according to its overloading, not its underlying reference type.
84 The warning is issued when C<%{}> overloading exists on a blessed arrayref,
85 when C<@{}> overloading exists on a blessed hashref, or when both overloadings
86 are defined (in which case C<%{}> is used). You can force the interpretation
87 of the object by explicitly dereferencing it as an array or hash instead of
88 passing the object itself to C<keys>, C<values> or C<each>.
90 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
92 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
93 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
94 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
95 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
97 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
99 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
100 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
101 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
103 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
105 (W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
106 bitwise and, and multpication), and you said something like C<*foo *
107 foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We assumed you
108 meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more clear -- in
109 the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you really meant
110 to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
112 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
114 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
115 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
116 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
117 the varable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
118 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
119 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
121 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s%s} resolved to %c%s%s
123 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}>, which might be
124 looking for element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case
125 please write C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous
126 arrayref to the function named foo, then do a scalar deref on the
127 value it returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
129 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
131 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
132 string C<"-foo"> (outside of C<use strict 'subs'>), or a call to the
133 function C<foo>, negated. If you meant the string, just write
134 C<"-foo">, and please use strict. If you meant the function call,
137 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
139 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
140 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
141 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
143 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
145 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
146 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
147 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
148 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
149 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
151 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
158 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
160 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
161 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
162 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
163 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
164 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
165 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
168 =item Args must match #! line
170 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
171 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
172 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
173 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
175 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
177 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
179 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
181 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
182 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
188 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
190 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
196 or a hash or array slice, such as:
198 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
199 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
201 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
203 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
204 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
207 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
209 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
210 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
211 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
213 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
215 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
216 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
217 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
218 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
219 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
220 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
222 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
224 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
225 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
227 =item assertion botched: %s
229 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
231 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
233 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
235 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
237 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
238 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
239 know which context to supply to the right side.
241 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
243 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
244 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
245 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
246 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
247 thread. See L<threads>.
249 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
251 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
252 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
254 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
256 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
257 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
258 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
264 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
266 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
267 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
270 bless $self, "$proto";
272 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
274 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
275 which is not in its key set.
277 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
279 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
280 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
282 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
284 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
285 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
286 outside any of those arenas.
288 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
290 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
291 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
292 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
293 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
295 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
297 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
298 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
299 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
300 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
303 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
305 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
307 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
309 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
310 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
311 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
312 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
313 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
314 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
317 =item Attempt to join self
319 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
320 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
321 to move the join() to some other thread.
323 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
325 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
326 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
327 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
328 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
329 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
332 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
334 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
335 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
336 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
339 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
341 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
342 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
343 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
345 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
348 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
350 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
351 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
352 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
354 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
356 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "locked"
357 attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
358 effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in the next major
361 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
363 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "unique"
364 attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
365 had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in the next major
368 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
370 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
371 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
372 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
373 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
375 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
377 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
378 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
379 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
381 =item Bad filehandle: %s
383 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
384 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
385 open(), or did it in another package.
387 =item Bad free() ignored
389 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
390 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
391 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
393 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
394 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
395 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
399 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
401 =item Badly placed ()'s
403 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
404 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
407 =item Bad name after %s::
409 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
410 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
419 $sym = "mypack::$var";
421 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
423 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
426 =item Bad realloc() ignored
428 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
429 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
430 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
432 =item Bad symbol for array
434 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
435 wasn't a symbol table entry.
437 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
439 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
440 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
443 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
445 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
446 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
448 =item Bad symbol for hash
450 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
451 wasn't a symbol table entry.
453 =item Bareword found in conditional
455 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
456 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
457 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
461 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
464 use constant TYPO => 1;
465 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
467 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
469 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
471 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
472 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
473 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
475 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
477 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
478 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
479 you need to predeclare a package?
481 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
483 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
484 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
487 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
489 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
490 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
491 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
492 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
493 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
495 =item \1 better written as $1
497 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
498 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
499 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
500 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
501 there are more than 9 backreferences.
503 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
505 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
506 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
507 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
509 =item bind() on closed socket %s
511 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
512 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
514 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
516 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
517 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
519 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
521 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
523 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
525 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
528 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
530 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
531 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
532 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
534 =item Callback called exit
536 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
537 exited by calling exit.
539 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
541 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
542 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
543 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
544 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
545 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
546 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
547 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
548 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
550 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
552 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
553 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
554 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
555 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
557 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
559 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
560 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
562 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
564 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
565 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
566 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
567 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
569 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
571 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
572 be directly assigned not.
574 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
576 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
577 either with open() or binmode().
579 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
581 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
582 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
583 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
585 =item Can't bless non-reference value
587 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
588 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
590 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
592 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
593 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
595 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
597 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
599 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
601 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
602 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
603 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
605 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
607 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
608 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
609 like this will reproduce the error:
612 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
613 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
615 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
617 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
618 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
619 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
620 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
622 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
624 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
625 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
626 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
627 Something like this will reproduce the error:
630 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
631 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
633 =item Can't chdir to %s
635 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
636 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
638 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
640 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
643 =item Can't coerce array into hash
645 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
646 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
647 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
649 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
651 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
652 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
662 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
664 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
666 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
667 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
669 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
671 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
672 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
674 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
676 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
679 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
681 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
682 quotas or other plumbing problems.
684 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
686 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
687 class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
688 extended for other types of variables in future.
690 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
692 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
693 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
695 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
697 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
698 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
700 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
702 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
705 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
707 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
708 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
709 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
711 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
713 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
714 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
715 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
717 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
719 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
720 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
721 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
723 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
725 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
726 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
728 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
730 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
731 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
734 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
736 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
737 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
738 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
739 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
741 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
743 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
744 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
745 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
746 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
747 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
748 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
753 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
754 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
755 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
757 =item Can't execute %s
759 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
760 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
762 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
764 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
765 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
767 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
769 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
770 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
771 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
772 for a complete list of available properties.
