3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
23 below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Aliasing via reference is experimental
55 (S experimental::refaliasing) This warning is emitted if you use
56 a reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment to
57 alias one variable to another. Simply suppress the warning if you
58 want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
59 the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be
60 removed in a future Perl version:
62 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
63 use feature "refaliasing";
66 =item Allocation too large: %x
68 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
70 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
72 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
73 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
75 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
77 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
78 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
79 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
80 subroutine is not imported.
82 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
83 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
84 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
85 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
87 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
88 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
89 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
92 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
94 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
95 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
96 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
97 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
99 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
101 (S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
102 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
103 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
105 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
107 (S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
108 string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
109 the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
112 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
114 (S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
115 bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
116 (denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
117 like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
118 assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
119 clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
120 really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
122 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
124 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
125 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
126 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
127 the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
128 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
129 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
131 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
133 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
135 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
136 the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
137 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
138 might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
139 foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
140 that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
142 In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
143 to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
144 C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
145 by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
146 want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
147 unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
148 that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
149 off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
151 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
153 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
154 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
155 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
157 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
159 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
160 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
161 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
162 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
163 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
165 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
172 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
174 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
175 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
176 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
177 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
178 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
179 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
182 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
184 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
186 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
188 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
189 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
190 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
192 Note that for the C<Inf> and C<NaN> (infinity and not-a-number) the
193 definition of "numeric" is somewhat unusual: the strings themselves
194 (like "Inf") are considered numeric, and anything following them is
195 considered non-numeric.
197 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
199 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
200 system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
201 take care of transforming data between external and internal
202 representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
203 point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
204 didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
205 result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
207 =item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
209 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
210 operator which expects either a number or a string matching
211 C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
212 Auto-decrement> for details.
214 =item assertion botched: %s
216 (X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
218 =item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
220 (X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
222 =item Assigned value is not a reference
224 (F) You tried to assign something that was not a reference to an lvalue
225 reference (e.g., C<\$x = $y>). If you meant to make $x an alias to $y, use
228 =item Assigned value is not %s reference
230 (F) You tried to assign a reference to a reference constructor, but the
231 two references were not of the same type. You cannot alias a scalar to
232 an array, or an array to a hash; the two types must match.
237 \$x = $y; # error; did you mean \$y?
239 =item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
241 (F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
242 the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
244 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
246 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
247 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
248 know which context to supply to the right side.
250 =item <> at require-statement should be quotes
252 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
255 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
257 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
258 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
260 =item Attempt to bless into a freed package
262 (F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
263 the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
264 do, so it throws up in hands in despair.
266 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
268 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
269 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
270 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
276 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
278 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
279 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
282 bless $self, "$proto";
284 =item Attempt to clear deleted array
286 (S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
287 Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
288 can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
289 callback on the array.
291 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
293 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
294 which is not in its key set.
296 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
298 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
299 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
301 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
303 (S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
304 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
305 outside any of those arenas.
307 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
309 (S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
310 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
311 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
312 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
314 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
316 (S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
317 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
318 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
319 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
322 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
324 (S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
326 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
328 (S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
329 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
330 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
331 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
332 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
333 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
336 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
338 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
339 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
340 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
341 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
342 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
345 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
347 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
348 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
349 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
352 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
354 (W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
355 been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
356 scalar representing the last index of an array and later
357 assigning through that reference. For example
359 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
362 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
364 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
365 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
366 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
368 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
370 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
371 "locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
372 obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
373 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
375 =item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
377 (W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
378 example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
379 declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
381 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
383 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
384 the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
385 The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
386 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
388 =item av_reify called on tied array
390 (S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
391 confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
393 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
395 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
396 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
397 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
398 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
400 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
402 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
403 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
404 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
406 =item Bad filehandle: %s
408 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
409 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
410 open(), or did it in another package.
412 =item Bad free() ignored
414 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
415 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
416 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
418 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
419 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
420 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
424 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
426 =item Badly placed ()'s
428 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
429 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
432 =item Bad name after %s
434 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
435 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
444 $sym = "mypack::$var";
446 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
448 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
451 =item Bad realloc() ignored
453 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
454 had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
455 be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
457 =item Bad symbol for array
459 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
460 wasn't a symbol table entry.
462 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
464 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
465 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
467 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
469 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
470 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
472 =item Bad symbol for hash
474 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
475 wasn't a symbol table entry.
477 =item Bad symbol for scalar
479 (P) An internal request asked to add a scalar entry to something that
480 wasn't a symbol table entry.
482 =item Bareword found in conditional
484 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
485 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
486 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
490 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
493 use constant TYPO => 1;
494 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
496 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
498 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
500 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
501 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
502 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
504 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
506 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
507 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
508 you need to predeclare a package?
510 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
512 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
513 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
516 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
518 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
519 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
520 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
521 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
522 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
524 =item \%d better written as $%d
526 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
527 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
528 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
529 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
530 there are more than 9 backreferences.
532 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
534 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
535 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
536 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
538 =item bind() on closed socket %s
540 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
541 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
543 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
545 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
546 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
548 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
550 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
552 =item Bizarre copy of %s
554 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
557 =item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
559 (P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
560 encountered an invalid data type.
562 =item Both or neither range ends should be Unicode in regex; marked by
565 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
567 In a bracketed character class in a regular expression pattern, you
568 had a range which has exactly one end of it specified using C<\N{}>, and
569 the other end is specified using a non-portable mechanism. Perl treats
570 the range as a Unicode range, that is, all the characters in it are
571 considered to be the Unicode characters, and which may be different code
572 points on some platforms Perl runs on. For example, C<[\N{U+06}-\x08]>
573 is treated as if you had instead said C<[\N{U+06}-\N{U+08}]>, that is it
574 matches the characters whose code points in Unicode are 6, 7, and 8.
575 But that C<\x08> might indicate that you meant something different, so
576 the warning gets raised.
578 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
580 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
581 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
582 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
584 =item Callback called exit
586 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
587 exited by calling exit.
589 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
591 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
592 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
593 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
594 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
595 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
596 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
597 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
598 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
600 =item Calling POSIX::%s() is deprecated
602 (D deprecated) You called a function whose use is deprecated. See
603 the function's name in L<POSIX> for details.
607 (F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
609 =item Cannot compress %f in pack
611 (F) You tried compressing an infinity or not-a-number as an unsigned
612 integer with BER, which makes no sense.
614 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
616 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress.
617 The BER compressed integer format can only be used with positive
618 integers, and you attempted to compress a very large number (> 1e308).
619 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
621 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
623 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
624 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
626 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
628 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
629 in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
630 The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
631 no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
633 =item Cannot copy to %s
635 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
636 be directly assigned to.
638 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
640 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
641 either with open() or binmode().
643 =item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
645 (F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an integer,
646 which makes no sense.
