3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
23 below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %x
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
94 (S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
95 string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
96 the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
99 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
101 (S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
102 bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
103 (denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
104 like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
105 assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
106 clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
107 really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
109 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
111 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
112 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
113 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
114 the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
115 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
116 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
118 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
120 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
122 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
123 the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
124 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
125 might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
126 foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
127 that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
129 In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
130 to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
131 C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
132 by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
133 want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
134 unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
135 that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
136 off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
138 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
140 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
141 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
142 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
144 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
146 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
147 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
148 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
149 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
150 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
152 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
159 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
161 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
162 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
163 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
164 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
165 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
166 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
169 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
171 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
173 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
175 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
176 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
177 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
179 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
181 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
182 system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
183 take care of transforming data between external and internal
184 representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
185 point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
186 didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
187 result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
189 =item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
191 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
192 operator which expects either a number or a string matching
193 C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
194 Auto-decrement> for details.
196 =item assertion botched: %s
198 (X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
200 =item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
202 (X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
204 =item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
206 (F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
207 the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
209 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
211 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
212 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
213 know which context to supply to the right side.
215 =item <> at require-statement should be quotes
217 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
220 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
222 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
223 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
225 =item Attempt to bless into a freed package
227 (F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
228 the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
229 do, so it throws up in hands in despair.
231 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
233 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
234 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
235 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
241 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
243 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
244 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
247 bless $self, "$proto";
249 =item Attempt to clear deleted array
251 (S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
252 Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
253 can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
254 callback on the array.
256 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
258 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
259 which is not in its key set.
261 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
263 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
264 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
266 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
268 (S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
269 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
270 outside any of those arenas.
272 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
274 (S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
275 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
276 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
277 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
279 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
281 (S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
282 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
283 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
284 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
287 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
289 (S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
291 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
293 (S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
294 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
295 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
296 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
297 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
298 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
301 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
303 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
304 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
305 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
306 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
307 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
310 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
312 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
313 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
314 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
317 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
319 (W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
320 been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
321 scalar representing the last index of an array and later
322 assigning through that reference. For example
324 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
327 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
329 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
330 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
331 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
333 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
335 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
336 "locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
337 obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
338 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
340 =item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
342 (W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
343 example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
344 declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
346 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
348 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
349 the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
350 The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
351 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
353 =item av_reify called on tied array
355 (S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
356 confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
358 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
360 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
361 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
362 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
363 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
365 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
367 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
368 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
369 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
371 =item Bad filehandle: %s
373 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
374 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
375 open(), or did it in another package.
377 =item Bad free() ignored
379 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
380 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
381 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
383 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
384 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
385 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
389 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
391 =item Badly placed ()'s
393 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
394 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
397 =item Bad name after %s
399 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
400 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
409 $sym = "mypack::$var";
411 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
413 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
416 =item Bad realloc() ignored
418 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
419 had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
420 be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
422 =item Bad symbol for array
424 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
425 wasn't a symbol table entry.
427 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
429 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
430 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
432 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
434 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
435 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
437 =item Bad symbol for hash
439 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
440 wasn't a symbol table entry.
442 =item Bareword found in conditional
444 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
445 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
446 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
450 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
453 use constant TYPO => 1;
454 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
456 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
458 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
460 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
461 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
462 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
464 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
466 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
467 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
468 you need to predeclare a package?
470 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
472 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
473 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
476 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
478 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
479 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
480 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
481 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
482 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
484 =item \%d better written as $%d
486 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
487 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
488 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
489 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
490 there are more than 9 backreferences.
492 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
494 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
495 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
496 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
498 =item bind() on closed socket %s
500 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
501 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
503 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
505 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
506 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
508 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
510 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
512 =item Bizarre copy of %s
514 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
517 =item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
519 (P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
520 encountered an invalid data type.
522 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
524 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
525 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
526 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
528 =item Callback called exit
530 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
531 exited by calling exit.
533 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
535 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
536 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
537 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
538 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
539 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
540 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
541 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
542 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
544 =item Calling POSIX::%s() is deprecated
546 (D deprecated) You called a function whose use is deprecated. See
547 the function's name in L<POSIX> for details.
549 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
551 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
552 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
553 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
554 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
556 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
558 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
559 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
561 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
563 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
564 in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
565 The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
566 no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
568 =item Cannot copy to %s
570 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
571 be directly assigned to.
573 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
575 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
576 either with open() or binmode().
