3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %lx
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous overloaded argument to %s resolved as %s
81 (W ambiguous) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> on an object that had
82 overloading of C<%{}> or C<@{}> or both. In such a case, the object is
83 dereferenced according to its overloading, not its underlying reference type.
84 The warning is issued when C<%{}> overloading exists on a blessed arrayref,
85 when C<@{}> overloading exists on a blessed hashref, or when both overloadings
86 are defined (in which case C<%{}> is used). You can force the interpretation
87 of the object by explictly dereferencing it as an array or hash instead of
88 passing the object itself to C<keys>, C<values> or C<each>.
90 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
92 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
93 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
94 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
95 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
97 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
99 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
100 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
101 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
103 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
105 (W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
106 bitwise and, and multpication), and you said something like C<*foo *
107 foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We assumed you
108 meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more clear -- in
109 the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you really meant
110 to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
112 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
114 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
115 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
116 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
117 the varable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
118 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
119 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
121 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s%s} resolved to %c%s%s
123 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}>, which might be
124 looking for element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case
125 please write C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous
126 arrayref to the function named foo, then do a scalar deref on the
127 value it returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
129 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
131 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
132 string C<"-foo"> (outside of C<use strict 'subs'>), or a call to the
133 function C<foo>, negated. If you meant the string, just write
134 C<"-foo">, and please use strict. If you meant the function call,
137 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
139 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
140 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
141 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
143 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
145 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
146 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
147 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
148 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
149 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
151 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
158 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
160 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
161 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
162 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
163 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
164 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
165 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
168 =item Args must match #! line
170 (F) The setuid emulator requires that the arguments Perl was invoked
171 with match the arguments specified on the #! line. Since some systems
172 impose a one-argument limit on the #! line, try combining switches;
173 for example, turn C<-w -U> into C<-wU>.
175 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
177 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
179 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
181 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
182 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
188 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
190 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
196 or a hash or array slice, such as:
198 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
199 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
201 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
203 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
204 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
207 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
209 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
210 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
211 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
213 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
215 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
216 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
217 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
218 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
219 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
220 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
222 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
224 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
225 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
227 =item assertion botched: %s
229 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
231 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
233 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
235 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
237 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
238 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
239 know which context to supply to the right side.
241 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
243 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
244 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
245 Usually it's a good idea to first collect the return values of the
246 created threads by joining them, and only then exit from the main
247 thread. See L<threads>.
249 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
251 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
252 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
254 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
256 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
257 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
258 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
264 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
266 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
267 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
270 bless $self, "$proto";
272 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
274 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
275 which is not in its key set.
277 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
279 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
280 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
282 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%lx
284 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
285 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
286 outside any of those arenas.
288 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
290 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of
291 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
292 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
293 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
295 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
297 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
298 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
299 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
300 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
303 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
305 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
307 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
309 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
310 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
311 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
312 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
313 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
314 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
317 =item Attempt to join self
319 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
320 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
321 to move the join() to some other thread.
323 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
325 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
326 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
327 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
328 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
329 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
332 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
334 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
335 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
336 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
339 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
341 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
342 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
343 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
345 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
348 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
350 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
351 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
352 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
354 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
356 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "locked"
357 attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
358 effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in the next major
361 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
363 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragam to modify the "unique"
364 attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
365 had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in the next major
368 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %d, should be %d
370 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
371 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
372 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
373 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
375 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
377 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
378 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
379 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
381 =item Bad filehandle: %s
383 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
384 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
385 open(), or did it in another package.
387 =item Bad free() ignored
389 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
390 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
391 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
393 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
394 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
395 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
399 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
401 =item Badly placed ()'s
403 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
404 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
407 =item Bad name after %s::
409 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
410 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
419 $sym = "mypack::$var";
421 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
423 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
426 =item Bad realloc() ignored
428 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
429 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
430 by setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
432 =item Bad symbol for array
434 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
435 wasn't a symbol table entry.
437 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
439 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
440 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
443 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
445 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
446 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
448 =item Bad symbol for hash
450 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
451 wasn't a symbol table entry.
453 =item Bareword found in conditional
455 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
456 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
457 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
461 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
464 use constant TYPO => 1;
465 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
467 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
469 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
471 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
472 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
473 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
475 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
477 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
478 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
479 you need to predeclare a package?
481 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
483 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
484 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
487 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
489 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
490 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
491 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
492 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
493 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
495 =item \1 better written as $1
497 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
498 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
499 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
500 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
501 there are more than 9 backreferences.
503 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
505 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
506 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
507 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
509 =item bind() on closed socket %s
511 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
512 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
514 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
516 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
517 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
519 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
521 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
523 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
525 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
528 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
530 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
531 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
532 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
534 =item Callback called exit
536 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
537 exited by calling exit.
539 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
541 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
542 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
543 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
544 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
545 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
546 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
547 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
548 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
550 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
552 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
553 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
554 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
555 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
557 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
559 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
560 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
562 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
564 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
565 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
566 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
567 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
569 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
571 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
572 be directly assigned not.
574 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
576 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
577 either with open() or binmode().
579 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
581 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
582 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
583 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
585 =item Can't bless non-reference value
587 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
588 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
590 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
592 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
593 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
595 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
597 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
599 =item Can't call method "%s" in empty package "%s"
601 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
602 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't have ANYTHING defined
603 in it, let alone methods. See L<perlobj>.
605 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
607 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
608 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
609 like this will reproduce the error:
612 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
613 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
615 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
617 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
618 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
619 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
620 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
622 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
624 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
625 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
626 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
627 Something like this will reproduce the error:
630 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
631 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
633 =item Can't chdir to %s
635 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
636 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
638 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
640 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
643 =item Can't coerce array into hash
645 (F) You used an array where a hash was expected, but the array has no
646 information on how to map from keys to array indices. You can do that
647 only with arrays that have a hash reference at index 0.
649 =item Can't coerce %s to integer in %s
651 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
652 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
662 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
664 =item Can't coerce %s to number in %s
666 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
667 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
669 =item Can't coerce %s to string in %s
671 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
672 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are.
674 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
676 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
679 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
681 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
682 quotas or other plumbing problems.
684 =item Can't declare class for non-scalar %s in "%s"
686 (F) Currently, only scalar variables can be declared with a specific
687 class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration. The semantics may be
688 extended for other types of variables in future.