648 =item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
650 (F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
651 which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
653 =item Cannot set tied @DB::args
655 (F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
656 is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
658 =item Cannot tie unreifiable array
660 (P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
661 keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
662 do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
663 Perl code, but are only used internally.
665 =item Cannot yet reorder sv_catpvfn() arguments from va_list
667 (F) Some XS code tried to use C<sv_catpvfn()> or a related function with a
668 format string that specifies explicit indexes for some of the elements, and
669 using a C-style variable-argument list (a C<va_list>). This is not currently
670 supported. XS authors wanting to do this must instead construct a C array of
671 C<SV*> scalars containing the arguments.
673 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
675 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
676 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
677 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
679 =item Can't bless non-reference value
681 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
682 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
684 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
686 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
687 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
689 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
691 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
693 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
695 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
696 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
697 like this will reproduce the error:
700 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
701 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
703 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
705 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
706 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
707 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
708 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
710 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
712 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
713 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
714 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
715 Something like this will reproduce the error:
718 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
719 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
721 =item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
723 (P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
724 symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
726 =item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
728 (F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
729 not attached to the symbol table.
731 =item Can't chdir to %s
733 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
734 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
736 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
738 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
741 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
743 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
744 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
754 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
756 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
758 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
761 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
763 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
764 quotas or other plumbing problems.
766 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
768 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
769 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
771 =item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
773 (F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
774 C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
775 issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
776 error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
778 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
780 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
781 a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
783 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
785 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
788 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
790 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
791 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
792 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
794 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
796 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
797 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
798 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
800 =item Can't do %s("%s") on non-UTF-8 locale; resolved to "%s".
802 (W locale) You are 1) running under "C<use locale>"; 2) the current
803 locale is not a UTF-8 one; 3) you tried to do the designated case-change
804 operation on the specified Unicode character; and 4) the result of this
805 operation would mix Unicode and locale rules, which likely conflict.
806 Mixing of different rule types is forbidden, so the operation was not
807 done; instead the result is the indicated value, which is the best
808 available that uses entirely Unicode rules. That turns out to almost
809 always be the original character, unchanged.
811 It is generally a bad idea to mix non-UTF-8 locales and Unicode, and
812 this issue is one of the reasons why. This warning is raised when
813 Unicode rules would normally cause the result of this operation to
814 contain a character that is in the range specified by the locale,
815 0..255, and hence is subject to the locale's rules, not Unicode's.
817 If you are using locale purely for its characteristics related to things
818 like its numeric and time formatting (and not C<LC_CTYPE>), consider
819 using a restricted form of the locale pragma (see L<perllocale/The "use
820 locale" pragma>) like "S<C<use locale ':not_characters'>>".
822 Note that failed case-changing operations done as a result of
823 case-insensitive C</i> regular expression matching will show up in this
824 warning as having the C<fc> operation (as that is what the regular
825 expression engine calls behind the scenes.)
827 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
829 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
830 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
832 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
834 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
835 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
838 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
840 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
841 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
842 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
843 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
845 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
847 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
848 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
849 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
850 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
851 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
852 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
857 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
858 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
859 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
861 =item Can't execute %s
863 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
864 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
866 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
868 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
869 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
871 =item Can't find label %s
873 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
874 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
876 =item Can't find %s on PATH
878 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
881 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
883 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
884 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
885 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
887 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
889 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
890 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
891 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
893 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
895 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
896 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
897 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
898 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
899 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
901 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
903 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
905 (F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
906 known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
907 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
908 for a complete list of available official
909 properties. If it is a
910 L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
911 it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
914 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
915 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
920 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
923 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
925 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
928 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
930 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
931 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
932 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
933 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
934 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
935 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
936 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
937 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
938 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
939 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
940 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
941 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
942 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
943 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
944 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
946 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
948 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
949 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
951 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
953 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
954 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
956 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
958 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
959 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
961 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
963 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
964 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
965 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
966 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
968 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
970 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
973 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
975 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
976 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
977 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
979 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
981 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
982 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
983 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
984 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
986 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
988 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
989 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
990 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
991 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
992 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
993 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
995 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
997 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
998 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
1001 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
1003 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
1004 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
1005 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
1006 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
1007 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
1008 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
1011 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
1013 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
1014 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
1016 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
1018 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
1019 This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
1020 that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
1021 to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
1022 dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
1023 that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
1026 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
1028 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
1029 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
1030 want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
1033 =item Can't localize through a reference
1035 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
1036 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
1037 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
1038 that $ref will still be a reference.
1040 =item Can't locate %s
1042 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
1043 Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
1044 the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
1045 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
1046 extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
1047 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
1048 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
1050 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
1052 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
1053 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
1054 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
1055 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
1057 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
1059 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
1060 for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
1061 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
1063 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
1065 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
1066 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
1067 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
1069 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
1072 (F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
1073 could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
1074 requires a package that has not been loaded.
1076 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
1078 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
1079 doesn't seem to exist.
1081 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1083 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1084 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1086 =item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
1088 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1091 =item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1093 (S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
1094 that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1095 process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1096 the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1097 from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1098 functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1100 =item Can't modify %s in %s
1102 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1103 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
1105 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
1107 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1110 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s
1112 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
1113 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1115 =item Can't modify reference to %s in %s assignment
1117 (F) Only a limited number of constructs can be used as the argument to a
1118 reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment, and what
1119 you used was not one of them. See L<perlref/Assigning to References>.
1121 =item Can't modify reference to localized parenthesized array in list
1124 (F) Assigning to C<\local(@array)> or C<\(local @array)> is not supported, as
1125 it is not clear exactly what it should do. If you meant to make @array
1126 refer to some other array, use C<\@array = \@other_array>. If you want to
1127 make the elements of @array aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1128 right-hand side, use C<\(@array) = @scalar_refs>.
1130 =item Can't modify reference to parenthesized hash in list assignment
1132 (F) Assigning to C<\(%hash)> is not supported. If you meant to make %hash
1133 refer to some other hash, use C<\%hash = \%other_hash>. If you want to
1134 make the elements of %hash into aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1135 right-hand side, use a hash slice: C<\@hash{@keys} = @those_scalar_refs>.
1137 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
1139 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
1142 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1144 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1145 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1146 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1147 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1148 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1149 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1151 =item Can't open %s: %s
1153 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1154 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1155 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1156 this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1157 you named on the command line.
1159 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1160 your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
1162 =item Can't open a reference
1164 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1165 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1169 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1170 open is not supported.
1172 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1174 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1175 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1176 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1177 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1179 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1181 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1182 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1183 the command line for writing.
1185 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1187 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1188 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1189 command line for reading.
1191 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1193 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1194 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1195 the command line for writing.
1197 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1199 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1200 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1203 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
1205 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1207 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1208 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1209 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1211 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1213 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1214 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1215 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1216 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1219 =item Can't redeclare "%s" in "%s"
1221 (F) A "my", "our" or "state" declaration was found within another declaration,
1222 such as C<my ($x, my($y), $z)> or C<our (my $x)>.