774 =item Can't find label %s
776 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
777 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
779 =item Can't find %s on PATH
781 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
784 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
786 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
787 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
788 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
790 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
792 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
793 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
794 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
796 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
798 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
799 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
800 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
802 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
804 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
805 example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
806 Unicode property, see
807 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
808 for a complete list of available properties.
809 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
810 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
815 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
818 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
820 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
823 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
825 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
826 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
827 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
828 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
829 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
830 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
831 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
832 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
833 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
834 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
835 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
836 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
837 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
838 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
839 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
841 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
843 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
844 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
846 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
848 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
849 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
851 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
853 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
854 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
856 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
858 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
859 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
860 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
861 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
863 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
865 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
866 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
867 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
869 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
871 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
874 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
876 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
877 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
878 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
879 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
881 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
883 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
884 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
885 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
886 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
887 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
888 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
890 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
892 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
893 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
896 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
898 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
899 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
900 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
901 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
902 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
903 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
906 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
908 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
909 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
911 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
913 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
914 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
915 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
916 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
917 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
918 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
921 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
923 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
924 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
925 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
928 =item Can't localize through a reference
930 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
931 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
932 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
933 that $ref will still be a reference.
935 =item Can't locate %s
937 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
938 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
939 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
940 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
941 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
942 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
943 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
945 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
947 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
948 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
949 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
950 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
952 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
954 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
955 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
956 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
958 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
960 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
961 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
962 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
964 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
966 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
967 doesn't seem to exist.
969 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
971 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
972 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
974 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
976 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
979 =item Can't modify %s in %s
981 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
982 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
984 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
986 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
989 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
991 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
992 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
994 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
996 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
999 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1001 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1002 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1003 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1004 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1005 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1006 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1008 =item Can't open %s: %s
1010 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1011 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1012 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
1013 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1016 =item Can't open a reference
1018 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1019 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
1023 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1024 open is not supported.
1026 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1028 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1029 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1030 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1031 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1033 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1035 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1036 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1037 the command line for writing.
1039 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1041 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1042 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1043 command line for reading.
1045 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1047 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1048 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1049 the command line for writing.
1051 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1053 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1054 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1057 =item Can't open perl script%s
1059 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1061 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1062 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1063 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1065 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1067 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1068 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1069 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1070 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1073 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1075 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1076 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1077 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1078 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1079 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1080 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1082 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1084 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1085 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1086 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1088 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1090 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1091 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1093 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1095 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1096 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1098 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1100 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1101 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1102 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1104 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1106 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1107 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1110 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1112 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1113 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1115 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1117 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1118 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1119 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1120 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1123 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1125 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1126 open already. Bizarre.
1128 =item Can't take log of %g
1130 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1131 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1132 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1135 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1137 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1138 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1139 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1141 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1143 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1144 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1145 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1149 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1150 as the main Perl stack.
1152 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1154 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1155 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1156 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1157 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1159 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1161 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1162 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1163 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1165 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1167 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1168 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1170 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1172 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1173 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1175 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1177 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1178 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1179 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1181 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1183 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1184 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1185 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1187 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1189 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1192 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1194 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1195 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1196 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1197 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1200 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1202 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1203 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1204 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1205 is inside a big-endian group.
1207 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1209 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1210 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1211 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1212 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1215 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1217 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1218 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1219 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1221 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1223 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1224 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1226 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1228 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1229 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1230 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1232 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1234 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1235 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1236 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1237 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1238 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1241 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1243 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1244 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1245 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1246 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1248 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1250 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1251 references can be weakened.
1253 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1255 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1256 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1257 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1259 =item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
1261 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1263 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1269 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1270 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1271 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1275 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1278 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1284 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1285 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1288 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1290 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1296 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1297 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1298 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1300 pack("c", $x & 255);
1302 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1305 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1307 (W unpack) You tried something like
1309 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1311 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1312 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1313 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1315 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1317 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1319 (W pack) You tried something like
1321 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1323 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1324 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1325 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1327 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1329 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1331 (W unpack) You tried something like
1333 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1335 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1336 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1337 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1339 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1341 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1343 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1345 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1347 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1348 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1350 =item Closure prototype called
1352 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1353 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1354 This subroutine cannot be called.
1356 =item Code missing after '/'
1358 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1359 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1361 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1363 (W utf8) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum of U+10FFFF.
1365 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code
1366 points, up to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on
1367 your system, but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems.
1368 At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
1369 0x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require
1370 larger than a 32 bit word.
1372 =item %s: Command not found
1374 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1375 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1377 =item Compilation failed in require
1379 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1380 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1381 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1383 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1385 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1386 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1387 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1388 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1389 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1390 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1391 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1392 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1393 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1395 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1397 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1398 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1399 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1400 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1401 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1402 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1403 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1406 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1408 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1409 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1410 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1411 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1412 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1413 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1414 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1417 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1419 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1420 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1421 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1423 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1425 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1426 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1427 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1428 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1431 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1433 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1434 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1435 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1439 =item Constant is not %s reference
1441 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1442 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1443 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1444 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1445 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1447 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1449 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1450 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1451 commentary and workarounds.
1453 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1455 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1456 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1459 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1461 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1462 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1464 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1466 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1468 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1470 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1471 expression compiler gave it.
1473 =item corrupted regexp program
1475 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1478 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1480 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1482 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1484 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1485 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1488 =item "\c%c" more clearly written simply as "%s"
1490 (D deprecated) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1491 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1492 written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1493 characters. This message may not remain as Deprecated beyond 5.13.
1495 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1497 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1498 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1499 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1500 which case it indicates something else.