690 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
692 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
693 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
695 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
697 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
698 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
700 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
702 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
705 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
707 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
708 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
709 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
711 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
713 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
714 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
715 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
717 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
719 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
720 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
721 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
723 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
725 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
726 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
728 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
730 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
731 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
734 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
736 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
737 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
738 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
739 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
741 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
743 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
744 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
745 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
746 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
747 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
748 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
753 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
754 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
755 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
757 =item Can't execute %s
759 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
760 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
762 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
764 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
765 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
767 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
769 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
770 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
771 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
772 for a complete list of available properties.
774 =item Can't find label %s
776 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
777 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
779 =item Can't find %s on PATH
781 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
784 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
786 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
787 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
788 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
790 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
792 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
793 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
794 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
796 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
798 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have included
799 unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag. A good programmer's
800 editor will have a way to help you find these characters.
802 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
804 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode property (for
805 example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase letters). If you did mean to use a
806 Unicode property, see
807 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
808 for a complete list of available properties.
809 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
810 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, until
815 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
818 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
820 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
823 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
825 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
826 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
827 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
828 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
829 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
830 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
831 the access checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
832 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
833 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
834 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
835 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access checking routine gave up
836 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access checking
837 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
838 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
839 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
841 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
843 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
844 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
846 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
848 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
849 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
851 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
853 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
854 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
856 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
858 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
859 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
860 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
861 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
863 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
865 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
866 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
867 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
869 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
871 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
874 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
876 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
877 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
878 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
879 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
881 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
883 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
884 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
885 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
886 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
887 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
888 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
890 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
892 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
893 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
896 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
898 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
899 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
900 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
901 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
902 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
903 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
906 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
908 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
909 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
911 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
913 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
914 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
915 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
916 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
917 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
918 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
921 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
923 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
924 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
925 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
928 =item Can't localize through a reference
930 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
931 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
932 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
933 that $ref will still be a reference.
935 =item Can't locate %s
937 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
938 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
939 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
940 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
941 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
942 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
943 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
945 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
947 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
948 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
949 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
950 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
952 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
954 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
955 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
956 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
958 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
960 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
961 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
962 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
964 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
966 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
967 doesn't seem to exist.
969 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
971 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
972 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
974 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
976 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
979 =item Can't modify %s in %s
981 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
982 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
984 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
986 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
989 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
991 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
992 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
994 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
996 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
999 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1001 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1002 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1003 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1004 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1005 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1006 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1008 =item Can't open %s: %s
1010 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1011 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1012 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
1013 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1016 =item Can't open a reference
1018 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1019 using the 3-arg open() syntax :
1023 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1024 open is not supported.
1026 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1028 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1029 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1030 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1031 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1033 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1035 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1036 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1037 the command line for writing.
1039 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1041 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1042 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1043 command line for reading.
1045 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1047 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1048 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1049 the command line for writing.
1051 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1053 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1054 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1057 =item Can't open perl script%s
1059 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1061 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1062 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1063 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1065 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1067 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1068 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1069 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1070 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1073 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1075 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1076 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1077 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1078 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1079 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1080 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1082 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1084 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1085 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1086 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1088 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1090 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1091 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1093 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1095 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1096 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1098 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1100 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1101 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1102 method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1104 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1106 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1107 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1110 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1112 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1113 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1115 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1117 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1118 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1119 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1120 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1123 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1125 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1126 open already. Bizarre.
1128 =item Can't take log of %g
1130 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1131 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1132 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1135 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1137 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1138 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1139 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1141 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1143 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1144 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1145 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1149 (F) You tried to unshift an "unreal" array that can't be unshifted, such
1150 as the main Perl stack.
1152 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1154 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1155 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1156 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1157 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1159 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1161 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1162 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1163 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1165 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1167 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1168 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1170 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1172 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1173 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1175 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1177 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1178 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1179 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1181 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1183 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1184 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1185 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1187 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1189 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1192 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1194 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1195 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1196 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1197 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1200 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1202 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1203 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1204 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1205 is inside a big-endian group.
1207 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1209 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1210 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1211 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1212 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1215 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1217 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1218 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1219 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1221 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1223 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1224 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1226 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1228 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1229 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1230 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1232 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1234 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1235 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1236 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1237 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1238 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1241 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1243 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1244 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1245 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1246 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1248 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1250 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1251 references can be weakened.
1253 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1255 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1256 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1257 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1259 =item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
1261 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1263 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1269 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1270 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1271 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1275 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1278 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1284 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1285 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1288 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1290 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1296 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1297 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1298 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1300 pack("c", $x & 255);
1302 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1305 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1307 (W unpack) You tried something like
1309 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1311 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1312 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1313 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1315 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1317 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1319 (W pack) You tried something like
1321 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1323 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1324 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1325 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1327 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1329 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1331 (W unpack) You tried something like
1333 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1335 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1336 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1337 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1339 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1341 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1343 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1345 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1347 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1348 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1350 =item Code missing after '/'
1352 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1353 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1355 =item %s: Command not found
1357 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1358 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1360 =item Compilation failed in require
1362 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1363 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1364 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1366 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1368 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1369 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1370 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1371 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1372 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1373 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1374 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1375 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1376 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1378 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1380 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1381 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1382 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1383 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1384 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1385 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1386 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1389 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1391 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1392 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1393 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1394 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1395 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread to
1396 first wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1397 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1400 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1402 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1403 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1404 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1406 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1408 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1409 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1410 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1411 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1414 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1416 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1417 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1418 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1422 =item Constant is not %s reference
1424 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1425 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1426 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1427 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1428 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1430 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1432 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1433 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1434 commentary and workarounds.
1436 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1438 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1439 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1442 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1444 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1445 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1447 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1449 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1451 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1453 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1454 expression compiler gave it.
1456 =item corrupted regexp program
1458 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1461 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%lx at 0x%lx
1463 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1465 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1467 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1468 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1471 =item "\c%c" more clearly written simply as "%s"
1473 (D deprecated) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1474 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1475 written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1476 characters. This message may not remain as Deprecated beyond 5.13.
1478 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1480 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1481 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1482 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1483 which case it indicates something else.
1485 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1486 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1488 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1490 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1491 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1492 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1494 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1496 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it
1497 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash
1498 is empty, just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1500 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1502 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1503 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1505 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1507 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1508 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1509 that triggers this error.
1511 =item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
1513 (D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1514 But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names are
1515 deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character and
1516 continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or
1519 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1521 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1522 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1523 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1524 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1525 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1526 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1527 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1529 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1533 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1535 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1536 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1538 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1540 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1542 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1543 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1544 to create a dangling reference.