1224 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1226 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1227 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1228 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1229 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1230 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1231 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1233 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1235 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1236 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1237 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1239 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1241 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1242 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1244 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1246 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1247 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1249 =item Can't represent character for Ox%X on this platform
1251 (F) There is a hard limit to how big a character code point can be due
1252 to the fundamental properties of UTF-8, especially on EBCDIC
1253 platforms. The given code point exceeds that. The only work-around is
1254 to not use such a large code point.
1256 =item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1258 (F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1259 all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1260 the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1261 supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1263 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1265 (F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1266 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1267 package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1269 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1271 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1272 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1275 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1277 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1278 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1280 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1282 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1283 subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1284 think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1285 write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1286 Perl that the call should be in list context.
1288 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1290 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1291 open already. Bizarre.
1293 =item Can't take log of %g
1295 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1296 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1297 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1300 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1302 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1303 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1304 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1306 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1308 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1309 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1310 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1312 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1314 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1315 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1316 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1317 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1319 =item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1321 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1322 other than "=" after the module name.
1324 =item Can't use a hash as a reference
1326 (F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1327 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1328 <= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1329 have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1331 =item Can't use an array as a reference
1333 (F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1334 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1335 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1336 was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1338 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1340 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1341 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1342 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1344 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1346 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1347 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1349 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1351 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1352 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1354 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1356 (F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1357 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1358 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1360 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1362 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1363 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1364 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1366 =item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1368 (F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1369 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1370 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1372 =item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1374 (F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1376 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1377 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1378 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1379 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1380 generates a fatal error.
1382 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1383 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1389 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1390 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1391 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1394 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1396 (P) The parser got confused when trying to parse a C<foreach> loop.
1398 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1400 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1401 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1402 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1403 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1406 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1408 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1409 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1410 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1411 is inside a big-endian group.
1413 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1415 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1416 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1417 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1418 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1421 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1423 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1424 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1425 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1427 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1429 =item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1431 (F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1432 C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1433 L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1434 in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1435 for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1436 of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1437 symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
1439 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1441 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1442 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1443 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1445 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1447 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1448 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1449 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1450 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1451 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1454 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1456 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1457 references can be weakened.
1459 =item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1461 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1462 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1463 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1464 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1466 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1468 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1469 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1470 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1472 =item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
1474 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
1476 Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
1477 discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
1478 L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
1480 =item Character following \%c must be '{' or a single-character Unicode property name in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1482 (F) (In the above the C<%c> is replaced by either C<p> or C<P>.) You
1483 specified something that isn't a legal Unicode property name. Most
1484 Unicode properties are specified by C<\p{...}>. But if the name is a
1485 single character one, the braces may be omitted.
1487 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1493 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1494 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1495 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1499 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1502 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1508 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1509 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1510 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1512 pack("c", $x & 255);
1514 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1517 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1519 (W unpack) You tried something like
1521 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1523 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1524 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1525 value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1527 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1529 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1535 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1536 expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1539 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1541 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1543 (W pack) You tried something like
1545 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1547 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1548 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1549 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1551 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1553 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1555 (W unpack) You tried something like
1557 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1559 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1560 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1561 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1563 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1565 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple spaces
1567 (F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1568 in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1569 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1570 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1571 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1573 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space
1575 (F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1576 character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1577 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1578 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1579 See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1581 =item chdir() on unopened filehandle %s
1583 (W unopened) You tried chdir() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1585 =item \C no longer supported in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1587 (F) The \C character class used to allow a match of single byte within a
1588 multi-byte utf-8 character, but was removed in v5.24 as it broke
1589 encapsulation and its implementation was extremely buggy. If you really
1590 need to process the individual bytes, you probably want to convert your
1591 string to one where each underlying byte is stored as a character, with
1594 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1596 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1597 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1598 is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1599 for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1600 between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
1602 =item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1604 (F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1606 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1608 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1609 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1611 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1613 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1615 =item Closure prototype called
1617 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1618 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1619 This subroutine cannot be called.
1621 =item Code missing after '/'
1623 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1624 another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1626 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, and not portable
1628 (S non_unicode) You had a code point that has never been in any
1629 standard, so it is likely that languages other than Perl will NOT
1630 understand it. At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code
1631 points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher, and this code point is higher.
1633 Acceptance of these code points is a Perl extension, and you should
1634 expect that nothing other than Perl can handle them; Perl itself on
1635 EBCDIC platforms before v5.24 does not handle them.
1637 Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a 32 bit word.
1639 Perl also makes no guarantees that the representation of these code
1640 points won't change at some point in the future, say when machines
1641 become available that have larger than a 64-bit word. At that time,
1642 files written by an older Perl would require conversion before being
1643 readable by a newer Perl.
1645 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1647 (S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1650 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, but
1651 these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. Further, even if
1652 these languages/systems accept these large code points, they may have
1653 chosen a different representation for them than the UTF-8-like one that
1654 Perl has, which would mean files are not exchangeable between them and
1657 On EBCDIC platforms, code points above 0x3FFF_FFFF have a different
1658 representation in Perl v5.24 than before, so any file containing these
1659 that was written before that version will require conversion before
1660 being readable by a later Perl.
1662 =item %s: Command not found
1664 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1665 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1666 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1670 =item Compilation failed in require
1672 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1673 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1674 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1676 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1678 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1679 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1680 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1681 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1682 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1683 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1684 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1685 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1686 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1688 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1690 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1691 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1692 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1694 =item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1696 (F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1697 (see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1698 L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1700 =item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1702 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1703 overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
1706 =item Constant is not %s reference
1708 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1709 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1710 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1711 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1712 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1714 =item Constants from lexical variables potentially modified elsewhere are
1717 (D deprecated) You wrote something like
1720 $sub = sub () { $var };
1722 but $var is referenced elsewhere and could be modified after the C<sub>
1723 expression is evaluated. Either it is explicitly modified elsewhere
1724 (C<$var = 3>) or it is passed to a subroutine or to an operator like
1725 C<printf> or C<map>, which may or may not modify the variable.
1727 Traditionally, Perl has captured the value of the variable at that
1728 point and turned the subroutine into a constant eligible for inlining.
1729 In those cases where the variable can be modified elsewhere, this
1730 breaks the behavior of closures, in which the subroutine captures
1731 the variable itself, rather than its value, so future changes to the
1732 variable are reflected in the subroutine's return value.
1734 This usage is deprecated, because the behavior is likely to change
1735 in a future version of Perl.
1737 If you intended for the subroutine to be eligible for inlining, then
1738 make sure the variable is not referenced elsewhere, possibly by
1742 $sub = sub () { $var2 };
1744 If you do want this subroutine to be a closure that reflects future
1745 changes to the variable that it closes over, add an explicit C<return>:
1748 $sub = sub () { return $var };
1750 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1752 (W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1753 been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1754 for commentary and workarounds.
1756 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1758 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1759 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1762 =item Constant(%s) unknown
1764 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1765 to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1766 character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1767 forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?
1769 =item :const is experimental
1771 (S experimental::const_attr) The "const" attribute is experimental.