1502 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1503 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1505 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1507 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1508 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1509 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1511 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1513 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1514 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1515 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1517 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1519 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1520 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1522 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1524 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1525 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1526 that triggers this error.
1528 =item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
1530 (D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1531 But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names are
1532 deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character and
1533 continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or
1536 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1538 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1539 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1540 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1541 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1542 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1543 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1544 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1546 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1550 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1552 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1553 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1555 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1557 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1559 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1560 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1561 to create a dangling reference.
1563 =item Did not produce a valid header
1567 =item %s did not return a true value
1569 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1570 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1571 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1572 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1574 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1576 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1579 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1581 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1582 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1585 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1587 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1588 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1593 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1594 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1596 =item Document contains no data
1600 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1602 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1603 define a C<$VERSION.>
1605 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1607 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1608 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1610 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1612 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1614 =item do_study: out of memory
1616 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1618 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1620 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1621 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1622 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1623 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1624 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1625 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1626 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1627 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1629 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1631 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1632 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1634 =item dump is not supported
1636 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1638 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1640 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1643 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1645 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1646 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1648 =item elseif should be elsif
1650 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1651 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1652 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1653 unlikely to be what you want.
1657 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1658 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1659 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1661 =item entering effective %s failed
1663 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1664 effective uids or gids failed.
1666 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1668 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1669 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1670 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1672 =item Error converting file specification %s
1674 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1675 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1676 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1677 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1678 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1680 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1682 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1683 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1684 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1686 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1688 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1689 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1690 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1691 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1692 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1693 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1695 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1697 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1698 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1699 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1701 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1703 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1704 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1706 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1709 =item Excessively long <> operator
1711 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1712 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1713 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1714 variable and glob that.
1716 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1718 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1720 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1722 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1724 =item Exiting eval via %s
1726 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1727 goto, or a loop control statement.
1729 =item Exiting format via %s
1731 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1732 goto, or a loop control statement.
1734 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1736 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1737 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1738 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1740 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1742 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1743 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1745 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1747 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1748 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1750 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1752 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1753 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1754 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1755 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1757 =item %s: Expression syntax
1759 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1760 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1762 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1764 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1765 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1766 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1768 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1770 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1771 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1772 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1773 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1774 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1776 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
1778 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1779 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1780 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1781 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1783 =item fcntl is not implemented
1785 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1786 PDP-11 or something?
1788 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1790 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1793 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1795 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1796 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1797 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1800 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1802 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1803 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1804 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1805 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1807 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1809 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1810 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1811 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1812 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1813 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1814 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1816 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1818 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1819 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1822 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1824 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1825 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1827 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1829 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1830 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1831 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1834 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1836 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1837 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1838 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1841 =item Format not terminated
1843 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1844 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1846 =item Format %s redefined
1848 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1851 no warnings 'redefine';
1852 eval "format NAME =...";
1855 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1865 (or something like that).
1867 =item %s found where operator expected
1869 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1870 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1871 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1872 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1874 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1876 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1878 =item gethostent not implemented
1880 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1881 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1884 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1886 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1887 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1889 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1891 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1892 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1894 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1896 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1897 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1898 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1900 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1902 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1903 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1904 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1905 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1907 =item glob failed (%s)
1909 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1910 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1911 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1912 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1913 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1914 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1915 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1916 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1917 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1918 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1919 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1921 =item Glob not terminated
1923 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1924 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1925 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1926 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1928 =item gmtime(%f) too large
1930 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was larger than
1931 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1932 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1933 not-a-number value).
1935 =item gmtime(%f) too small
1937 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was smaller than
1938 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1939 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1940 not-a-number value).
1942 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1944 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1945 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1947 =item goto must have label
1949 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1950 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1952 =item ()-group starts with a count
1954 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1955 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1956 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1958 =item %s had compilation errors.
1960 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1962 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1964 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1965 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1966 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1968 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1970 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1971 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1973 =item %s has too many errors
1975 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1976 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1978 =item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
1982 You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following a pattern
1983 without an intervening space. For example, the two constructs:
1985 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
1986 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
1988 both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow the first form
1991 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
1993 will be disallowed too.
1995 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1997 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1998 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1999 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2001 =item Identifier too long
2003 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2004 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2005 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2006 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2008 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
2010 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
2011 zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
2012 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
2013 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2015 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2017 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2019 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2021 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2022 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2025 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2027 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2028 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2029 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2030 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2031 to your Perl administrator.
2033 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2035 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2036 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
2038 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2040 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2041 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2043 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2045 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2047 =item Illegal division by zero
2049 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2050 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2053 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2055 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2056 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2057 number stopped before the illegal character.
2059 =item Illegal modulus zero
2061 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2062 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2064 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2066 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2067 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2069 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2071 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2073 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2075 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2076 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2078 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2080 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2081 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2083 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2085 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2086 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2087 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2089 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2091 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2092 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2093 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2096 =item (in cleanup) %s
2098 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2099 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2100 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2101 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2102 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2104 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2105 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2107 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2109 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2110 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2111 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2113 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2115 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2116 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2117 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2119 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2121 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2122 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2123 either consume text or fail.
2125 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2128 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2130 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2131 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2132 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2133 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2135 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2137 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2138 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2139 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2140 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2141 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2142 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2143 L<perlsec> for more information.
2145 =item Insecure directory in %s
2147 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2148 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2149 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2152 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2154 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2155 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2156 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2157 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2158 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2160 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2162 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2163 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2164 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2165 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2166 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2167 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2168 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2169 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2172 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2174 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2175 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2176 integers for your architecture.