1546 =item Did not produce a valid header
1550 =item %s did not return a true value
1552 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1553 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1554 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1555 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1557 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1559 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1562 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1564 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1565 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1568 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1570 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1571 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1576 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1577 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
1579 =item Document contains no data
1583 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1585 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1586 define a C<$VERSION.>
1588 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1590 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1591 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1593 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1595 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1597 =item do_study: out of memory
1599 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1601 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1603 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1604 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1605 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1606 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1607 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1608 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1609 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1610 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1612 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1614 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1615 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1617 =item dump is not supported
1619 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1621 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1623 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1626 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1628 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1629 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1631 =item elseif should be elsif
1633 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1634 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1635 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1636 unlikely to be what you want.
1640 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1641 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1642 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1644 =item entering effective %s failed
1646 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1647 effective uids or gids failed.
1649 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1651 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1652 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1653 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1655 =item Error converting file specification %s
1657 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1658 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1659 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1660 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1661 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1663 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1665 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1666 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1667 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1669 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1671 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1672 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1673 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk, it
1674 is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by explicitly
1675 building the pattern from an interpolated string at run time and using
1676 that in an eval(). See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1678 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1680 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1681 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1682 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1684 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1686 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1687 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1689 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1692 =item Excessively long <> operator
1694 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1695 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1696 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1697 variable and glob that.
1699 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1701 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented in MacPerl. See L<perlport>.
1703 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1705 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1707 =item Exiting eval via %s
1709 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1710 goto, or a loop control statement.
1712 =item Exiting format via %s
1714 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1715 goto, or a loop control statement.
1717 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1719 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1720 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1721 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1723 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1725 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1726 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1728 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1730 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1731 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1733 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1735 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1736 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1737 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1738 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1740 =item %s: Expression syntax
1742 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1743 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1745 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1747 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1748 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1749 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1751 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1753 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1754 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1755 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1756 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1757 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1759 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
1761 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1762 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1763 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1764 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1766 =item fcntl is not implemented
1768 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1769 PDP-11 or something?
1771 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1773 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1776 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1778 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1779 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1780 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1783 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1785 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1786 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1787 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1788 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1790 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1792 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1793 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1794 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you
1795 intended only to read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1796 Another possibility is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0
1797 (also known as STDIN) for output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1799 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1801 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1802 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1805 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1807 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1808 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1810 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1812 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1813 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1814 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1817 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1819 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1820 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1821 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1824 =item Format not terminated
1826 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1827 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1829 =item Format %s redefined
1831 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1834 no warnings 'redefine';
1835 eval "format NAME =...";
1838 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1848 (or something like that).
1850 =item %s found where operator expected
1852 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1853 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1854 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1855 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1857 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1859 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1861 =item gethostent not implemented
1863 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1864 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1867 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1869 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1870 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1872 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1874 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1875 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1877 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1879 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1880 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1881 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1883 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1885 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1886 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1887 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1888 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1890 =item glob failed (%s)
1892 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1893 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1894 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1895 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1896 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1897 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1898 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1899 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1900 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1901 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1902 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1904 =item Glob not terminated
1906 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1907 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1908 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1909 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1911 =item gmtime(%.0f) too large
1913 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was larger than
1914 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1915 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1916 not-a-number value).
1918 =item gmtime(%.0f) too small
1920 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with an number that was smaller than
1921 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1922 date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
1923 not-a-number value).
1925 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
1927 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
1928 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
1930 =item goto must have label
1932 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
1933 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1935 =item ()-group starts with a count
1937 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is
1938 supposed to follow something: a template character or a ()-group.
1939 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1941 =item %s had compilation errors.
1943 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
1945 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
1947 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
1948 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
1949 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
1951 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
1953 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
1954 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
1956 =item %s has too many errors
1958 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
1959 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
1961 =item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
1965 You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following a pattern
1966 without an intervening space. For example, the two constructs:
1968 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
1969 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
1971 both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow the first form
1974 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
1976 will be disallowed too.
1978 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1980 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1981 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1982 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1984 =item Identifier too long
1986 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
1987 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
1988 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
1989 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
1991 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
1993 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
1994 zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
1995 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
1996 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
1998 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2000 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2002 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2004 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2005 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2008 =item Illegal character %s (carriage return)
2010 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2011 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2012 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2013 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2014 to your Perl administrator.
2016 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2018 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2019 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, and \.
2021 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2023 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2024 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2026 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2028 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2030 =item Illegal division by zero
2032 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2033 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2036 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2038 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2039 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2040 number stopped before the illegal character.
2042 =item Illegal modulus zero
2044 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2045 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2047 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2049 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2050 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2052 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2054 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2056 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2058 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2059 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2061 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2063 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2064 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2066 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2068 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2069 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2070 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2072 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2074 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2075 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2076 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2079 =item (in cleanup) %s
2081 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2082 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2083 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2084 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2085 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2087 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2088 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2090 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2092 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2093 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2094 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2096 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2098 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2099 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2100 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2102 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2104 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2105 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2106 either consume text or fail.
2108 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2111 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2113 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2114 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2115 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2116 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2118 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2120 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2121 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2122 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2123 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2124 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2125 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2126 L<perlsec> for more information.
2128 =item Insecure directory in %s
2130 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2131 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2132 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2135 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2137 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2138 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2139 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2140 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2141 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2143 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2145 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2146 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2147 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2148 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2149 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2150 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2151 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2152 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2155 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2157 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2158 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2159 integers for your architecture.
2161 =item Integer overflow in version
2163 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2164 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2165 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2166 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2167 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2170 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2172 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2173 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2176 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2178 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2179 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2180 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2181 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2182 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2183 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2185 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2187 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2188 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2191 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2193 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2194 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2195 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2196 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2198 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2200 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2201 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2203 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2205 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2206 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2208 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2210 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2211 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2213 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2215 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2216 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2217 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2218 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2219 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2220 escape was discovered.
2222 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2224 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")>
2225 or C<use mro 'foo'>, where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO).
2226 (Currently, the only valid ones are C<dfs> and C<c3>). See L<mro>.
2228 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2230 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2231 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2232 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2233 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2234 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2236 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2238 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2239 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2241 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2243 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2244 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2245 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2248 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2250 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other than a
2251 colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2252 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2253 list was terminated too soon.
2255 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2257 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2258 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2259 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2260 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2261 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2262 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2264 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2266 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2267 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2268 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2271 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2273 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2274 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2275 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2276 v-string. If the v-string has less than three components, it must have a
2277 leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional. Both
2278 decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2279 component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2280 dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
2281 criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2282 allowed version formats.