1772 If you want to use the feature, disable the warning with C<no warnings
1773 'experimental::const_attr'>, but know that in doing so you are taking
1774 the risk that your code may break in a future Perl version.
1776 =item :const is not permitted on named subroutines
1778 (F) The "const" attribute causes an anonymous subroutine to be run and
1779 its value captured at the time that it is cloned. Named subroutines are
1780 not cloned like this, so the attribute does not make sense on them.
1782 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1784 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1785 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1787 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1789 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1790 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
1791 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1792 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1794 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1795 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1797 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1799 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1801 =item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1803 (P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1804 one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1805 latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1807 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1809 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1810 expression compiler gave it.
1812 =item corrupted regexp program
1814 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1817 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1819 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1821 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1823 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1824 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1828 The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1829 share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1831 =item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1833 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1835 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1836 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1837 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1838 which case it indicates something else.
1840 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1841 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1843 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1844 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1846 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1847 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1848 of the C<....> part.
1850 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1853 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1855 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1856 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1858 =item delete argument is index/value array slice, use array slice
1860 (F) You used index/value array slice syntax (C<%array[...]>) as
1861 the argument to C<delete>. You probably meant C<@array[...]> with
1862 an @ symbol instead.
1864 =item delete argument is key/value hash slice, use hash slice
1866 (F) You used key/value hash slice syntax (C<%hash{...}>) as the argument to
1867 C<delete>. You probably meant C<@hash{...}> with an @ symbol instead.
1869 =item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1871 (F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
1877 or a hash or array slice, such as:
1879 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1880 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
1882 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1884 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1885 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1886 that triggers this error.
1888 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1890 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1891 has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1892 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1893 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1894 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1895 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1896 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1898 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1902 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1904 Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
1905 lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1907 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1909 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1911 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1912 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1913 than to create a dangling reference.
1915 =item Did not produce a valid header
1919 =item %s did not return a true value
1921 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1922 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1923 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1924 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1926 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1928 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1931 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1933 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1934 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1937 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1939 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1940 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1945 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1946 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
1948 =item Document contains no data
1952 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1954 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1955 define a C<$VERSION>.
1957 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1959 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1960 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1962 =item Don't know how to get file name
1964 (P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
1965 somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
1967 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
1969 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1971 =item do_study: out of memory
1973 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1975 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1977 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1978 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1979 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1980 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1981 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1982 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1983 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1984 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1986 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1988 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1989 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1991 =item dump is not supported
1993 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1995 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1997 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
2000 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
2002 (W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
2003 type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2005 =item elseif should be elsif
2007 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
2008 it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
2009 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
2010 unlikely to be what you want.
2012 =item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2014 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
2015 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
2016 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
2018 =item entering effective %s failed
2020 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2021 effective uids or gids failed.
2023 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
2025 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
2026 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
2027 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
2029 =item Error converting file specification %s
2031 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
2032 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
2033 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
2034 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
2035 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
2037 =item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
2039 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2040 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
2041 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
2043 =item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
2045 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
2046 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
2047 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
2048 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
2049 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
2050 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
2051 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
2053 =item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
2055 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
2056 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
2057 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
2059 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
2060 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2062 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
2063 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
2065 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2068 =item Excessively long <> operator
2070 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
2071 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
2072 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
2073 variable and glob that.
2075 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
2077 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
2078 OS. See L<perlport>.
2080 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
2082 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
2084 =item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
2086 (F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
2087 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
2093 =item exists argument is not a subroutine name
2095 (F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
2096 and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
2098 =item Exiting eval via %s
2100 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
2101 goto, or a loop control statement.
2103 =item Exiting format via %s
2105 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
2106 goto, or a loop control statement.
2108 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
2110 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
2111 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
2112 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2114 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
2116 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
2117 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
2119 =item Exiting substitution via %s
2121 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
2122 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
2124 =item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2126 (F) You wrote something like
2130 to denote a capturing group of the form
2131 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
2132 but omitted the C<")">.
2134 =item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2136 (F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
2137 only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
2138 C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
2139 containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
2140 This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
2141 interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
2142 have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
2143 L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
2145 =item Experimental aliasing via reference not enabled
2147 (F) To do aliasing via references, you must first enable the feature:
2149 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
2150 use feature "refaliasing";
2153 =item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
2155 (F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
2157 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
2158 use feature "signatures";
2159 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
2161 =item Experimental %s on scalar is now forbidden
2163 (F) An experimental feature added in Perl 5.14 allowed C<each>, C<keys>,
2164 C<push>, C<pop>, C<shift>, C<splice>, C<unshift>, and C<values> to be called
2165 with a scalar argument. This experiment is considered unsuccessful, and has
2166 been removed. The C<postderef> feature may meet your needs better.
2168 =item Experimental "%s" subs not enabled
2170 (F) To use lexical subs, you must first enable them:
2172 no warnings 'experimental::lexical_subs';
2173 use feature 'lexical_subs';
2176 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
2178 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
2179 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
2180 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
2181 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
2183 =item %s: Expression syntax
2185 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
2186 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
2188 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
2190 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
2191 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
2192 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
2194 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2196 (W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
2197 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
2198 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
2199 construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
2200 the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
2201 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2203 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
2205 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
2206 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
2207 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
2208 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
2210 =item fcntl is not implemented
2212 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2213 PDP-11 or something?
2215 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2217 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2220 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2222 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
2223 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2224 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
2225 C<u63> as the format.
2227 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
2229 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2230 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2231 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2232 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2234 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
2236 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2237 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
2238 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2239 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2240 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2241 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
2243 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2245 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2246 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
2249 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2251 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2252 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
2254 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2256 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
2257 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2258 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2261 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2263 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
2264 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
2265 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2268 =item Format not terminated
2270 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2271 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2273 =item Format %s redefined
2275 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
2278 no warnings 'redefine';
2279 eval "format NAME =...";
2282 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2292 (or something like that).
2294 =item %s found where operator expected
2296 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2297 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
2298 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2299 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
2301 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2303 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2305 =item gethostent not implemented
2307 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2308 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2311 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
2313 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2314 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2316 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2318 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2319 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2321 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2323 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2324 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2325 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2327 =item given is experimental
2329 (S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2330 is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2331 in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2332 L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
2334 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2337 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
2338 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
2339 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2340 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
2342 =item glob failed (%s)
2344 (S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
2345 for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2346 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
2347 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
2348 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2349 is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2350 in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2351 if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2352 all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
2353 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
2354 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
2356 =item Glob not terminated
2358 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2359 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2360 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2361 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2363 =item gmtime(%f) failed
2365 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2366 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2368 =item gmtime(%f) too large
2370 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
2371 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
2372 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2373 not-a-number value).
2375 =item gmtime(%f) too small
2377 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
2378 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
2380 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2382 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2383 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2385 =item goto must have label
2387 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2388 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2390 =item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2392 (F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2393 the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2394 has since been undefined.
2396 =item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
2397 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2399 (F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2400 they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2401 this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2403 =item ()-group starts with a count
2405 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2406 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2408 =item %s had compilation errors.