2178 =item Integer overflow in version
2180 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2181 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2182 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2183 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2184 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2187 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2189 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2190 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2193 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2195 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2196 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2197 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2198 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2199 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2200 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2202 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2204 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2205 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2208 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2210 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2211 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2212 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2213 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2215 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2217 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2218 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2220 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2222 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2223 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2225 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2227 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2228 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2230 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2232 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2233 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2234 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2235 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2236 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2237 escape was discovered.
2239 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2241 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2242 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2243 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2245 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2247 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2248 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2249 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2250 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2251 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2253 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2255 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2256 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2258 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2260 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2261 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2262 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2265 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2267 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2268 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2269 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2270 list was terminated too soon.
2272 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2274 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2275 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2276 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2277 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2278 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2279 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2281 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2283 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2284 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2285 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2288 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2290 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2291 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2292 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2293 v-string. If the v-string has less than three components, it must have a
2294 leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional. Both
2295 decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2296 component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2297 dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
2298 criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2299 allowed version formats.
2301 =item Invalid version object
2303 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2304 the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2305 was blessed into the "version" class.
2307 =item ioctl is not implemented
2309 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2310 strange for a machine that supports C.
2312 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2314 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2315 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2317 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2319 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2320 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2323 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2325 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2326 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2328 =item $* is no longer supported
2330 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2331 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In previous versions of perl the use of
2332 C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line matching within a string.
2334 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2335 modifiers. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value then all regular
2336 expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2338 =item $# is no longer supported
2340 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2341 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2342 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2344 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2346 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2347 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2350 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2352 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2355 =item junk on end of regexp
2357 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2359 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2361 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2362 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2365 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2367 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2368 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2371 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2373 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2374 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2377 =item leaving effective %s failed
2379 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2380 effective uids or gids failed.
2382 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2384 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2385 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2386 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2388 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2390 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2391 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but
2392 tried to insert a character that couldn't be part of the current input.
2393 This is an inherent pitfall of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the
2394 reasons to avoid it. Where it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only
2395 plain ASCII is recommended.
2397 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2399 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2402 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2404 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2405 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2408 =item localtime(%f) too large
2410 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was larger
2411 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2412 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2413 not-a-number value).
2415 =item localtime(%f) too small
2417 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was smaller
2418 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2419 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2420 not-a-number value).
2422 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2424 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2425 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2427 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2429 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2430 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2431 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2432 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2433 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2434 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2436 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2438 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2439 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2440 instead on the filehandle.)
2442 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2444 (W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
2445 by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute is not
2446 possible. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine add the
2447 lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the declaration before
2450 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2452 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2453 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2454 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2456 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2458 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2459 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2461 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2463 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2464 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2466 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2468 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2475 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2476 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2477 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2478 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2480 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2482 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2483 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2484 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2485 when the function is called.
2487 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2489 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2490 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2492 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2493 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2494 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2496 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2497 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2498 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2501 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2503 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2505 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2506 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2508 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2510 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2512 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2514 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2515 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2517 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2519 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2520 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2522 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2524 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2525 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2527 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2529 (F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2530 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2531 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2532 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2533 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2535 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2537 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2538 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2539 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2542 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2544 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2545 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2548 =item % may not be used in pack
2550 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2551 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2552 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2554 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2556 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2557 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2559 =item Method %s not permitted
2563 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2565 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2566 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2567 ended earlier on the current line.
2569 =item Misplaced _ in number
2571 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2572 separate two digits.
2574 =item Missing argument in %s
2576 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2579 =item Missing argument to -%c
2581 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2582 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2584 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2586 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2587 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2588 comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2589 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2592 =item Missing braces on \o{}
2594 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2596 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2598 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2599 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2601 =item Missing command in piped open
2603 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2604 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2607 =item Missing control char name in \c
2609 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2612 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2614 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2615 they have a name with which they can be found.
2617 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2619 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2620 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2621 can vary from one line to the next.
2623 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2625 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2626 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2628 =item Missing right brace on %s
2630 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2632 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
2635 C<\N> has two meanings.
2637 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2638 in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
2639 Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2640 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2641 have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2643 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
2644 patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2645 C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2647 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
2648 left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
2649 the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2650 that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2651 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
2652 and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2654 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
2655 omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
2656 raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2657 the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2659 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2661 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2662 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2665 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2667 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2668 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2669 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2671 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2673 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2674 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2675 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2677 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2680 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2682 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2683 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2686 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2687 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2690 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2692 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2693 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2696 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2698 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2699 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2701 =item Module name must be constant
2703 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2705 =item Module name required with -%c option
2707 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2708 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2709 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2711 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
2713 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2714 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2715 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2716 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2718 =item msg%s not implemented
2720 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2722 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2724 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2725 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2727 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2729 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2730 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2731 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2733 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2735 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2738 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2740 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2741 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2742 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2744 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
2746 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2747 character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2748 specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2750 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2752 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2753 was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
2754 such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
2756 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
2757 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
2760 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
2762 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2765 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2769 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2771 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2772 doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2774 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2775 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2777 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2780 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2782 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2783 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2784 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2785 provided for this purpose.
2787 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2788 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2789 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2790 will not trigger this warning.
2792 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2794 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2795 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2796 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2798 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2800 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2801 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2803 =item Negative length
2805 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2806 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2808 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2810 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2811 greater than or equal to zero.
2813 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2815 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2816 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2817 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2819 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2820 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2822 =item %s never introduced
2824 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2825 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2827 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2829 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2830 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2833 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2835 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2836 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2837 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2838 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2840 =item No comma allowed after %s
2842 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2843 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2844 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2846 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2847 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2848 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2849 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2850 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2851 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2852 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2853 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2854 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2855 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2856 this error was triggered?