2284 =item Invalid version object
2286 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2287 the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2288 was blessed into the "version" class.
2290 =item ioctl is not implemented
2292 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2293 strange for a machine that supports C.
2295 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2297 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2298 Check you control flow and number of arguments.
2300 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2302 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2303 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO Perl must be configured
2306 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2308 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2309 neither as a system call or an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2311 =item $* is no longer supported
2313 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, has
2314 been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In previous versions of perl the use of
2315 C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line matching within a string.
2317 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2318 modifiers. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value then all regular
2319 expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2321 =item $# is no longer supported
2323 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, has
2324 been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You should use the
2325 printf/sprintf functions instead.
2327 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2329 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2330 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2333 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2335 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2338 =item junk on end of regexp
2340 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2342 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2344 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2345 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2348 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2350 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2351 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2354 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2356 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2357 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2360 =item leaving effective %s failed
2362 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2363 effective uids or gids failed.
2365 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2367 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2368 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2369 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2371 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2373 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2374 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn_flags|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn_flags> or similar), but
2375 tried to insert a character that couldn't be part of the current input.
2376 This is an inherent pitfall of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the
2377 reasons to avoid it. Where it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only
2378 plain ASCII is recommended.
2380 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2382 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2385 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2387 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2388 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2391 =item localtime(%.0f) too large
2393 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was larger
2394 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2395 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2396 not-a-number value).
2398 =item localtime(%.0f) too small
2400 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with an number that was smaller
2401 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2402 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with nan (the special
2403 not-a-number value).
2405 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2407 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2408 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2410 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2412 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2413 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2414 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2415 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2416 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2417 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2419 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2421 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2422 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2423 instead on the filehandle.)
2425 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2427 (W misc) Making a subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined
2428 by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute is not
2429 possible. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine add the
2430 lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the declaration before
2433 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
2435 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
2436 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context. See
2437 L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
2439 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2441 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2442 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2444 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2446 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2447 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2449 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2451 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2458 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2459 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2460 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2461 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2463 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2465 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2466 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2467 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2468 when the function is called.
2470 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2472 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2473 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2475 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2476 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2477 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2479 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2480 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2481 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2484 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2486 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2488 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2489 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2491 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2493 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2495 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2497 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2498 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2500 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2502 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2503 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2505 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2507 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2508 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2510 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%d) exceeded
2512 (F) Perl aborted due to a too high number of signals pending. This
2513 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2514 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2515 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2516 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2518 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2520 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2521 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2522 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2525 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2527 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2528 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2531 =item % may not be used in pack
2533 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2534 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2535 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2537 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2539 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2540 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2542 =item Method %s not permitted
2546 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2548 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2549 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2550 ended earlier on the current line.
2552 =item Misplaced _ in number
2554 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2555 separate two digits.
2557 =item Missing argument in %s
2559 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2562 =item Missing argument to -%c
2564 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2565 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2567 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2569 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2570 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space (or
2571 comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2572 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately follow
2575 =item Missing braces on \o{}
2577 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2579 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2581 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2582 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2584 =item Missing command in piped open
2586 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2587 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2590 =item Missing control char name in \c
2592 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2595 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2597 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2598 they have a name with which they can be found.
2600 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2602 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2603 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2604 can vary from one line to the next.
2606 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2608 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2609 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2611 =item Missing right brace on %s
2613 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2615 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
2618 C<\N> has two meanings.
2620 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed
2621 in braces, meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that name.
2622 Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2623 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns, it doesn't
2624 have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2626 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only) in
2627 patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short for
2628 C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2630 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately by a
2631 left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if
2632 the braces form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes
2633 that this means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2634 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a C<\N{>
2635 and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2637 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly
2638 omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and
2639 raises this error. If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant
2640 the latter, escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2642 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2644 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2645 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2648 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2650 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2651 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2652 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2654 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2656 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2657 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2658 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2660 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2663 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2665 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2666 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2669 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2670 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2673 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2675 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2676 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2679 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2681 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2682 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2684 =item Module name must be constant
2686 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2688 =item Module name required with -%c option
2690 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2691 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2692 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2694 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
2696 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2697 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2698 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2699 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2701 =item msg%s not implemented
2703 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2705 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2707 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2708 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2710 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2712 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2713 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2714 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2716 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2718 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2721 =item "%s" variable %s can't be in a package
2723 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2724 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2725 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2727 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
2729 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2730 character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses its
2731 specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not what you want.
2733 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2735 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or sequence
2736 was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that bypass the lexer,
2737 such as using single-quotish context, or an extra backslash in double quotish:
2739 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
2740 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
2743 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
2745 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2748 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2752 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2754 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2755 doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2757 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2758 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2760 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2763 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2765 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2766 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2767 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2768 provided for this purpose.
2770 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2771 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2772 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2773 will not trigger this warning.
2775 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2777 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2778 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than 0 - 9
2779 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2781 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2783 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2784 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2786 =item Negative length
2788 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2789 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2791 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2793 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2794 greater than or equal to zero.
2796 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2798 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2799 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2800 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2802 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2803 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2805 =item %s never introduced
2807 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2808 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2810 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2812 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2813 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2816 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2818 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2819 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2820 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2821 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2823 =item No comma allowed after %s
2825 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2826 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2827 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2829 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2830 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2831 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2832 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2833 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see, please see
2834 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2835 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2836 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2837 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2838 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2839 this error was triggered?
2841 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2843 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2844 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2845 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2847 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2849 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2850 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2851 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2854 =item No dbm on this machine
2856 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2857 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2859 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2861 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2862 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2863 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2864 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2866 =item No B<-e> allowed in setuid scripts
2868 (F) A setuid script can't be specified by the user.
2870 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2872 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2873 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2874 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2876 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2878 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2879 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2881 =item No input file after < on command line
2883 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2884 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2885 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2889 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
2890 even on machines that don't support the #! construct.
2892 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2894 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2895 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2896 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2897 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2899 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2901 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2902 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2904 =item No output file after > on command line
2906 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2907 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2908 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2910 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2912 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2913 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2914 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
2916 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
2918 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
2919 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
2920 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
2922 =item No Perl script found in input
2924 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
2925 with #! and containing the word "perl".
2927 =item No setregid available
2929 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
2932 =item No setreuid available
2934 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
2937 =item No %s specified for -%c
2939 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
2940 you haven't specified one.