578 =item Cannot set tied @DB::args
580 (F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
581 is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
583 =item Cannot tie unreifiable array
585 (P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
586 keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
587 do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
588 Perl code, but are only used internally.
590 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
592 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
593 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
594 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
596 =item Can't bless non-reference value
598 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
599 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
601 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
603 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
604 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
606 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
608 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
610 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
612 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
613 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
614 like this will reproduce the error:
617 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
618 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
620 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
622 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
623 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
624 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
625 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
627 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
629 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
630 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
631 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
632 Something like this will reproduce the error:
635 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
636 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
638 =item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
640 (P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
641 symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
643 =item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
645 (F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
646 not attached to the symbol table.
648 =item Can't chdir to %s
650 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
651 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
653 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
655 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
658 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
660 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
661 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
671 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
673 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
675 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
678 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
680 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
681 quotas or other plumbing problems.
683 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
685 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
686 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
688 =item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
690 (F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
691 C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
692 issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
693 error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
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, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. 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 waitpid with flags
719 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
720 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
722 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
724 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
725 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
728 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
730 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
731 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
732 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
733 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
735 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
737 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
738 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
739 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
740 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
741 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
742 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
747 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
748 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
749 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
751 =item Can't execute %s
753 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
754 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
756 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
758 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
759 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
761 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
763 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
764 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
765 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
766 for a complete list of available official properties.
768 =item Can't find label %s
770 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
771 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
773 =item Can't find %s on PATH
775 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
778 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
780 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
781 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
782 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
784 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
786 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
787 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
788 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
790 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
792 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
793 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
794 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
795 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
796 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
798 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
800 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
801 property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
802 letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
803 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
804 for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
805 mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by
806 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
811 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
814 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
816 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
819 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
821 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
822 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
823 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
824 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
825 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
826 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
827 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
828 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
829 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
830 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
831 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
832 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
833 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
834 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
835 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
837 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
839 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
840 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
842 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
844 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
845 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
847 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
849 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
850 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
852 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
854 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
855 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
856 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
857 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
859 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
861 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
864 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
866 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
867 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
868 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
870 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
872 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
873 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
874 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
875 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
877 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
879 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
880 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
881 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
882 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
883 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
884 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
886 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
888 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
889 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
892 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
894 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
895 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
896 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
897 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
898 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
899 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
902 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
904 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
905 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
907 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
909 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
910 This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
911 that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
912 to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
913 dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
914 that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
917 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
919 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
920 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
921 want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
924 =item Can't localize through a reference
926 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
927 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
928 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
929 that $ref will still be a reference.
931 =item Can't locate %s
933 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
934 Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
935 the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
936 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
937 extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
938 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
939 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
941 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
943 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
944 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
945 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
946 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
948 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
950 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
951 for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
952 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
954 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
956 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
957 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
958 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
960 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
962 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
963 doesn't seem to exist.
965 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
967 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
968 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
970 =item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
972 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
975 =item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
977 (S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
978 that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
979 process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
980 the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
981 from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
982 functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
984 =item Can't modify %s in %s
986 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
987 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
989 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
991 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
994 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
996 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
997 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
999 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
1001 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
1004 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1006 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1007 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1008 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1009 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1010 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1011 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1013 =item Can't open %s: %s
1015 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1016 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1017 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1018 this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1019 you named on the command line.
1021 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1022 your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
1024 =item Can't open a reference
1026 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1027 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1031 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1032 open is not supported.
1034 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1036 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1037 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1038 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1039 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1041 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1043 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1044 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1045 the command line for writing.
1047 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1049 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1050 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1051 command line for reading.
1053 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1055 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1056 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1057 the command line for writing.
1059 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1061 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1062 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1065 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
1067 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1069 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1070 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1071 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1073 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1075 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1076 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1077 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1078 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1081 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1083 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1084 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1085 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1086 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1087 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1088 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1090 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1092 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1093 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1094 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1096 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1098 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1099 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1101 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1103 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1104 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1106 =item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1108 (F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1109 all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1110 the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1111 supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1113 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1115 (F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1116 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1117 package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1119 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1121 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1122 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1125 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1127 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1128 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1130 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1132 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1133 subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1134 think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1135 write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1136 Perl that the call should be in list context.
1138 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1140 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1141 open already. Bizarre.
1143 =item Can't take log of %g
1145 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1146 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1147 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1150 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1152 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1153 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1154 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1156 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1158 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1159 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1160 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1162 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1164 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1165 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1166 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1167 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1169 =item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1171 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1172 other than "=" after the module name.
1174 =item Can't use a hash as a reference
1176 (F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1177 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1178 <= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1179 have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1181 =item Can't use an array as a reference
1183 (F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1184 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1185 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1186 was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1188 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1190 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1191 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1192 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1194 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1196 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1197 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1199 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1201 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1202 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1204 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1206 (F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1207 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1208 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1210 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1212 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1213 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1214 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1216 =item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1218 (F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1219 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1220 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1222 =item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1224 (F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1226 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1227 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1228 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1229 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1230 generates a fatal error.