2858 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2860 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2861 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2862 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2864 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2866 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2867 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2868 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2871 =item No dbm on this machine
2873 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2874 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2876 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2878 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2879 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2880 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2881 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2883 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2885 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2887 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2889 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2890 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2891 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2893 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2895 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2896 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2898 =item No input file after < on command line
2900 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2901 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2902 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2906 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2907 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2909 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2911 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2912 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2913 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2914 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2916 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2918 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2919 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2921 =item No output file after > on command line
2923 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2924 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2925 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2927 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2929 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2930 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2931 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2933 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2935 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2936 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2937 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2939 =item No Perl script found in input
2941 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2942 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2944 =item No setregid available
2946 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2949 =item No setreuid available
2951 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2954 =item No %s specified for -%c
2956 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2957 you haven't specified one.
2958 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2960 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2961 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2962 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2964 =item No such class %s
2966 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2967 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2969 =item No such hook: %s
2971 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2972 accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2974 =item No such pipe open
2976 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2977 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2978 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2980 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2982 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2983 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2984 names on your system.
2986 =item Not a CODE reference
2988 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2989 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2990 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2993 =item Not a format reference
2995 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2996 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2998 =item Not a GLOB reference
3000 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3001 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3002 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3003 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3005 =item Not a HASH reference
3007 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3008 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3009 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3011 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3013 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3014 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3015 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3017 =item Not a perl script
3019 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
3020 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
3023 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3025 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3026 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3027 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3029 =item Not a subroutine reference
3031 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3032 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3033 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3036 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3038 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3039 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3041 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3043 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3045 =item Not enough format arguments
3047 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3048 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3052 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3053 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3056 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3058 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3059 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3060 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3061 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3062 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3064 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3066 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was unexpectedly
3067 encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as indicated.
3069 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3071 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3072 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3073 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
3075 =item Null filename used
3077 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3078 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
3080 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3082 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3085 =item Null picture in formline
3087 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3088 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3089 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3093 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3095 =item NULL regexp argument
3097 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3099 =item NULL regexp parameter
3101 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3103 =item Number too long
3105 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3106 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3107 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3108 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3111 =item Number with no digits
3113 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like a number.
3114 This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between the braces.
3116 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
3118 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3119 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3122 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3124 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3125 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3126 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3128 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3130 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3132 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3133 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3135 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3137 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3138 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3140 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3142 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3143 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3145 =item Offset outside string
3147 (F|W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3148 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3149 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3150 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3151 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3152 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3155 =item %s() on unopened %s
3157 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3158 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3159 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3161 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3163 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3164 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3168 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3172 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3174 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3176 (W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3177 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3178 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3181 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3183 (W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3184 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3185 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3188 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3190 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3191 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3192 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3193 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3195 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3197 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3198 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3199 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3200 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3203 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3205 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3206 in the current lexical scope.
3208 =item Out of memory!
3210 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3211 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3212 no option but to exit immediately.
3214 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3215 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3216 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3217 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3218 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3220 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3222 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3223 the largest possible memory allocation.
3225 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3227 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3228 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3229 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3230 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3232 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3234 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3235 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3238 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3239 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3240 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3241 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3242 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3243 where the failed request happened.
3245 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3247 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3248 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3249 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3251 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3253 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3254 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3257 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3259 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3260 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3262 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3264 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3265 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3267 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3269 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3270 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3271 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3273 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3275 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3276 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3279 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3281 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3282 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3284 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3286 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3287 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3288 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3289 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3291 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3293 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3294 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3298 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3299 page. See L<perlform>.
3303 (P) An internal error.
3305 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3307 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3308 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3309 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3310 enter this branch on this platform.
3312 =item panic: ck_grep
3314 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3316 =item panic: ck_split
3318 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3320 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3322 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3323 there are in the savestack.
3325 =item panic: del_backref
3327 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3330 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3332 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3333 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3334 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3335 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3339 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3340 it wasn't an eval context.
3342 =item panic: do_subst
3344 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3347 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3349 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3352 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3354 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3359 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3363 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3364 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3366 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3368 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3369 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3370 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3371 adds a new object to the hash.
3373 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3375 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3377 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3379 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3381 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3383 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3387 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3388 it wasn't a block context.
3390 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3392 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3395 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3397 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3398 invalid enum on the top of it.
3400 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3402 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3403 references to an object.
3407 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3409 =item panic: memory wrap
3411 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3413 =item panic: pad_alloc
3415 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3416 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3418 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3420 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3421 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3423 =item panic: pad_free po
3425 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3427 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3429 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3430 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3432 =item panic: pad_sv po
3434 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3436 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3438 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3439 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3441 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3443 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3445 =item panic: pp_iter
3447 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3449 =item panic: pp_match%s
3451 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3454 =item panic: pp_split
3456 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3458 =item panic: realloc
3460 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3462 =item panic: restartop
3464 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3465 didn't supply the destination.
3469 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3470 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3472 =item panic: scan_num
3474 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3476 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3478 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3479 scalar's string buffer.
3481 =item panic: sv_insert
3483 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3486 =item panic: top_env
3488 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3490 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3492 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3495 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3497 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3498 to even) byte length.
3500 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3502 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3503 to even) byte length.
3507 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3509 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3511 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3514 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3516 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3517 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3518 nesting limit is exceeded.
3520 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3523 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3525 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3531 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3533 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3535 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3537 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3538 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3539 redirected it with select().)
3541 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3543 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3544 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3545 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3547 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3549 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3550 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3551 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3552 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3554 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3556 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3557 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3558 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3560 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3562 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3563 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3565 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3567 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3569 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3571 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3573 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3574 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3577 are supported and installed on your system.