2941 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
2943 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
2944 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
2945 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
2947 =item No such class %s
2949 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state" declaration, but
2950 this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
2952 =item No such hook: %s
2954 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl. Currently, Perl
2955 accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks
2957 =item No such pipe open
2959 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
2960 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
2961 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
2963 =item No such signal: SIG%s
2965 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
2966 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
2967 names on your system.
2969 =item Not a CODE reference
2971 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
2972 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
2973 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
2976 =item Not a format reference
2978 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
2979 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
2981 =item Not a GLOB reference
2983 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
2984 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
2985 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
2986 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2988 =item Not a HASH reference
2990 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
2991 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
2992 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
2994 =item Not an ARRAY reference
2996 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
2997 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
2998 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3000 =item Not a perl script
3002 (F) The setuid emulator requires that scripts have a well-formed #! line
3003 even on machines that don't support the #! construct. The line must
3006 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3008 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3009 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3010 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3012 =item Not a subroutine reference
3014 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3015 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3016 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3019 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3021 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3022 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3024 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3026 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3028 =item Not enough format arguments
3030 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3031 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3035 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3036 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3039 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3041 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3042 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3043 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3044 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3045 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3047 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3049 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was unexpectedly
3050 encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as indicated.
3052 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3054 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3055 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3056 select. See L<perlfunc/select>
3058 =item Null filename used
3060 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3061 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
3063 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3065 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3068 =item Null picture in formline
3070 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3071 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3072 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3076 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3078 =item NULL regexp argument
3080 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3082 =item NULL regexp parameter
3084 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3086 =item Number too long
3088 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3089 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3090 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3091 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3094 =item Number with no digits
3096 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like a number.
3097 This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between the braces.
3099 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
3101 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3102 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3105 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3107 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3108 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3109 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3111 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
3113 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3115 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3116 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3118 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3120 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3121 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3123 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3125 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3126 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3128 =item Offset outside string
3130 (F, W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3131 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3132 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3133 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3134 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3135 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3138 =item %s() on unopened %s
3140 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3141 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3142 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3144 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3146 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3147 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3151 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3155 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3157 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3159 (W io deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3160 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3161 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3164 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3166 (W io deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3167 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3168 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3171 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3173 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3174 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3175 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3176 C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3178 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3180 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3181 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3182 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3183 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3186 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3188 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3189 in the current lexical scope.
3191 =item Out of memory!
3193 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3194 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3195 no option but to exit immediately.
3197 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3198 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3199 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3200 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3201 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3203 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3205 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3206 the largest possible memory allocation.
3208 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3210 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3211 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3212 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3213 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3215 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3217 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3218 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3221 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3222 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3223 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3224 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3225 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3226 where the failed request happened.
3228 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3230 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3231 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3232 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3234 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3236 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3237 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3240 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3242 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3243 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3245 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3247 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3248 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3250 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3252 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3253 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3254 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3256 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3258 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3259 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3262 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3264 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3265 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3267 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3269 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3270 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3271 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3272 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3274 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3276 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3277 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3281 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3282 page. See L<perlform>.
3286 (P) An internal error.
3288 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3290 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3291 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3292 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3293 enter this branch on this platform.
3295 =item panic: ck_grep
3297 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3299 =item panic: ck_split
3301 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3303 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3305 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3306 there are in the savestack.
3308 =item panic: del_backref
3310 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3313 =item panic: Devel::DProf inconsistent subroutine return
3315 (P) Devel::DProf called a subroutine that exited using goto(LABEL),
3316 last(LABEL) or next(LABEL). Leaving that way a subroutine called from
3317 an XSUB will lead very probably to a crash of the interpreter. This is
3318 a bug that will hopefully one day get fixed.
3322 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3323 it wasn't an eval context.
3325 =item panic: do_subst
3327 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3330 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3332 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3335 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3337 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3342 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3346 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3347 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3349 =item panic: hfreeentries failed to free hash
3351 (P) The internal routine used to clear a hashes entries tried repeatedly,
3352 but each time something added more entries to the hash. Most likely the hash
3353 contains an object with a reference back to the hash and a destructor that
3354 adds a new object to the hash.
3356 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3358 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3360 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3362 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3364 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3366 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3370 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3371 it wasn't a block context.
3373 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3375 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3378 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3380 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3381 invalid enum on the top of it.
3383 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3385 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3386 references to an object.
3390 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3392 =item panic: memory wrap
3394 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3396 =item panic: pad_alloc
3398 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3399 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3401 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3403 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3404 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3406 =item panic: pad_free po
3408 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3410 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3412 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3413 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3415 =item panic: pad_sv po
3417 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3419 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3421 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3422 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3424 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3426 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3428 =item panic: pp_iter
3430 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3432 =item panic: pp_match%s
3434 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3437 =item panic: pp_split
3439 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3441 =item panic: realloc
3443 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3445 =item panic: restartop
3447 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3448 didn't supply the destination.
3452 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3453 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3455 =item panic: scan_num
3457 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3459 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3461 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3462 scalar's string buffer.
3464 =item panic: sv_insert
3466 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3469 =item panic: top_env
3471 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3473 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3475 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't permitted
3478 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3480 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3481 to even) byte length.
3483 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3485 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3486 to even) byte length.
3490 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3492 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3494 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3497 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3499 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3500 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3501 nesting limit is exceeded.
3503 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3506 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3508 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3514 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3516 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3518 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3520 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3521 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3522 redirected it with select().)
3524 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3526 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3527 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3528 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3530 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3532 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3533 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3534 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3535 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3537 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3539 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3540 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3541 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3543 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3545 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3546 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3548 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3550 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3552 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3554 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3556 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3557 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3560 are supported and installed on your system.
3561 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3563 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3564 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3565 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3566 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3567 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3568 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3569 Perl can and will use, the script will be run. Before you really fix
3570 the problem, however, you will get the same error message each time
3571 you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3572 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3574 =item pid %x not a child
3576 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3577 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3578 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3580 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3582 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3584 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3586 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3587 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3588 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3589 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3590 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3592 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3594 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3595 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3597 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3599 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3600 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3601 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3602 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3603 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3604 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3606 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3608 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3609 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3610 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3611 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3612 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3613 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3615 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3617 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3618 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3619 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3620 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3621 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3622 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3624 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3626 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3627 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3628 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3629 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3631 You probably wrote something like this:
3638 when you should have written this:
3645 If you really want comments, build your list the
3646 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3650 'b', # another comment
3653 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3655 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3656 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3657 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3660 You probably wrote something like this:
3664 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3665 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3669 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3671 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3672 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3673 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3674 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3676 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3678 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3679 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3681 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3683 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3684 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3685 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3686 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3688 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3690 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3691 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3692 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3693 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3695 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3697 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3698 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3699 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3700 followed by the word 'bar'.