1232 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1233 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1239 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1240 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1241 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1244 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1246 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1249 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1251 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1252 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1253 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1254 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1257 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1259 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1260 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1261 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1262 is inside a big-endian group.
1264 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1266 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1267 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1268 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1269 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1272 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1274 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1275 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1276 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1278 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1280 =item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1282 (F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1283 C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1284 L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1285 in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1286 for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1287 of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1288 symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
1290 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1292 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1293 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1294 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1296 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1298 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1299 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1300 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1301 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1302 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1305 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1307 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1308 references can be weakened.
1310 =item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1312 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1313 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1314 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1315 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1317 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1319 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1320 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1321 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1323 =item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
1325 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
1327 Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
1328 discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
1329 L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
1331 =item Character in 'C' format overflow in pack
1333 (W pack) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an
1334 unsigned character, which makes no sense. Perl behaved as if you
1337 =item Character in 'c' format overflow in pack
1339 (W pack) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to a
1340 signed character, which makes no sense. Perl behaved as if you
1343 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1349 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1350 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1351 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1355 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1358 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1364 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1365 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1366 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1368 pack("c", $x & 255);
1370 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1373 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1375 (W unpack) You tried something like
1377 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1379 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1380 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1381 value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1383 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1385 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1391 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1392 expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1395 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1397 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1399 (W pack) You tried something like
1401 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1403 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1404 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1405 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1407 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1409 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1411 (W unpack) You tried something like
1413 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1415 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1416 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1417 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1419 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1421 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple spaces
1423 (F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1424 in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1425 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1426 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1427 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1429 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space
1431 (F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1432 character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1433 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1434 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1435 See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1437 =item \C is deprecated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1439 (D deprecated, regexp) The \C character class is deprecated, and will
1440 become a compile-time error in a future release of perl (tentatively
1441 v5.24). This construct allows you to match a single byte of what makes up
1442 a multi-byte single UTF8 character, and breaks encapsulation. It is
1443 currently also very buggy. If you really need to process the individual
1444 bytes, you probably want to convert your string to one where each
1445 underlying byte is stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1447 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1449 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1450 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1451 is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1452 for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1453 between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
1455 =item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1457 (F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1459 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1461 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1462 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1464 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1466 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1468 =item Closure prototype called
1470 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1471 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1472 This subroutine cannot be called.
1474 =item Code missing after '/'
1476 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1477 another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1479 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1481 (S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1484 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1485 to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1486 but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1487 it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1488 but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
1491 =item %s: Command not found
1493 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1494 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1495 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1499 =item Compilation failed in require
1501 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1502 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1503 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1505 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1507 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1508 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1509 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1510 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1511 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1512 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1513 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1514 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1515 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1517 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1519 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1520 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1521 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1523 =item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1525 (F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1526 (see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1527 L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1529 =item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1531 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1532 overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
1535 =item Constant is not %s reference
1537 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1538 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1539 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1540 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1541 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1543 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1545 (W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1546 been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1547 for commentary and workarounds.
1549 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1551 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1552 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1555 =item Constant(%s) unknown
1557 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1558 to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1559 character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1560 forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?.
1562 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1564 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1565 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1567 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1569 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1570 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
1571 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1572 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1574 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1575 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1577 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1579 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1581 =item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1583 (P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1584 one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1585 latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1587 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1589 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1590 expression compiler gave it.
1592 =item corrupted regexp program
1594 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1597 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1599 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1601 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1603 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1604 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1608 The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1609 share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1611 =item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1613 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1615 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1616 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1617 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1618 which case it indicates something else.
1620 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1621 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1623 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1624 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1626 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1627 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1628 of the C<....> part.
1630 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1633 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1635 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1636 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1638 =item delete argument is index/value array slice, use array slice
1640 (F) You used index/value array slice syntax (C<%array[...]>) as
1641 the argument to C<delete>. You probably meant C<@array[...]> with
1642 an @ symbol instead.
1644 =item delete argument is key/value hash slice, use hash slice
1646 (F) You used key/value hash slice syntax (C<%hash{...}>) as the argument to
1647 C<delete>. You probably meant C<@hash{...}> with an @ symbol instead.
1649 =item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1651 (F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
1657 or a hash or array slice, such as:
1659 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1660 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
1662 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1664 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1665 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1666 that triggers this error.