2410 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2412 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2414 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2415 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2416 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2418 =item %s has too many errors
2420 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2421 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2423 =item Having more than one /%c regexp modifier is deprecated
2425 (D deprecated, regexp) You used the indicated regular expression pattern
2426 modifier at least twice in a string of modifiers. It is deprecated to
2427 do this with this particular modifier, to allow future extensions to the
2430 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2432 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
2433 than the floating point supports.
2435 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2437 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
2438 than the floating point supports.
2440 =item Hexadecimal float: internal error (%s)
2442 (F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2444 =item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2446 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2447 the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2448 the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2450 =item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2452 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2453 digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2454 long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2455 (needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2457 =item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2459 (F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
2460 the internals of the long double format are unknown;
2461 therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2463 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2465 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2466 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2467 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2469 =item Identifier too long
2471 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2472 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2473 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2474 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2476 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2477 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2479 (W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
2480 zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character
2481 class its behavior is not well defined. Check that the correct
2482 escape has been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2484 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2486 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2488 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2490 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2491 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2494 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2496 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2497 declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2498 indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2499 or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
2501 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2503 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2504 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2505 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2506 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2507 to your Perl administrator.
2509 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2511 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2512 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2513 Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2514 that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2515 instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2517 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2519 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2520 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2522 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2524 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2526 =item Illegal division by zero
2528 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2529 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2532 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2534 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2535 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2536 number stopped before the illegal character.
2538 =item Illegal modulus zero
2540 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2541 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2543 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2545 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2546 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2548 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2550 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2552 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2554 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2555 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2557 =item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2559 (F) You wrote something like
2563 The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2564 capturing group. See
2565 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2567 =item Illegal suidscript
2569 (F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2571 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2573 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2574 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2576 =item Illegal user-defined property name
2578 (F) You specified a Unicode-like property name in a regular expression
2579 pattern (using C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>) that Perl knows isn't an official
2580 Unicode property, and was likely meant to be a user-defined property
2581 name, but it can't be one of those, as they must begin with either C<In>
2582 or C<Is>. Check the spelling. See also
2583 L</Can't find Unicode property definition "%s">.
2585 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2587 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2588 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2589 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2591 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2593 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2594 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2595 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2598 =item (in cleanup) %s
2600 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2601 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2602 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2603 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2604 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2606 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2607 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2609 =item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2612 (F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
2613 expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2614 too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2615 enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2617 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2620 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2621 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2622 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2624 =item Infinite recursion in regex
2626 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2627 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2628 either consume text or fail.
2630 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2632 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2633 initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2634 C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2635 context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2636 supported in a future perl release.
2638 =item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2640 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2641 (indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2642 it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2643 is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2644 returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2645 a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2646 expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2647 returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2649 =item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2651 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2652 (indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2653 better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2654 is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2655 it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2656 provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2657 if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2658 it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2660 =item Invalid number '%s' for -C option.
2662 (F) You supplied a number to the -C option that either has extra leading
2663 zeroes or overflows perl's unsigned integer representation.
2665 =item %s() is deprecated on :utf8 handles
2667 (W deprecated) The sysread(), recv(), syswrite() and send() operators
2668 are deprecated on handles that have the C<:utf8> layer, either
2669 explicitly, or implicitly, eg., with the C<:encoding(UTF-16LE)> layer.
2671 Both sysread() and recv() currently use only the C<:utf8> flag for the
2672 stream, ignoring the actual layers. Since sysread() and recv() do no
2673 UTF-8 validation they can end up creating invalidly encoded scalars.
2675 Similarly, syswrite() and send() use only the C<:utf8> flag, otherwise
2676 ignoring any layers. If the flag is set, both write the value UTF-8
2677 encoded, even if the layer is some different encoding, such as the
2680 Ideally, all of these operators would completely ignore the C<:utf8>
2681 state, working only with bytes, but this would result in silently
2682 breaking existing code. To avoid this a future version of perl will
2683 throw an exception when any of sysread(), recv(), syswrite() or send()
2684 are called on handle with the C<:utf8> layer.
2686 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2688 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2689 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2690 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2691 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2692 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2693 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2694 L<perlsec> for more information.
2696 =item Insecure directory in %s
2698 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2699 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2700 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2703 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2705 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2706 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2707 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2708 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2709 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2711 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2713 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2714 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2715 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2716 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2718 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2720 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2721 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2722 integers for your architecture.
2724 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2726 (S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2727 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2728 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2729 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2730 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2731 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2732 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2733 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2736 =item Integer overflow in srand
2738 (S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2739 in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2740 replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2741 architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2742 you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2743 return the same sequence of random numbers.
2745 =item Integer overflow in version
2747 =item Integer overflow in version %d
2749 (W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2750 the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2751 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
2752 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2753 to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
2755 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2757 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2758 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2761 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2763 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2764 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2765 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2766 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2767 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2768 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2770 =item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2772 (S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2773 formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2774 C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2775 by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2776 message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2779 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2781 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2782 S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2785 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2787 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2788 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2789 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2790 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2792 =item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2793 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2795 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2796 expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2797 intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2800 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2802 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2803 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2805 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2807 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2808 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2810 =item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
2813 (F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
2814 the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
2815 the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2817 =item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
2819 (W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
2820 arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
2821 formerly ignored by system calls.
2823 =item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
2825 (F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
2826 indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2828 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2830 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2831 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2833 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
2834 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2836 (W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2837 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2838 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2839 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
2840 instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
2841 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2842 escape was discovered.
2844 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2846 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
2847 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2849 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2850 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
2851 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2853 =item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2855 (F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2856 cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2857 arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2858 B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2860 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2862 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2863 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2864 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2865 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2867 =item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
2869 (W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
2870 not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
2873 =item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2875 (S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
2876 with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
2877 See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
2879 =item Invalid quantifier in {,} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2881 (F) The pattern looks like a {min,max} quantifier, but the min or max
2882 could not be parsed as a valid number - either it has leading zeroes,
2883 or it represents too big a number to cope with. The S<<-- HERE> shows
2884 where in the regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2886 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2888 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2889 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2890 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2891 up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2892 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2894 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2896 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2897 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2899 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2901 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2902 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2903 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2906 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2908 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2909 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2910 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2911 list was terminated too soon.
2913 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2915 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2916 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2917 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2918 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2919 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2920 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2922 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2924 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2925 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2927 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2930 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2932 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2933 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2934 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2935 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2936 must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2937 optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2938 trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2939 after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2940 text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2941 for more details on allowed version formats.
2943 =item Invalid version object
2945 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2946 Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2947 an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
2949 =item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
2950 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2952 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in
2953 this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
2954 indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
2955 and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
2957 =item ioctl is not implemented
2959 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2960 strange for a machine that supports C.