3702 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3703 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3705 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3706 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3707 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3709 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3711 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3715 is now misinterpreted as
3719 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3720 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3721 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3724 =item Premature end of script headers
3728 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3730 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3731 before now. Check your control flow.
3733 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3735 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3736 before now. Check your control flow.
3738 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3740 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3741 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3742 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3743 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3746 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3748 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3749 since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3751 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3753 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3754 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3756 =item Prototype not terminated
3758 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3761 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3763 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3764 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3765 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3767 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3769 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3770 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3771 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3773 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3775 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3776 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3777 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3778 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3779 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3781 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3784 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3786 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3787 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3788 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3789 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3791 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3793 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3794 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3796 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3798 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3799 before now. Check your control flow.
3801 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3803 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3805 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3807 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3809 =item Reallocation too large: %lx
3811 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3813 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3815 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3818 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3820 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3821 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3822 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3824 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3826 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3827 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3828 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3830 =item Recursive inheritance detected while looking for method %s
3832 (F) More than 100 levels of inheritance were encountered while invoking
3833 a method. Probably indicates an unintended loop in your inheritance
3836 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3838 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3839 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3840 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3841 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3843 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3844 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3845 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3846 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3848 =item Reference is already weak
3850 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3851 Doing so has no effect.
3853 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
3855 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
3856 a reference count of other than 1.
3858 =item Reference to invalid group 0
3860 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
3861 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
3862 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
3863 backreferences), but using 0 does not make sense.
3865 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3867 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
3868 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If you
3869 wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular expression,
3870 prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
3872 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3875 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3877 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there are
3878 not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the expression before
3879 where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
3881 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3884 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3886 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
3887 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses such
3888 as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<(?<NAME>...). Check if the name has been spelled
3889 correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
3891 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3894 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3896 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
3897 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
3898 of the C<....> part.
3900 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3903 =item regexp memory corruption
3905 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
3906 expression compiler gave it.
3908 =item Regexp out of space
3910 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
3913 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
3915 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
3916 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
3917 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
3919 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
3921 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
3922 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
3925 =item Reversed %s= operator
3927 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
3928 always comes last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
3930 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3932 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
3933 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3935 =item Scalars leaked: %d
3937 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
3938 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
3939 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
3940 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
3942 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
3944 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
3945 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
3946 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
3947 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3948 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3949 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3950 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3952 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
3953 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
3954 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3957 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
3959 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
3960 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
3961 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
3962 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
3963 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
3964 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
3965 if you're expecting only one subscript.
3967 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
3968 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
3969 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
3972 =item Search pattern not terminated
3974 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
3975 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
3976 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
3978 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
3979 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
3980 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
3981 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
3983 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
3985 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
3988 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
3989 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
3990 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
3991 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
3993 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
3995 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
3996 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
3998 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4000 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4001 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4003 =item select not implemented
4005 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4007 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
4009 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4010 the current implementation.
4012 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
4014 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4015 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
4017 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4019 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4020 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
4022 =item sem%s not implemented
4024 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
4026 =item send() on closed socket %s
4028 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
4029 before now. Check your control flow.
4031 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4033 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
4034 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4037 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4039 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
4040 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4041 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4043 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4045 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4046 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4047 discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4048 Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
4049 redundantly specify a default modifier; or having a modifier that can't
4050 be turned off (such as C<"p"> or C<"l">) after a minus; or specifying
4051 more than one of the C<"d">, C<"l">, or C<"u"> modifiers. For other
4052 causes, see L<perlre>.
4054 =item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4056 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4057 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4059 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4061 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
4062 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
4063 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4066 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4068 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contains braces, they must balance
4069 for Perl to properly detect the end of the clause. The <-- HERE shows in
4070 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4073 =item 500 Server error
4079 This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
4080 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
4081 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
4082 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
4083 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
4084 produce a valid header".
4086 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4088 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
4089 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
4090 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
4091 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
4092 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
4093 Please see the following for more information:
4095 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4096 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4097 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
4099 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4101 =item setegid() not implemented
4103 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4104 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4107 =item seteuid() not implemented
4109 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4110 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4113 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4115 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4116 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4119 =item setrgid() not implemented
4121 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4122 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4125 =item setruid() not implemented
4127 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4128 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4131 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4133 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4134 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4135 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4137 =item Setuid/gid script is writable by world
4139 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that is writable by the
4140 world, because the world might have written on it already.
4142 =item Setuid script not plain file
4144 (F) The setuid emulator won't run a script that isn't read from a file,
4145 but from a socket, a pipe or another device.
4147 =item shm%s not implemented
4149 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4151 =item !=~ should be !~
4153 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4154 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4155 operators: probably not what you intended.
4157 =item <> should be quotes
4159 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4162 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4164 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4165 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4166 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4167 probably not what you had in mind.
4169 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4171 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4174 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4176 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4177 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4179 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4181 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4182 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4185 =item sort is now a reserved word
4187 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4188 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4190 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4192 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4193 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4195 =item splice() offset past end of array
4197 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4198 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4199 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4200 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4205 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4206 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4207 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4209 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4211 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4212 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4213 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4214 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4217 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4219 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4220 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4222 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4224 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4225 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4226 C<can> may break this.
4228 =item Subroutine %s redefined
4230 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
4233 no warnings 'redefine';
4234 eval "sub name { ... }";
4237 =item Substitution loop
4239 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4240 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4241 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
4242 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
4244 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
4246 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4247 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4248 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4250 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
4252 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4253 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4254 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4256 =item substr outside of string
4258 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4259 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4260 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4261 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4262 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
4264 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4266 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade an SV to a type which was actually
4267 inferior to its current type.
4269 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4271 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4272 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4273 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4274 clustering parentheses:
4276 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4278 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4279 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4281 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4283 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is a
4284 number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4285 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4287 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4289 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4290 and effective uids or gids.
4294 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4298 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4300 A keyword is misspelled.
4301 A semicolon is missing.
4303 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4304 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4305 A closing quote is missing.
4307 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4308 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4309 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4310 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4311 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4312 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4313 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4314 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4315 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
4318 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4320 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4321 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4324 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4326 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4327 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4328 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4330 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4332 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4334 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4336 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4338 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4340 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4341 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4342 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4343 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4345 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4347 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4348 before now. Check your control flow.