1668 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1670 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1671 has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1672 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1673 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1674 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1675 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1676 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1678 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1682 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1684 Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
1685 lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1687 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1689 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1691 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1692 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1693 than to create a dangling reference.
1695 =item Did not produce a valid header
1699 =item %s did not return a true value
1701 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1702 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1703 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1704 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1706 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1708 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1711 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1713 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1714 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1717 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1719 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1720 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1725 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1726 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
1728 =item Document contains no data
1732 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1734 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1735 define a C<$VERSION>.
1737 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1739 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1740 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1742 =item Don't know how to get file name
1744 (P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
1745 somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
1747 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
1749 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1751 =item do_study: out of memory
1753 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1755 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1757 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1758 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1759 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1760 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1761 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1762 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1763 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1764 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1766 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1768 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1769 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1771 =item dump is not supported
1773 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1775 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1777 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1780 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1782 (W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
1783 type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1785 =item each on reference is experimental
1787 (S experimental::autoderef) C<each> with a scalar argument is experimental
1788 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
1789 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
1791 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
1793 =item elseif should be elsif
1795 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
1796 it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1797 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1798 unlikely to be what you want.
1800 =item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1802 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1803 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1804 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1806 =item entering effective %s failed
1808 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1809 effective uids or gids failed.
1811 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1813 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1814 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1815 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1817 =item Error converting file specification %s
1819 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1820 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1821 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1822 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1823 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1825 =item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1827 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1828 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1829 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1831 =item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
1833 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1834 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1835 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1836 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1837 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1838 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1839 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1841 =item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
1843 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1844 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1845 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1847 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
1848 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1850 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1851 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1853 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1856 =item Excessively long <> operator
1858 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1859 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1860 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1861 variable and glob that.
1863 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1865 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
1866 OS. See L<perlport>.
1868 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1870 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1872 =item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
1874 (F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
1875 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
1881 =item exists argument is not a subroutine name
1883 (F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
1884 and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
1886 =item Exiting eval via %s
1888 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1889 goto, or a loop control statement.
1891 =item Exiting format via %s
1893 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1894 goto, or a loop control statement.
1896 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1898 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1899 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1900 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1902 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1904 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1905 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1907 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1909 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1910 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1912 =item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1914 (F) You wrote something like
1918 to denote a capturing group of the form
1919 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
1920 but omitted the C<")">.
1922 =item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1924 (F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
1925 only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
1926 C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
1927 containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
1928 This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
1929 interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
1930 have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
1931 L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
1933 =item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
1935 (F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
1937 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
1938 use feature "signatures";
1939 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
1941 =item Experimental "%s" subs not enabled
1943 (F) To use lexical subs, you must first enable them:
1945 no warnings 'experimental::lexical_subs';
1946 use feature 'lexical_subs';
1949 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1951 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1952 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1953 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1954 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1956 =item %s: Expression syntax
1958 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1959 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1961 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1963 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1964 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1965 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1967 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1969 (W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1970 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1971 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
1972 construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
1973 the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
1974 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1976 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
1978 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1979 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1980 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1981 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1983 =item fcntl is not implemented
1985 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1986 PDP-11 or something?
1988 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1990 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1993 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1995 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
1996 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1997 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1998 C<u63> as the format.
2000 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
2002 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2003 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2004 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2005 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2007 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
2009 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2010 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
2011 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2012 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2013 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2014 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
2016 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2018 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2019 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
2022 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2024 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2025 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
2027 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2029 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
2030 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2031 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2034 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2036 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
2037 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
2038 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2041 =item Format not terminated
2043 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2044 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2046 =item Format %s redefined
2048 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
2051 no warnings 'redefine';
2052 eval "format NAME =...";
2055 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2065 (or something like that).
2067 =item %s found where operator expected
2069 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2070 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
2071 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2072 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
2074 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2076 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2078 =item gethostent not implemented
2080 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2081 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2084 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
2086 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2087 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2089 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2091 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2092 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2094 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2096 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2097 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2098 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2100 =item given is experimental
2102 (S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2103 is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2104 in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2105 L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
2107 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
2109 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
2110 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
2111 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2112 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
2114 =item glob failed (%s)
2116 (S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
2117 for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2118 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
2119 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
2120 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2121 is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2122 in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2123 if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2124 all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
2125 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
2126 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
2128 =item Glob not terminated
2130 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2131 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2132 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2133 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2135 =item gmtime(%f) failed
2137 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2138 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2140 =item gmtime(%f) too large
2142 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
2143 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
2144 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2145 not-a-number value).
2147 =item gmtime(%f) too small
2149 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
2150 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
2152 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2154 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2155 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2157 =item goto must have label
2159 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2160 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2162 =item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2164 (F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2165 the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2166 has since been undefined.