2962 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2964 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2965 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
2967 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2969 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2970 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
2973 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2975 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2976 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2978 =item '%s' is an unknown bound type in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2980 (F) You used C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}> and the C<...> is not known to
2981 Perl. The current valid ones are given in
2982 L<perlrebackslash/\b{}, \b, \B{}, \B>.
2984 =item "%s" is more clearly written simply as "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2986 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
2988 You specified a character that has the given plainer way of writing it,
2989 and which is also portable to platforms running with different character
2992 =item $* is no longer supported
2994 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2995 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. In
2996 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2997 matching within a string.
2999 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
3000 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
3001 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
3002 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
3004 =item $# is no longer supported
3006 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
3007 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. You
3008 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
3010 =item '%s' is not a code reference
3012 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
3013 overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
3014 an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
3016 =item '%s' is not an overloadable type
3018 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
3021 =item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
3023 (S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
3024 that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
3025 given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
3026 make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
3027 it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
3028 should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
3029 line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
3031 =item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
3033 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
3035 =item Label not found for "last %s"
3037 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
3038 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3041 =item Label not found for "next %s"
3043 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
3044 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3047 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
3049 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
3050 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3053 =item leaving effective %s failed
3055 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
3056 effective uids or gids failed.
3058 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
3060 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
3061 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
3062 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3064 =item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
3066 (W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
3067 probably wanted a count of the items.
3069 Array size can be obtained by doing:
3073 The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
3077 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
3079 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
3080 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
3081 couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
3082 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
3083 it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
3085 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
3087 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
3090 =item listen() on closed socket %s
3092 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
3093 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3096 =item List form of piped open not implemented
3098 (F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
3099 form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
3100 Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
3102 =item %s: loadable library and perl binaries are mismatched (got handshake key %p, needed %p)
3104 (P) A dynamic loading library C<.so> or C<.dll> was being loaded into the
3105 process that was built against a different build of perl than the
3106 said library was compiled against. Reinstalling the XS module will
3107 likely fix this error.
3109 =item Locale '%s' may not work well.%s
3111 (W locale) You are using the named locale, which is a non-UTF-8 one, and
3112 which perl has determined is not fully compatible with what it can
3113 handle. The second C<%s> gives a reason.
3115 By far the most common reason is that the locale has characters in it
3116 that are represented by more than one byte. The only such locales that
3117 Perl can handle are the UTF-8 locales. Most likely the specified locale
3118 is a non-UTF-8 one for an East Asian language such as Chinese or
3119 Japanese. If the locale is a superset of ASCII, the ASCII portion of it
3122 Some essentially obsolete locales that aren't supersets of ASCII, mainly
3123 those in ISO 646 or other 7-bit locales, such as ASMO 449, can also have
3124 problems, depending on what portions of the ASCII character set get
3125 changed by the locale and are also used by the program.
3126 The warning message lists the determinable conflicting characters.
3128 Note that not all incompatibilities are found.
3130 If this happens to you, there's not much you can do except switch to use a
3131 different locale or use L<Encode> to translate from the locale into
3132 UTF-8; if that's impracticable, you have been warned that some things
3135 This message is output once each time a bad locale is switched into
3136 within the scope of C<S<use locale>>, or on the first possibly-affected
3137 operation if the C<S<use locale>> inherits a bad one. It is not raised
3138 for any operations from the L<POSIX> module.
3140 =item localtime(%f) failed
3142 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
3143 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
3145 =item localtime(%f) too large
3147 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
3148 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3149 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
3150 not-a-number value).
3152 =item localtime(%f) too small
3154 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
3155 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3158 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
3160 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
3161 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
3163 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
3165 (W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
3166 is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
3167 accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
3168 warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
3169 when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
3170 insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
3172 =item lstat() on filehandle%s
3174 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
3175 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
3176 instead on the filehandle.)
3178 =item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
3180 (W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
3181 attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
3182 does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
3183 want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
3184 details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
3185 if you really know what you are doing.
3187 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
3189 (W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
3190 subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
3191 not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
3192 add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
3193 foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
3195 See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
3197 =item Magical list constants are not supported
3199 (F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
3200 to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
3201 something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
3203 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
3205 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
3206 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3208 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
3210 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
3211 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3213 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3215 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3222 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
3223 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
3224 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3225 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
3227 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
3229 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
3230 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
3231 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
3232 when the function is called.
3233 Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
3234 but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
3235 so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
3237 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
3239 (S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
3240 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
3242 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
3243 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
3244 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
3246 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
3247 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
3248 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
3251 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
3253 =item Malformed UTF-8 character immediately after '%s'
3255 (F) You said C<use utf8>, but the program file doesn't comply with UTF-8
3256 encoding rules. The message prints out the properly encoded characters
3257 just before the first bad one. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a
3258 warning is generated that gives more details about the type of
3261 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
3263 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
3265 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
3267 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3268 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3270 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
3272 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3273 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3275 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
3277 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3278 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3280 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
3282 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
3283 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
3285 =item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
3287 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
3288 $b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
3289 Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
3290 caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
3291 as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
3292 optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
3294 =item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
3297 (S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
3298 Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
3299 in an unsigned integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
3300 other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3301 containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3302 the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3303 C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3304 so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3305 in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3306 unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3307 given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3308 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3310 This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3311 immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3312 not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3313 the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3314 Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3315 every code point except these 22.)
3317 Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3318 should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3319 that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3320 category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3323 See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3325 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3328 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
3329 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
3330 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3333 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
3335 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
3336 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3337 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3338 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
3339 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
3341 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3343 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3344 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3347 =item '%' may not be used in pack
3349 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
3350 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3351 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3353 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3355 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3356 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3358 =item Method %s not permitted
3362 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3364 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3365 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3366 ended earlier on the current line.
3368 =item Misplaced _ in number
3370 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3371 separate two digits.
3373 =item Missing argument in %s
3375 (W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3376 arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3378 Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3379 arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3380 other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3381 functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
3383 =item Missing argument to -%c
3385 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3386 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3388 =item Missing braces on \N{}
3390 =item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3392 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
3393 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3394 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3395 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3398 =item Missing braces on \o{}
3400 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3402 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3404 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3405 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3407 =item Missing command in piped open
3409 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3410 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3413 =item Missing control char name in \c
3415 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3418 =item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3420 (W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
3422 =item Missing name in "%s sub"
3424 (F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
3425 they have a name with which they can be found.
3427 =item Missing $ on loop variable
3429 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3430 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3431 can vary from one line to the next.
3433 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
3435 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3436 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
3438 =item Missing or undefined argument to require
3440 (F) You tried to call require with no argument or with an undefined
3441 value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
3442 file-specification as an argument. See L<perlfunc/require>.
3444 =item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3446 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3448 =item Missing right brace on \N{}
3450 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
3452 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3454 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3455 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
3456 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
3457 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3458 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3460 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3461 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3462 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3464 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3465 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3466 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3467 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
3468 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3469 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3471 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3472 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3473 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3474 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
3476 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
3478 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3479 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3482 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3484 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3485 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
3486 the previous line just because you saw this message.