4350 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4352 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4353 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4355 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4357 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4358 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4360 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4362 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4363 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4365 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4367 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4368 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4370 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4372 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4373 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4382 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4383 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[>.
4385 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4387 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4388 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4389 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4390 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4393 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4395 The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4396 to the probings of Configure.
4398 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4400 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4401 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4402 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4405 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4407 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4409 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4411 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4413 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4414 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4415 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4416 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4417 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4418 target of the change to
4419 %ENV which produced the warning.
4421 =item thread failed to start: %s
4423 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4425 =item times not implemented
4427 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4428 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4430 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4432 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4433 B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4434 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4435 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4438 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4439 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4440 editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4441 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
4443 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4444 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
4446 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4448 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4449 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4450 specified an illegal mapping.
4451 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4453 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4455 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4457 =item Too few args to syscall
4459 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4460 system call to call, silly dilly.
4462 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4464 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4465 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4467 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4468 not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4470 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4471 (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4472 this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4473 script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
4475 =item Too late to run %s block
4477 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4478 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4479 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4480 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4483 =item Too many args to syscall
4485 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4487 =item Too many arguments for %s
4489 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4493 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4494 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4498 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4499 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4501 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4503 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4504 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4506 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4508 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4509 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4510 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4512 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4514 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4515 y/// or y[][] construct.
4517 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4519 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4520 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4522 =item truncate not implemented
4524 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4525 Configure knows about.
4527 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4529 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4530 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4531 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4532 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4534 =item Type of argument to %s must be hashref or arrayref
4536 (F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with an argument that was
4537 expected to be a reference to a hash or a reference to an array.
4539 =item umask not implemented
4541 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4542 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4544 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4546 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4548 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4550 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4551 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4553 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4555 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4556 many values were temporarily localized.
4558 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4560 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4561 many blocks were entered and left.
4563 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4565 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4566 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4568 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4570 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4571 another package? See L<perlform>.
4573 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4575 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4576 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4578 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4580 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4581 since been undefined.
4583 =item Undefined subroutine called
4585 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4586 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4588 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4590 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4591 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4593 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4595 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4596 another package? See L<perlform>.
4598 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4600 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4601 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4604 =item %s: Undefined variable
4606 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4607 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4609 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4611 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4612 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4614 =item Unicode non-character %s is illegal for interchange
4616 (W utf8) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are defined by the
4617 Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4618 reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
4619 them. In some cases, this message is also given if you use a codepoint that
4620 isn't in Unicode--that is it is above the legal maximum of U+10FFFF. These
4621 aren't legal at all in Unicode, so they are illegal for interchange, but can be
4622 used internally in a Perl program. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4623 off this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
4625 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4627 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4630 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4632 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4633 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4634 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4636 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4638 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4639 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4640 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4641 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4642 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4643 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4645 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4647 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4648 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4649 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4650 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4652 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4654 You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4656 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%.2s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4658 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4659 is not known. The condition may be lookahead or lookbehind (the condition
4660 is true if the lookahead or lookbehind is true), a (?{...}) construct (the
4661 condition is true if the code evaluates to a true value), or a number (the
4662 condition is true if the set of capturing parentheses named by the number
4665 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4666 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4668 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4670 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4671 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4673 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4675 You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4676 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4678 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4680 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4681 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4683 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a module
4684 (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have imported this module
4686 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4688 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4689 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4690 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4694 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4696 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
4697 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
4698 first. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4699 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4701 =item unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4703 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
4704 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding the
4705 matching parenthesis. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4706 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4708 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
4710 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
4711 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
4712 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
4713 you were last editing.
4715 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
4717 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
4718 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
4719 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
4722 =item Unrecognized character %s; marked by <-- HERE after %s near column %d
4724 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
4725 in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you tried
4726 to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.
4728 =item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4730 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4731 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
4732 understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
4733 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4734 escape was discovered.
4736 =item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
4738 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4739 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4740 change in a future version of Perl.
4742 =item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4744 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
4745 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
4746 change in a future version of Perl.
4747 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
4748 escape was discovered.
4750 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
4752 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
4753 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
4756 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
4758 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
4759 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
4760 bad switch on your behalf.)
4762 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
4764 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
4765 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
4766 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
4768 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
4770 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
4772 =item Unsupported function %s
4774 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
4775 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
4777 =item Unsupported function fork
4779 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
4781 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
4782 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
4783 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
4785 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
4787 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
4788 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
4790 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
4792 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
4793 least that's what Configure thought.
4795 =item Unterminated attribute list
4797 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
4798 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
4799 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
4800 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
4802 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
4804 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
4805 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
4806 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
4807 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
4809 =item Unterminated compressed integer
4811 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
4812 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
4813 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4815 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4817 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
4818 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4820 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4822 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
4823 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
4825 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4827 (F) You missed a close brace on a \g{..} pattern (group reference) in
4828 a regular expression. Fix the pattern and retry.
4830 =item Unterminated <> operator
4832 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
4833 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
4834 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
4835 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
4837 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
4839 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
4840 still valid when C<untie> was called.
4842 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
4844 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
4845 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
4847 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
4849 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
4850 See L<Win32> for more information.
4852 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4854 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
4855 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
4857 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
4861 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
4863 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4864 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4866 =item Useless localization of %s
4868 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is
4869 legal, but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
4870 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
4872 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4874 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
4875 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
4877 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
4881 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
4883 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4884 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4886 =item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
4888 (W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
4889 same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
4890 about the /d modifier.
4892 =item Useless use of %s in void context
4894 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
4895 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
4896 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
4897 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
4898 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
4899 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
4904 when you meant to say
4906 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
4908 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
4909 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
4914 when you should have said
4918 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
4919 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
4920 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
4921 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
4922 L<perlref> for more on this.
4924 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
4925 since they are often used in statements like
4927 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
4929 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
4932 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
4934 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
4936 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
4938 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
4942 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
4944 =item Useless use of %s with no values
4946 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
4947 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
4948 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
4949 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
4950 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
4951 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
4953 =item "use" not allowed in expression
4955 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4956 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4958 =item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
4960 (D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
4961 is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
4963 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
4965 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
4966 form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the here-document.
4968 =item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
4970 (D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
4971 separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
4973 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
4975 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
4976 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
4977 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
4980 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
4981 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
4983 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
4985 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
4986 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
4988 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
4990 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
4991 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
4992 used. (This may change in the future.)