2168 =item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
2169 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2171 (F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2172 they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2173 this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2175 =item ()-group starts with a count
2177 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2178 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2180 =item %s had compilation errors.
2182 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2184 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2186 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2187 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2188 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2190 =item %s has too many errors
2192 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2193 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2195 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2197 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
2198 than the floating point supports.
2200 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2202 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
2203 than the floating point supports.
2205 =item Hexadecimal float: internal error
2207 (F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2209 =item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2211 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2212 the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2213 the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2215 =item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2217 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2218 digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2219 long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2220 (needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2222 =item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2224 (F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
2225 the internals of the long double format are unknown;
2226 therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2228 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2230 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2231 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2232 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2234 =item Identifier too long
2236 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2237 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2238 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2239 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2241 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2242 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2244 (W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a
2245 zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
2246 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
2247 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2249 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2251 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2253 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2255 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2256 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2259 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2261 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2262 declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2263 indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2264 or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
2266 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2268 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2269 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2270 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2271 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2272 to your Perl administrator.
2274 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2276 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2277 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2278 Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2279 that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2280 instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2282 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2284 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2285 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2287 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2289 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2291 =item Illegal division by zero
2293 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2294 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2297 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2299 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2300 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2301 number stopped before the illegal character.
2303 =item Illegal modulus zero
2305 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2306 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2308 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2310 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2311 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2313 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2315 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2317 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2319 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2320 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2322 =item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2324 (F) You wrote something like
2328 The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2329 capturing group. See
2330 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2332 =item Illegal suidscript
2334 (F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2336 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2338 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2339 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2341 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2343 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2344 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2345 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2347 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2349 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2350 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2351 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2354 =item (in cleanup) %s
2356 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2357 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2358 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2359 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2360 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2362 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2363 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2365 =item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2368 (F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
2369 expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2370 too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2371 enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2373 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2376 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2377 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2378 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2380 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2382 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2383 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2384 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2386 =item Infinite recursion in regex
2388 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2389 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2390 either consume text or fail.
2392 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2394 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2395 initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2396 C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2397 context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2398 supported in a future perl release.
2400 =item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2402 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2403 (indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2404 it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2405 is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2406 returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2407 a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2408 expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2409 returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2411 =item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2413 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2414 (indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2415 better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2416 is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2417 it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2418 provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2419 if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2420 it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2422 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2424 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2425 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2426 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2427 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2428 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2429 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2430 L<perlsec> for more information.
2432 =item Insecure directory in %s
2434 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2435 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2436 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2439 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2441 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2442 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2443 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2444 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2445 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2447 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2449 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2450 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2451 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2452 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2454 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2456 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2457 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2458 integers for your architecture.
2460 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2462 (S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2463 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2464 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2465 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2466 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2467 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2468 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2469 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2472 =item Integer overflow in srand
2474 (S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2475 in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2476 replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2477 architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2478 you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2479 return the same sequence of random numbers.
2481 =item Integer overflow in version
2483 =item Integer overflow in version %d
2485 (W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2486 the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2487 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
2488 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2489 to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
2491 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2493 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2494 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2497 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2499 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2500 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2501 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2502 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2503 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2504 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2506 =item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2508 (S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2509 formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2510 C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2511 by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2512 message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2515 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2517 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2518 S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2521 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2523 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2524 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2525 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2526 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2528 =item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2529 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2531 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2532 expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2533 intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2536 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2538 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2539 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2541 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2543 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2544 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2546 =item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
2549 (F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
2550 the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
2551 the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2553 =item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
2555 (W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
2556 arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
2557 formerly ignored by system calls.
2559 =item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
2561 (F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
2562 indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2564 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2566 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2567 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2569 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
2570 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2572 (W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2573 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2574 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2575 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
2576 instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
2577 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2578 escape was discovered.
2580 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2582 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
2583 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2585 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2586 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
2587 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2589 =item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2591 (F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2592 cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2593 arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2594 B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2596 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2598 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2599 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2600 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2601 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2603 =item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
2605 (W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
2606 not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
2609 =item Invalid number (%f) in chr
2611 (W utf8) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or
2612 not-a-number) to C<chr>. Those are not valid character numbers,
2613 so it return the Unicode replacement character (U+FFFD).
2615 =item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2617 (S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
2618 with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
2619 See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
2621 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2623 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2624 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2625 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2626 up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2627 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2629 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2631 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2632 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2634 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2636 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2637 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2638 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2641 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2643 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2644 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2645 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2646 list was terminated too soon.