3488 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3490 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
3491 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
3492 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3494 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3497 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3499 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3500 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3503 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3504 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3507 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
3509 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3510 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3513 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
3515 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3516 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
3518 =item Module name must be constant
3520 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3522 =item Module name required with -%c option
3524 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3525 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3526 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
3528 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
3530 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
3531 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3532 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3533 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3535 =item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3537 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3538 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3539 could not be made read-only.
3541 =item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3543 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3544 but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3546 =item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3548 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3549 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3550 buffer could not be made mutable.
3552 =item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3554 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
3555 L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3556 mutable before freeing the ops.
3558 =item msg%s not implemented
3560 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3562 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3564 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3565 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
3567 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
3569 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3570 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3571 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3573 =item %s must not be a named sequence in transliteration operator
3575 (F) Transliteration (C<tr///> and C<y///>) transliterates individual
3576 characters. But a named sequence by definition is more than an
3577 individual charater, and hence doing this operation on it doesn't make
3580 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
3582 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3585 =item "my" subroutine %s can't be in a package
3587 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3588 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
3590 =item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3592 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3593 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3594 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3595 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3596 name, or rename the lexical variable.
3598 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
3600 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3601 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3602 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
3604 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3606 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3607 names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3608 just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
3609 declaration is also provided for this purpose.
3611 NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3612 only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3613 warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3614 %c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
3615 format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3616 but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3617 Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3618 identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
3620 =item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3622 (F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3623 exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3624 constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3626 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3627 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3628 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3630 The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
3631 need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3632 two separate things, you need to separate them:
3634 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3635 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3636 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3637 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3639 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
3641 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3642 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3644 =item Negative length
3646 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3647 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
3649 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3651 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3652 greater than or equal to zero.
3654 =item Negative repeat count does nothing
3656 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
3657 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3658 times, which doesn't make sense.
3660 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3662 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3663 So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3664 whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3666 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
3667 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
3669 =item %s never introduced
3671 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3672 scope before it could possibly have been used.
3674 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3676 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3677 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3680 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
3681 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3683 (F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
3684 bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
3685 class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
3686 probably not what you want.
3688 =item \N{} in inverted character class or as a range end-point is restricted to one character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3690 (F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
3691 multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
3692 supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
3693 whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>),
3694 or the escape is the beginning or final end point of a range. The
3695 mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
3696 is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
3697 forbid it. Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
3698 C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
3700 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
3702 What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
3703 of code points, so this is made an error.
3705 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by
3706 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3708 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
3709 sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
3710 bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
3711 backslash in double-quotish:
3713 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
3714 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
3717 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
3719 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
3722 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
3726 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
3728 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and
3729 it doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
3731 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
3732 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
3734 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
3737 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
3739 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3740 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3741 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3742 securable. See L<perlsec>.
3744 =item NO-BREAK SPACE in a charnames alias definition is deprecated
3746 (D deprecated) You defined a character name which contained a no-break
3747 space character. Change it to a regular space. Usually these names are
3748 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
3749 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
3750 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3752 =item No code specified for -%c
3754 (F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3755 you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3756 argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3762 =item No comma allowed after %s
3764 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3765 not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
3766 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3768 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3769 a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3770 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3771 system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3772 use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3773 please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3774 explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3775 it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3776 still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3777 the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3778 constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
3780 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
3782 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3783 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3784 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
3786 =item No DB::DB routine defined
3788 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3789 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3790 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3793 =item No dbm on this machine
3795 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
3796 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
3798 =item No DB::sub routine defined
3800 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3801 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3802 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3803 of each ordinary subroutine call.
3805 =item No directory specified for -I
3807 (F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3808 I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3810 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
3812 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3813 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3814 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
3816 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3818 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
3819 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3821 =item No input file after < on command line
3823 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3824 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3825 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
3827 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3829 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3830 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3831 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3832 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3834 =item Non-finite repeat count does nothing
3836 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
3837 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator C<Inf> (or
3838 C<-Inf>) or C<NaN> times, which doesn't make sense.
3840 =item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3842 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
3843 a hex one was expected, like
3848 =item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3850 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
3851 an octal one was expected, like
3855 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3857 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3858 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3861 =item "no" not allowed in expression
3863 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3864 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3866 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3868 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3869 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3870 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
3872 =item No output file after > on command line
3874 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3875 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3876 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
3878 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
3880 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3881 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3882 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
3884 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3886 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3887 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3888 rules. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
3890 =item No Perl script found in input
3892 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3893 with #! and containing the word "perl".
3895 =item No setregid available
3897 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3900 =item No setreuid available
3902 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3905 =item No such class %s
3907 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3908 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
3910 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3912 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3913 variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3914 The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3917 =item No such hook: %s
3919 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3920 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3922 =item No such pipe open
3924 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
3925 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3926 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
3928 =item No such signal: SIG%s
3930 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3931 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3932 names on your system.
3934 =item Not a CODE reference
3936 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3937 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3938 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3941 =item Not a GLOB reference
3943 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3944 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3945 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3946 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3948 =item Not a HASH reference
3950 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3951 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3952 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3954 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3956 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3957 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3958 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3960 =item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3962 (F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3963 another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3964 or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3966 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3968 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3969 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3970 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3972 =item Not a subroutine reference
3974 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3975 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3976 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3979 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3981 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3982 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3984 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3986 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3988 =item Not enough format arguments
3990 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3991 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3995 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3996 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3999 =item (?[...]) not valid in locale in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4001 (F) C<(?[...])> cannot be used within the scope of a C<S<use locale>> or with
4002 an C</l> regular expression modifier, as that would require deferring
4003 to run-time the calculation of what it should evaluate to, and it is
4004 regex compile-time only.
4006 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
4008 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
4009 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
4010 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
4011 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
4012 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
4014 =item NULL OP IN RUN
4016 (S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
4019 =item Null picture in formline
4021 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
4022 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
4023 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
4027 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
4029 =item NULL regexp argument
4031 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
4033 =item NULL regexp parameter
4035 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
4037 =item Number too long
4039 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
4040 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
4041 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
4042 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
4045 =item Number with no digits
4047 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
4048 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
4051 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
4053 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
4054 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
4055 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
4057 =item Odd name/value argument for subroutine
4059 (F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
4060 received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
4061 the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
4062 The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault. Inconveniently,
4063 this error will be reported at the location of the subroutine, not that
4066 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
4068 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
4069 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
4071 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
4073 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4074 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4076 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
4078 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4079 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4081 =item Offset outside string
4083 (F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
4084 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
4085 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
4086 take place when going past the end of the string when either
4087 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
4088 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behavior
4091 =item %s() on unopened %s
4093 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
4094 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
4095 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
4097 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
4099 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
4100 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
4104 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
4108 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
4110 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
4112 (D io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
4113 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
4114 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
4117 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
4119 (D io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
4120 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
4121 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
4124 =item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4127 (F) You wrote something like
4129 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
4131 There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
4134 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
4136 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
4137 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
4138 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
4139 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
4141 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
4143 (S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode rules
4144 on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
4145 defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
4147 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4148 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4150 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
4151 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
4153 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
4155 (S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
4156 rules on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
4157 of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
4158 rules are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
4159 they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
4160 surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
4162 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4163 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4165 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
4166 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
4168 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
4170 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
4171 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
4172 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
4173 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
4176 =item Optional parameter lacks default expression
4178 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
4179 named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
4180 parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
4181 have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
4183 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
4185 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
4186 in the current lexical scope.