4994 =item Use of := for an empty attribute list is deprecated
4996 (D deprecated) The construction C<my $x := 42> currently
4997 parses correctly in perl, being equivalent to C<my $x : = 42>
4998 (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>). This useless
4999 construct is now deprecated, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new
5000 operator in the future.
5002 =item Use of freed value in iteration
5004 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
5005 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
5008 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
5010 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
5011 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
5012 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
5013 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
5015 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
5017 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
5018 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
5020 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
5022 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
5023 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
5024 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
5026 =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
5028 (D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
5029 scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
5031 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
5033 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD> subroutines
5034 are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy) even when the
5035 subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain functions (e.g.
5036 C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or C<<
5039 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
5040 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
5041 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
5042 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
5045 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
5046 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
5047 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
5048 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
5051 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
5052 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
5053 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
5055 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
5057 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
5058 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
5060 =item Use of %s is deprecated
5062 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
5063 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
5064 old way has bad side effects.
5066 =item Use of -l on filehandle %s
5068 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
5069 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
5070 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
5072 =item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
5074 (D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
5075 name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
5076 otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
5079 =item Use of qw(...) as parentheses is deprecated
5081 (D deprecated) You have something like C<foreach $x qw(a b c) {...}>,
5082 using a C<qw(...)> list literal where a parenthesised expression is
5083 expected. Historically the parser fooled itself into thinking that
5084 C<qw(...)> literals were always enclosed in parentheses, and as a result
5085 you could sometimes omit parentheses around them. (You could never do
5086 the C<foreach qw(a b c) {...}> that you might have expected, though.)
5087 The parser no longer lies to itself in this way. Wrap the list literal
5088 in parentheses, like C<foreach $x (qw(a b c)) {...}>.
5090 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
5092 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
5093 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
5094 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
5096 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
5097 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
5098 either, because you can overload the numification and stringification
5099 operators and then you assumably know what you are doing.
5101 =item Use of reserved word "%s" is deprecated
5103 (D deprecated) The indicated bareword is a reserved word. Future
5104 versions of perl may use it as a keyword, so you're better off either
5105 explicitly quoting the word in a manner appropriate for its context of
5106 use, or using a different name altogether. The warning can be
5107 suppressed for subroutine names by either adding a C<&> prefix, or using
5108 a package qualifier, e.g. C<&our()>, or C<Foo::our()>.
5110 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
5112 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
5113 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
5114 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
5115 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
5117 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
5119 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
5120 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
5121 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
5123 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the
5124 name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot
5125 do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value
5126 in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation
5127 displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your
5128 program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually optimized into C<"that "
5129 . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the C<concatenation (.)> operator,
5130 even though there is no C<.> in your program.
5132 =item Using a hash as a reference is deprecated
5134 (D deprecated) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
5135 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1
5136 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will
5137 be removed in a future version.
5139 =item Using an array as a reference is deprecated
5141 (D deprecated) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
5142 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.6.1 used to
5143 allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. It is now deprecated, and will be
5144 removed in a future version.
5146 =item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
5148 (F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
5149 currently reserved for future use, as the exact behaviour has not
5150 been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
5151 modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
5153 =item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class
5155 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of more than one character.
5156 Currently all but the first one are discarded when used in a regular
5157 expression pattern bracketed character class.
5159 =item Using just the first characters returned by \N{}
5161 (W) A charnames handler may return a sequence of characters. There is a finite
5162 limit as to the number of characters that can be used, which this sequence
5163 exceeded. In the message, the characters in the sequence are separated by
5164 dots, and each is shown by its ordinal in hex. Anything to the left of the
5165 C<HERE> was retained; anything to the right was discarded.
5167 =item UTF-16 surrogate %s
5169 (W utf8) You tried to generate half of a UTF-16 surrogate by
5170 requesting a Unicode character between the code points 0xD800 and
5171 0xDFFF (inclusive). That range is reserved exclusively for the use of
5172 UTF-16 encoding (by having two 16-bit UCS-2 characters); but Perl
5173 encodes its characters in UTF-8, so what you got is a very illegal
5174 character. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn off
5175 this warning by C<no warnings 'utf8';>.
5177 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
5179 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
5180 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
5181 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
5182 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
5183 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
5184 C<defined> operator.
5186 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
5188 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
5189 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
5190 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
5193 =item Variable "%s" is not available
5195 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5196 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
5197 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
5198 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
5199 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
5200 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
5202 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
5204 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
5205 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
5206 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
5207 now been created and is live:
5209 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
5211 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
5212 gone out of scope, for example,
5220 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently being
5221 executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
5223 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
5225 (W misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
5226 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
5227 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
5228 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
5229 front of your variable.
5231 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in m/%s/
5233 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
5234 known at compile time. See L<perlre>.
5236 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5238 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current
5239 scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous
5240 instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the
5241 earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until
5242 all closure referents to it are destroyed.
5244 =item Variable syntax
5246 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
5247 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
5250 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
5252 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
5253 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
5255 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
5256 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
5257 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
5258 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
5259 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
5260 variable will no longer be shared.
5262 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
5263 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
5264 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
5265 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
5267 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5269 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an argument
5270 or check that you are using the right verb.
5272 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5274 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
5275 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
5277 =item Version number must be a constant number
5279 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
5280 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
5283 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
5285 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
5288 =item Warning: something's wrong
5290 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
5291 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
5293 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
5295 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
5296 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
5299 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
5301 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
5302 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
5303 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
5304 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
5308 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
5312 but in actual fact, you got
5316 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
5318 =item Wide character in %s
5320 (S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
5321 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
5322 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
5323 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
5324 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
5325 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
5326 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
5328 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
5330 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]> only if
5331 C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that can be
5332 determined from the template alone. This is not possible if it contains an
5333 of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign the template.
5335 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
5337 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
5338 before now. Check your control flow.
5340 =item %s "\x%s" does not map to Unicode
5342 When reading in different encodings Perl tries to map everything
5343 into Unicode characters. The bytes you read in are not legal in
5344 this encoding, for example
5346 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
5348 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
5350 =item 'X' outside of string
5352 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
5353 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5355 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
5357 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
5358 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
5360 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
5362 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
5363 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
5364 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
5367 =item You need to quote "%s"
5369 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
5370 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
5371 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
5372 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
5373 what you want, put an & in front.)
5375 =item Your random numbers are not that random
5377 (F) When trying to initialise the random seed for hashes, Perl could
5378 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
5379 Something Very Wrong.
5385 L<warnings>, L<perllexwarn>.