2648 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2650 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2651 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2652 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2653 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2654 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2655 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2657 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2659 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2660 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2662 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2665 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2667 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2668 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2669 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2670 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2671 must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2672 optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2673 trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2674 after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2675 text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2676 for more details on allowed version formats.
2678 =item Invalid version object
2680 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2681 Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2682 an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
2684 =item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
2685 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2687 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in
2688 this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
2689 indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
2690 and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
2692 =item ioctl is not implemented
2694 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2695 strange for a machine that supports C.
2697 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2699 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2700 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
2702 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2704 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2705 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
2708 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2710 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2711 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2713 =item $* is no longer supported
2715 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2716 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. In
2717 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2718 matching within a string.
2720 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2721 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2722 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2723 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2725 =item $# is no longer supported
2727 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2728 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. You
2729 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
2731 =item '%s' is not a code reference
2733 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2734 overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2735 an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
2737 =item '%s' is not an overloadable type
2739 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2742 =item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
2744 (S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
2745 that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
2746 given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
2747 make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
2748 it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
2749 should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
2750 line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
2752 =item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
2754 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2756 =item keys on reference is experimental
2758 (S experimental::autoderef) C<keys> with a scalar argument is experimental
2759 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
2760 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
2762 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
2764 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2766 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2767 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2770 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2772 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2773 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2776 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2778 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2779 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2782 =item leaving effective %s failed
2784 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2785 effective uids or gids failed.
2787 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2789 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2790 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2791 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2793 =item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
2795 (W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2796 probably wanted a count of the items.
2798 Array size can be obtained by doing:
2802 The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2806 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2808 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2809 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2810 couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2811 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
2812 it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
2814 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2816 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2819 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2821 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2822 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2825 =item List form of piped open not implemented
2827 (F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
2828 form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
2829 Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
2831 =item localtime(%f) failed
2833 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2834 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2836 =item localtime(%f) too large
2838 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
2839 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2840 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2841 not-a-number value).
2843 =item localtime(%f) too small
2845 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
2846 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2849 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2851 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2852 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2854 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2856 (W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
2857 is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
2858 accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
2859 warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
2860 when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
2861 insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2863 =item lstat() on filehandle%s
2865 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2866 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2867 instead on the filehandle.)
2869 =item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
2871 (W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
2872 attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
2873 does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
2874 want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
2875 details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
2876 if you really know what you are doing.
2878 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2880 (W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
2881 subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
2882 not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
2883 add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
2884 foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
2886 See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
2888 =item Magical list constants are not supported
2890 (F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
2891 to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
2892 something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
2894 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2896 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2897 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2899 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2901 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2902 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2904 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2906 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2913 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2914 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2915 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2916 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2918 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2920 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2921 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2922 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2923 when the function is called.
2924 Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
2925 but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
2926 so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2928 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2930 (S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2931 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2933 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2934 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2935 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2937 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2938 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2939 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2942 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2944 =item Malformed UTF-8 character immediately after '%s'
2946 (F) You said C<use utf8>, but the program file doesn't comply with UTF-8
2947 encoding rules. The message prints out the properly encoded characters
2948 just before the first bad one. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a
2949 warning is generated that gives more details about the type of
2952 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
2954 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2956 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2958 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2959 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2961 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2963 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2964 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2966 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2968 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2969 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2971 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2973 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2974 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2976 =item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
2978 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
2979 $b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
2980 Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
2981 caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
2982 as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
2983 optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
2985 =item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
2988 (S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
2989 Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
2990 in an unsigned integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
2991 other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
2992 containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
2993 the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
2994 C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
2995 so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
2996 in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
2997 unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
2998 given property matches these code points or not is specified in
2999 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3001 This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3002 immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3003 not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3004 the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3005 Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3006 every code point except these 22.)
3008 Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3009 should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3010 that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3011 category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3014 See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3016 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3019 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
3020 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
3021 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3024 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
3026 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
3027 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3028 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3029 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
3030 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
3032 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3034 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3035 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3038 =item '%' may not be used in pack
3040 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
3041 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3042 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3044 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3046 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3047 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3049 =item Method %s not permitted
3053 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3055 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3056 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3057 ended earlier on the current line.
3059 =item Misplaced _ in number
3061 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3062 separate two digits.
3064 =item Missing argument in %s
3066 (W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3067 arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3069 Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3070 arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3071 other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3072 functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
3074 =item Missing argument to -%c
3076 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3077 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3079 =item Missing braces on \N{}
3081 =item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3083 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
3084 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3085 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3086 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3089 =item Missing braces on \o{}
3091 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3093 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3095 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3096 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3098 =item Missing command in piped open
3100 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3101 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3104 =item Missing control char name in \c
3106 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3109 =item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3111 (W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
3113 =item Missing name in "%s sub"
3115 (F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
3116 they have a name with which they can be found.