4188 =item Out of memory!
4190 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
4191 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
4192 no option but to exit immediately.
4194 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
4195 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
4196 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
4197 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
4198 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
4200 =item Out of memory during %s extend
4202 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
4203 the largest possible memory allocation.
4205 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
4207 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
4208 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
4209 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
4210 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
4212 =item Out of memory during request for %s
4214 (X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
4215 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
4218 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
4219 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
4220 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
4221 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
4222 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
4223 where the failed request happened.
4225 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
4227 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
4228 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
4229 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
4231 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
4233 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
4234 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
4237 =item '.' outside of string in pack
4239 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
4240 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
4242 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
4244 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
4245 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4247 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
4249 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
4250 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
4251 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4253 =item overload arg '%s' is invalid
4255 (W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
4256 recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
4258 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
4260 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
4261 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
4264 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
4266 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
4267 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
4269 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
4271 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
4272 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
4273 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
4274 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
4276 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
4278 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
4279 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4283 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
4284 page. See L<perlform>.
4288 (P) An internal error.
4290 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
4292 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
4293 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
4294 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
4295 enter this branch on this platform.
4297 =item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
4299 (P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
4300 was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
4301 able to initialize properly.
4303 =item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
4305 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
4307 =item panic: ck_split, type=%u
4309 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
4311 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
4313 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
4314 there are in the savestack.
4316 =item panic: del_backref
4318 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4323 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
4324 it wasn't an eval context.
4326 =item panic: do_subst
4328 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4331 =item panic: do_trans_%s
4333 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
4336 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4338 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
4341 =item panic: frexp: %f
4343 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4345 =item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
4347 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4348 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4350 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4352 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
4353 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4354 Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4355 the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
4357 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
4359 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4361 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
4363 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4365 =item panic: kid popen errno read
4367 (F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
4369 =item panic: last, type=%u
4371 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4372 it wasn't a block context.
4374 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4376 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4379 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
4381 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4382 invalid enum on the top of it.
4384 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4386 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4387 references to an object.
4389 =item panic: malloc, %s
4391 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4393 =item panic: memory wrap
4395 (P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4398 =item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
4400 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4401 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4403 =item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
4405 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4406 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4408 =item panic: pad_free po
4410 (P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. An attempt was
4411 made to free a target that had not been allocated to begin with.
4413 =item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
4415 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4416 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4418 =item panic: pad_sv po
4420 (P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. Most likely
4421 an operator needed a target but that target had not been allocated
4422 for whatever reason.
4424 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
4426 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4427 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4429 =item panic: pad_swipe po
4431 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4433 =item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
4435 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4437 =item panic: pp_match%s
4439 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4442 =item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
4444 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
4446 =item panic: realloc, %s
4448 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4450 =item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4452 (P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4453 reference count other than 1.
4455 =item panic: restartop in %s
4457 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4458 didn't supply the destination.
4460 =item panic: return, type=%u
4462 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4463 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4465 =item panic: scan_num, %s
4467 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4469 =item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
4471 (P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
4472 blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4473 seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4475 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4477 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4478 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4479 is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4481 =item panic: sv_chop %s
4483 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4484 scalar's string buffer.
4486 =item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
4488 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4491 =item panic: top_env
4493 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
4495 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4497 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4498 permitted at run time.
4500 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4502 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
4503 to even) byte length.
4505 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4507 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4508 to even) byte length.
4510 =item panic: yylex, %s
4512 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4514 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4516 (W parenthesis) You said something like
4522 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4524 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4526 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4528 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4531 =item Passing malformed UTF-8 to "%s" is deprecated
4533 (D deprecated, utf8) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl
4534 core or in XS code. Such code was trying to find out if a character,
4535 allegedly stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such
4536 as being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded in
4537 legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used by
4538 knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked against
4539 was. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a further message is raised,
4540 giving details of the malformation.
4542 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
4544 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
4545 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4546 the nesting limit is exceeded.
4548 =item C<-p> destination: %s
4550 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4551 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4552 redirected it with select().)
4554 =item Perl API version %s of %s does not match %s
4556 (F) The XS module in question was compiled against a different incompatible
4557 version of Perl than the one that has loaded the XS module.
4559 =item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
4560 utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4562 (S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4563 and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4564 folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
4565 Please report this as a bug using the L<perlbug> utility.
4567 =item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4569 (S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4570 experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4571 simply disable this warning:
4573 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4575 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
4577 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4578 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4579 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4580 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4582 =item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4584 (F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4585 Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4586 of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4587 interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4588 decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4589 is equivalent to v5.100.
4591 =item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
4593 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4594 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4595 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4597 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4599 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
4600 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
4602 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4604 (X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
4606 =item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4608 (F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4609 on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4610 Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4611 wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4613 =item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4615 (S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
4616 contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4617 hash seed you think you are.
4619 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4621 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4623 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4624 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4627 are supported and installed on your system.
4628 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4630 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4631 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
4632 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4633 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4634 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4635 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4636 Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4637 fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4638 time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
4639 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
4641 =item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4643 (S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
4644 but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
4647 Numeric | String | Result
4648 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4649 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4650 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
4651 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4654 Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
4655 case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
4657 =item pid %x not a child
4659 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4660 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4661 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
4663 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
4665 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4667 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4669 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
4670 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4671 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4672 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4673 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4675 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4677 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4678 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4680 =item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by
4681 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4683 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
4684 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
4685 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
4686 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
4687 will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
4688 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4690 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4691 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4693 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4694 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4695 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4696 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
4697 and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4698 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4700 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4701 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4703 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4704 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4705 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4706 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
4707 and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4708 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4710 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
4712 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
4713 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
4714 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
4715 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
4717 You probably wrote something like this:
4724 when you should have written this:
4731 If you really want comments, build your list the
4732 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
4736 'b', # another comment
4739 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
4741 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
4742 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
4743 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
4746 You probably wrote something like this:
4750 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
4751 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
4755 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
4757 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
4758 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
4759 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
4760 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
4762 =item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
4764 (W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
4765 flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
4768 sub { return $a or $b; }
4772 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
4774 Which is effectively just:
4778 Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
4780 Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
4784 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %s operator
4786 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
4787 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
4789 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
4791 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
4792 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
4793 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
4794 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
4796 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
4798 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
4799 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
4800 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
4801 followed by the word 'bar'.
4803 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
4804 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
4806 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
4807 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
4808 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
4810 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
4812 (W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
4813 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
4814 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
4815 to the array you apparently lost track of.