3578 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3580 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3581 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3582 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3583 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3584 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3585 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3586 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3587 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3588 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3589 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3591 =item pid %x not a child
3593 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3594 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3595 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3597 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3599 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3601 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3603 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3604 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3605 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3606 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3607 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3609 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3611 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3612 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3614 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3616 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3617 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3618 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3619 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3620 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3621 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3623 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3625 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3626 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3627 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3628 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3629 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3630 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3632 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3634 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3635 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3636 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3637 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3638 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3639 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3641 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3643 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3644 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3645 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3646 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3648 You probably wrote something like this:
3655 when you should have written this:
3662 If you really want comments, build your list the
3663 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3667 'b', # another comment
3670 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3672 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3673 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3674 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3677 You probably wrote something like this:
3681 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3682 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3686 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3688 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3689 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3690 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3691 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3693 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3695 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3696 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3698 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3700 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3701 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3702 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3703 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3705 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3707 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3708 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3709 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3710 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3712 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3714 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3715 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3716 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3717 followed by the word 'bar'.
3719 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3720 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3722 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3723 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3724 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3726 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3728 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3732 is now misinterpreted as
3736 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3737 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3738 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3741 =item Premature end of script headers
3745 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3747 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3748 before now. Check your control flow.
3750 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3752 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3753 before now. Check your control flow.
3755 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3757 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3758 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3759 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3760 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3763 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3765 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3766 since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3768 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3770 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3771 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3773 =item Prototype not terminated
3775 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3778 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3780 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3781 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3782 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3784 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3786 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3787 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3788 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3790 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3792 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3793 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3794 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3795 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3796 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3798 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3801 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3803 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3804 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3805 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3806 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3808 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3810 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3811 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3813 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3815 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3816 before now. Check your control flow.
3818 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3820 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3822 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3824 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3826 =item Reallocation too large: %x
3828 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3830 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3832 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3835 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3837 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3838 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3839 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3841 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3843 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3844 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3845 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3847 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3849 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3850 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3853 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3855 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3856 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3857 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3858 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3860 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3861 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3862 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3863 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3865 =item Reference is already weak
3867 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3868 Doing so has no effect.
3870 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3872 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3873 a reference count of other than 1.
3875 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3877 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3878 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3879 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3880 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3882 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3884 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3885 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3886 wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3887 prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
3889 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3892 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3894 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3895 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3896 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3898 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3901 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3903 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3904 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3905 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3906 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3908 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3911 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3913 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3914 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3915 of the C<....> part.
3917 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3920 =item regexp memory corruption
3922 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3923 expression compiler gave it.
3925 =item Regexp out of space
3927 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3930 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3932 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3933 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3934 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3936 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
3938 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
3939 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
3942 =item Reversed %s= operator
3944 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3945 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3947 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3949 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3950 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3952 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3954 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3955 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3956 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3957 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3959 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3961 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3962 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3963 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3964 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3965 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3966 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3967 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3969 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3970 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3971 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3974 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3976 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3977 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3978 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3979 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3980 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3981 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3982 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3984 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3985 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3986 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3989 =item Search pattern not terminated
3991 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3992 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3993 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3995 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3996 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3997 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3998 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4000 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
4002 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
4005 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
4006 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
4007 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
4008 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
4010 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4012 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4013 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4015 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4017 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4018 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4020 =item select not implemented
4022 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4024 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
4026 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4027 the current implementation.
4029 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
4031 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4032 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
4034 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4036 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4037 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
4039 =item sem%s not implemented
4041 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
4043 =item send() on closed socket %s
4045 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
4046 before now. Check your control flow.
4048 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4050 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
4051 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4054 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4056 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
4057 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4058 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4060 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4062 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4063 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4064 discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4065 Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
4066 redundantly specify a default modifier; or having a modifier that can't
4067 be turned off (such as C<"p"> or C<"l">) after a minus; or specifying
4068 more than one of the C<"d">, C<"l">, or C<"u"> modifiers. For other
4069 causes, see L<perlre>.
4071 =item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4073 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4074 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4076 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4078 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
4079 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
4080 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4083 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4085 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
4086 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
4087 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4090 =item 500 Server error
4096 (A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
4097 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
4098 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
4099 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
4100 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
4101 produce a valid header".
4103 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4105 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
4106 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
4107 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
4108 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
4109 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
4110 Please see the following for more information:
4112 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4113 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4114 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
4116 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4118 =item setegid() not implemented
4120 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4121 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4124 =item seteuid() not implemented
4126 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4127 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4130 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4132 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4133 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4136 =item setrgid() not implemented
4138 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4139 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4142 =item setruid() not implemented
4144 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4145 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4148 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4150 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4151 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4152 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4154 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
4156 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
4157 world, because the world might have written on it already.
4159 =item Setuid script not plain file
4161 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
4162 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
4164 =item shm%s not implemented
4166 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4168 =item !=~ should be !~
4170 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4171 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4172 operators: probably not what you intended.
4174 =item <> should be quotes
4176 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4179 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4181 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4182 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4183 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4184 probably not what you had in mind.
4186 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4188 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4191 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4193 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4194 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4196 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4198 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4199 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4202 =item sort is now a reserved word
4204 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4205 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4207 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4209 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4210 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4212 =item splice() offset past end of array
4214 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4215 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4216 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4217 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4222 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4223 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4224 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4226 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4228 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4229 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4230 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4231 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4234 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4236 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4237 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4239 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4241 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4242 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4243 C<can> may break this.
4245 =item Subroutine %s redefined
4247 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
4250 no warnings 'redefine';
4251 eval "sub name { ... }";
4254 =item Substitution loop
4256 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4257 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4258 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
4259 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
4261 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
4263 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4264 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4265 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4267 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
4269 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4270 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4271 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4273 =item substr outside of string
4275 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4276 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4277 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4278 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4279 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
4281 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4283 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4284 inferior to its current type.
4286 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4288 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4289 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4290 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4291 clustering parentheses:
4293 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4295 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4296 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4298 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4300 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4301 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4302 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4304 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4306 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4307 and effective uids or gids.