3118 =item Missing $ on loop variable
3120 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3121 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3122 can vary from one line to the next.
3124 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
3126 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3127 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
3129 =item Missing or undefined argument to require
3131 (F) You tried to call require with no argument or with an undefined
3132 value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
3133 file-specification as an argument. See L<perlfunc/require>.
3135 =item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3137 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3139 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
3141 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3143 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3144 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
3145 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
3146 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3147 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3149 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3150 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3151 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3153 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3154 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3155 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3156 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
3157 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3158 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3160 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3161 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3162 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3163 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
3165 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
3167 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3168 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3171 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3173 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3174 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
3175 the previous line just because you saw this message.
3177 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3179 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
3180 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
3181 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3183 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3186 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3188 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3189 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3192 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3193 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3196 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
3198 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3199 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3202 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
3204 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3205 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
3207 =item Module name must be constant
3209 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3211 =item Module name required with -%c option
3213 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3214 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3215 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
3217 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
3219 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
3220 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3221 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3222 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3224 =item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3226 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3227 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3228 could not be made read-only.
3230 =item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3232 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3233 but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3235 =item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3237 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3238 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3239 buffer could not be made mutable.
3241 =item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3243 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
3244 L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3245 mutable before freeing the ops.
3247 =item msg%s not implemented
3249 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3251 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3253 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3254 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
3256 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
3258 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3259 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3260 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3262 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
3264 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3267 =item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3269 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3270 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3271 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3272 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3273 name, or rename the lexical variable.
3275 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
3277 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3278 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3279 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
3281 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3283 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3284 names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3285 just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
3286 declaration is also provided for this purpose.
3288 NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3289 only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3290 warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3291 %c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
3292 format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3293 but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3294 Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3295 identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
3297 =item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3299 (F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3300 exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3301 constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3303 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3304 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3305 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3307 The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
3308 need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3309 two separate things, you need to separate them:
3311 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3312 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3313 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3314 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3316 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
3318 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3319 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3321 =item Negative length
3323 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3324 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
3326 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3328 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3329 greater than or equal to zero.
3331 =item Negative repeat count does nothing
3333 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
3334 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3335 times, which doesn't make sense.
3337 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3339 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3340 So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3341 whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3343 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
3344 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
3346 =item %s never introduced
3348 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3349 scope before it could possibly have been used.
3351 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3353 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3354 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3357 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
3358 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3360 (F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
3361 bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
3362 class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
3363 probably not what you want.
3365 =item \N{} in inverted character class or as a range end-point is restricted to one character in regex; marked
3366 by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3368 (F) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a
3369 multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is supposed to
3370 match just one character of input, perl will match the whole thing
3371 correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>, or the escape
3372 is the beginning or final end point of a range. The mathematically
3373 logical behavior for what matches when inverting is very different than
3374 what people expect, so we have decided to forbid it.
3375 Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the C<\N{...}> is
3376 used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
3378 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
3380 What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence of
3381 code points, so this is made an error.
3383 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by
3384 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3386 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
3387 sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
3388 bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
3389 backslash in double-quotish:
3391 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
3392 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
3395 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
3397 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
3400 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
3404 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
3406 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and
3407 it doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
3409 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
3410 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
3412 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
3415 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
3417 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3418 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3419 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3420 securable. See L<perlsec>.
3422 =item NO-BREAK SPACE in a charnames alias definition is deprecated
3424 (D deprecated) You defined a character name which contained a no-break
3425 space character. Change it to a regular space. Usually these names are
3426 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
3427 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
3428 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3430 =item No code specified for -%c
3432 (F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3433 you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3434 argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3440 =item No comma allowed after %s
3442 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3443 not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
3444 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3446 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3447 a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3448 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3449 system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3450 use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3451 please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3452 explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3453 it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3454 still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3455 the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3456 constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
3458 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
3460 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3461 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3462 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
3464 =item No DB::DB routine defined
3466 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3467 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3468 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3471 =item No dbm on this machine
3473 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
3474 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
3476 =item No DB::sub routine defined
3478 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3479 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3480 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3481 of each ordinary subroutine call.