4311 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4315 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4317 A keyword is misspelled.
4318 A semicolon is missing.
4320 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4321 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4322 A closing quote is missing.
4324 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4325 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4326 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4327 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4328 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4329 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4330 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4331 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4332 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4335 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4337 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4338 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4341 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4343 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4344 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4345 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4347 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4349 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4351 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4353 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4355 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4357 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4358 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4359 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4360 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4362 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4364 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4365 before now. Check your control flow.
4367 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4369 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4370 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4372 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4374 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4375 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4377 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4379 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4380 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4382 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4384 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4385 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4387 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4389 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4390 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4399 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4400 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4402 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4404 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4405 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4406 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4407 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4410 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4412 (F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4413 to the probings of Configure.
4415 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4417 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4418 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4419 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4422 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4424 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4426 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4428 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4430 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4431 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4432 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4433 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4434 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4435 target of the change to
4436 %ENV which produced the warning.
4438 =item thread failed to start: %s
4440 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4442 =item times not implemented
4444 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4445 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4447 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4449 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4450 B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4451 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4452 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4455 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4456 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4457 editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4458 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
4460 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4461 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
4463 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4465 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4466 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4467 specified an illegal mapping.
4468 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4470 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4472 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4474 =item Too few args to syscall
4476 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4477 system call to call, silly dilly.
4479 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4481 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4482 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4484 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4485 not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4487 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4488 (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4489 this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4490 script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
4492 =item Too late to run %s block
4494 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4495 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4496 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4497 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4500 =item Too many args to syscall
4502 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4504 =item Too many arguments for %s
4506 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4510 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4511 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4515 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4516 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4518 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4520 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4521 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4523 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4525 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4526 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4527 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4529 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4531 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4532 y/// or y[][] construct.
4534 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4536 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4537 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4539 =item truncate not implemented
4541 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4542 Configure knows about.
4544 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4546 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4547 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4548 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4549 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4551 =item Type of argument to %s must be hashref or arrayref
4553 (F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with an argument that was
4554 expected to be a reference to a hash or a reference to an array.
4556 =item umask not implemented
4558 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4559 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4561 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4563 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4565 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4567 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4568 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4570 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4572 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4573 many values were temporarily localized.
4575 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4577 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4578 many blocks were entered and left.
4580 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4582 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4583 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4585 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4587 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4588 another package? See L<perlform>.
4590 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4592 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4593 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4595 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4597 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4598 since been undefined.
4600 =item Undefined subroutine called
4602 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4603 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4605 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4607 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4608 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4610 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4612 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4613 another package? See L<perlform>.
4615 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4617 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4618 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4621 =item %s: Undefined variable
4623 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4624 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4626 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4628 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4629 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4631 =item Unicode non-character 0x%x is illegal for interchange
4633 =item Unicode non-character U+%X is illegal for open interchange
4635 (W utf8) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are defined by the
4636 Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4637 reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
4638 them. In some cases, this message is also given if you use a codepoint that
4639 isn't in Unicode--that is it is above the legal maximum of U+10FFFF. These
4640 aren't legal at all in Unicode, so they are illegal for interchange, but can be
4641 used internally in a Perl program. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4642 off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4644 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4646 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4649 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4651 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4652 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4653 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4655 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4657 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4658 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4659 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4660 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4661 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4662 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4664 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4666 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4667 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4668 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4669 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4671 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4673 (W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4675 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4677 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4678 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4679 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4680 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4681 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4684 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4685 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4687 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4689 (F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4690 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4692 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4694 (F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4695 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4697 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4699 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4700 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4702 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4703 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4705 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4707 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4708 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4709 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4713 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4715 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4716 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4717 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4718 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4720 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4722 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4723 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4724 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4725 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4727 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4729 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4730 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4731 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4732 you were last editing.
4734 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4736 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4737 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4738 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4741 =item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
4743 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4744 in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4745 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4747 =item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4749 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4750 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4751 understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
4752 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4753 escape was discovered.
4755 =item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
4757 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4758 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4759 change in a future version of Perl.
4761 =item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4763 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4764 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4765 change in a future version of Perl.
4766 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4767 escape was discovered.
4769 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4771 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4772 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4775 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4777 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4778 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4779 bad switch on your behalf.)
4781 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4783 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4784 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4785 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4787 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4789 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4791 =item Unsupported function %s
4793 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4794 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4796 =item Unsupported function fork
4798 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4800 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4801 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4802 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4804 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4806 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4807 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4809 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4811 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4812 least that's what Configure thought.
4814 =item Unterminated attribute list
4816 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4817 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4818 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4819 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4821 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4823 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4824 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4825 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4826 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4828 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4830 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4831 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4832 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4834 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4836 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4837 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4839 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4841 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4842 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4844 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4846 (F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4847 a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
4849 =item Unterminated <> operator
4851 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4852 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4853 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4854 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4856 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4858 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4859 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4861 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4863 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4864 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4866 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4868 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4869 See L<Win32> for more information.
4871 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4873 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4874 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4876 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4880 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4882 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4883 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4885 =item Useless localization of %s
4887 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4888 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4889 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4891 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4893 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4894 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4896 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4900 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4902 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4903 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4905 =item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
4907 (W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
4908 same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
4909 about the /d modifier.
4911 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4913 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4914 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4915 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4916 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4917 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4918 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4923 when you meant to say
4925 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4927 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4928 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4933 when you should have said
4937 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4938 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4939 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4940 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4941 L<perlref> for more on this.
4943 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4944 since they are often used in statements like
4946 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
4948 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4951 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4953 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4955 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4957 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4961 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4963 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4965 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4966 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4967 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4968 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4969 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4970 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4972 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4974 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4975 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4977 =item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
4979 (D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
4980 is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
4982 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4984 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
4985 form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4987 =item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
4989 (D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
4990 separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4992 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4994 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4995 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4996 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4999 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
5000 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
5002 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
5004 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
5005 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
5007 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
5009 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
5010 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
5011 used. (This may change in the future.)
5013 =item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
5015 (F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
5016 C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
5017 This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
5018 error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
5020 If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
5021 a space before the C<=>.
5023 =item Use of ?PATTERN? without explicit operator is deprecated
5025 (D deprecated) You have written something like C<?\w?>, for a regular
5026 expression that matches only once. Starting this term directly with
5027 the question mark delimiter is now deprecated, so that the question mark
5028 will be available for use in new operators in the future. Write C<m?\w?>
5029 instead, explicitly using the C<m> operator: the question mark delimiter
5030 still invokes match-once behaviour.
5032 =item Use of freed value in iteration
5034 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
5035 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
5038 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
5040 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
5041 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
5042 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
5043 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
5045 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
5047 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
5048 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
5050 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
5052 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
5053 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
5054 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
5056 =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
5058 (D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
5059 scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
5061 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
5063 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
5064 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
5065 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
5066 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
5069 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
5070 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
5071 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
5072 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
5075 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
5076 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
5077 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
5078 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
5081 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
5082 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
5083 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
5085 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
5087 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
5088 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
5090 =item Use of %s is deprecated
5092 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
5093 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
5094 old way has bad side effects.
5096 =item Use of %s on a handle without * is deprecated
5098 (D deprecated) You used C<tie>, C<tied> or C<untie> on a scalar but that
5099 scalar happens to hold a typeglob, which means its filehandle will
5100 be tied. If you mean to tie a handle, use an explicit * as in
5103 This is a long-standing bug that will be removed in Perl 5.16, as
5104 there is currently no way to tie the scalar itself when it holds
5105 a typeglob, and no way to untie a scalar that has had a typeglob
5108 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
5110 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
5111 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
5112 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
5114 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
5116 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
5117 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
5118 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
5121 =item Use of qw(...) as parentheses is deprecated
5123 (D deprecated) You have something like C<foreach $x qw(a b c) {...}>,
5124 using a C<qw(...)> list literal where a parenthesised expression is
5125 expected. Historically the parser fooled itself into thinking that
5126 C<qw(...)> literals were always enclosed in parentheses, and as a result
5127 you could sometimes omit parentheses around them. (You could never do
5128 the C<foreach qw(a b c) {...}> that you might have expected, though.)
5129 The parser no longer lies to itself in this way. Wrap the list literal
5130 in parentheses, like C<foreach $x (qw(a b c)) {...}>.
5132 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
5134 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
5135 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
5136 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
5138 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
5139 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
5140 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
5141 operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
5143 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
5145 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
5146 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
5147 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
5148 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
5149 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
5150 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
5152 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5154 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
5155 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5156 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5157 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5159 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
5161 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5162 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5163 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
5165 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
5166 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
5167 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
5168 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
5169 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
5170 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
5171 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
5172 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
5174 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5176 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
5177 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
5178 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
5179 be removed in a future version.
5181 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5183 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
5184 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
5185 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
5186 removed in a future version.
5188 =item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
5190 (F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
5191 currently reserved for future use, as the exact behaviour has not
5192 been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
5193 modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
5195 =item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5197 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5198 Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5199 expression pattern bracketed character class.
5201 =item Using just the first characters returned by \N{}
5203 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of characters. There is a finite
5204 limit as to the number of characters that can be used, which this sequence
5205 exceeded. In the message, the characters in the sequence are separated by
5206 dots, and each is shown by its ordinal in hex. Anything to the left of the
5207 C<HERE> was retained; anything to the right was discarded.
5209 =item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
5211 =item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
5213 (W utf8) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
5214 not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
5215 U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
5216 internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
5217 available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
5218 problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
5219 came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
5220 off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
5222 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
5224 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
5225 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5226 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5227 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5228 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5229 C<defined> operator.
5231 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5233 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5234 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5235 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
5238 =item Variable "%s" is not available
5240 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5241 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
5242 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
5243 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5244 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
5245 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
5247 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
5249 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
5250 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
5251 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5252 now been created and is live:
5254 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5256 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5257 gone out of scope, for example,
5265 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5266 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
5268 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5270 (W misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
5271 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
5272 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5273 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5274 front of your variable.
5276 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
5278 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
5279 known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
5281 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5283 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
5284 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
5285 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
5286 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
5287 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
5289 =item Variable syntax
5291 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5292 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5295 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5297 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
5298 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
5300 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
5301 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5302 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5303 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5304 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5305 variable will no longer be shared.
5307 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5308 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5309 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
5310 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
5312 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5314 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
5315 or check that you are using the right verb.
5317 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5319 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
5320 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5322 =item Version number must be a constant number
5324 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5325 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5328 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5330 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5333 =item Warning: something's wrong
5335 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
5336 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5338 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
5340 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5341 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5344 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
5346 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5347 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5348 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5349 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
5353 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5357 but in actual fact, you got
5361 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
5363 =item Wide character in %s
5365 (S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
5366 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5367 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5368 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5369 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5370 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5371 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
5373 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5375 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
5376 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
5377 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
5378 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5380 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
5382 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
5383 before now. Check your control flow.
5385 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5387 (F) When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5388 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5389 this encoding, for example
5391 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5393 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5395 =item 'X' outside of string
5397 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5398 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5400 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
5402 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5403 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5405 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5407 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
5408 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
5409 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
5412 =item You need to quote "%s"
5414 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5415 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5416 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5417 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5418 what you want, put an & in front.)
5420 =item Your random numbers are not that random
5422 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5423 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5424 Something Very Wrong.
5430 L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.