3483 =item No directory specified for -I
3485 (F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3486 I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3488 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
3490 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3491 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3492 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
3494 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3496 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
3497 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3499 =item No input file after < on command line
3501 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3502 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3503 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
3505 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3507 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3508 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3509 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3510 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3512 =item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3514 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
3515 a hex one was expected, like
3520 =item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3522 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
3523 an octal one was expected, like
3527 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3529 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3530 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3533 =item "no" not allowed in expression
3535 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3536 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3538 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3540 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3541 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3542 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
3544 =item No output file after > on command line
3546 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3547 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3548 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
3550 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
3552 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3553 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3554 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
3556 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3558 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3559 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3560 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
3562 =item No Perl script found in input
3564 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3565 with #! and containing the word "perl".
3567 =item No setregid available
3569 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3572 =item No setreuid available
3574 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3577 =item No such class %s
3579 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3580 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
3582 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3584 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3585 variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3586 The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3589 =item No such hook: %s
3591 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3592 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3594 =item No such pipe open
3596 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
3597 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3598 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
3600 =item No such signal: SIG%s
3602 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3603 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3604 names on your system.
3606 =item Not a CODE reference
3608 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3609 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3610 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3613 =item Not a GLOB reference
3615 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3616 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3617 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3618 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3620 =item Not a HASH reference
3622 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3623 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3624 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3626 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3628 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3629 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3630 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3632 =item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3634 (F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3635 another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3636 or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3638 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3640 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3641 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3642 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3644 =item Not a subroutine reference
3646 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3647 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3648 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3651 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3653 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3654 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3656 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3658 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3660 =item Not enough format arguments
3662 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3663 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3667 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3668 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3671 =item (?[...]) not valid in locale in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3673 (F) C<(?[...])> cannot be used within the scope of a C<S<use locale>> or with
3674 an C</l> regular expression modifier, as that would require deferring
3675 to run-time the calculation of what it should evaluate to, and it is
3676 regex compile-time only.
3678 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3680 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3681 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3682 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3683 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3684 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3686 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3688 (S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3691 =item Null picture in formline
3693 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3694 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3695 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3699 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3701 =item NULL regexp argument
3703 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3705 =item NULL regexp parameter
3707 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3709 =item Number too long
3711 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3712 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3713 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3714 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3717 =item Number with no digits
3719 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
3720 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
3723 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3725 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3726 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3727 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3729 =item Odd name/value argument for subroutine
3731 (F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
3732 received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
3733 the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
3734 The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault. Inconveniently,
3735 this error will be reported at the location of the subroutine, not that
3738 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3740 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3741 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3743 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3745 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3746 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3748 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3750 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3751 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3753 =item Offset outside string
3755 (F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3756 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3757 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3758 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3759 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3760 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3763 =item %s() on unopened %s
3765 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3766 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3767 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3769 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3771 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3772 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3776 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3780 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3782 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3784 (D io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3785 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3786 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3789 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3791 (D io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3792 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3793 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3796 =item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3799 (F) You wrote something like
3801 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
3803 There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
3806 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3808 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3809 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3810 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3811 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3813 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
3815 (S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode semantics
3816 on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
3817 defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
3819 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3820 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3822 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3823 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
3825 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
3827 (S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3828 semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
3829 of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
3830 semantics are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
3831 they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
3832 surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
3834 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3835 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3837 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3838 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
3840 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3842 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3843 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3844 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3845 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3848 =item Optional parameter lacks default expression
3850 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
3851 named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
3852 parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
3853 have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
3855 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3857 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3858 in the current lexical scope.
3860 =item Out of memory!
3862 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3863 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3864 no option but to exit immediately.
3866 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3867 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3868 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3869 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3870 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3872 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3874 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3875 the largest possible memory allocation.
3877 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3879 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3880 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3881 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3882 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3884 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3886 (X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3887 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3890 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3891 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3892 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3893 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3894 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3895 where the failed request happened.
3897 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3899 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3900 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3901 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3903 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3905 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3906 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3909 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3911 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3912 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3914 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3916 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3917 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3919 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3921 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3922 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3923 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3925 =item overload arg '%s' is invalid
3927 (W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
3928 recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
3930 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3932 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3933 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3936 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3938 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3939 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3941 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3943 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3944 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3945 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3946 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3948 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3950 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3951 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3955 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3956 page. See L<perlform>.
3960 (P) An internal error.
3962 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3964 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3965 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3966 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3967 enter this branch on this platform.
3969 =item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
3971 (P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
3972 was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
3973 able to initialize properly.
3975 =item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
3977 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3979 =item panic: ck_split, type=%u
3981 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3983 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
3985 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3986 there are in the savestack.
3988 =item panic: del_backref
3990 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3995 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3996 it wasn't an eval context.
3998 =item panic: do_subst
4000 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4003 =item panic: do_trans_%s
4005 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
4008 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4010 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
4013 =item panic: frexp: %f
4015 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4017 =item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
4019 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4020 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4022 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4024 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
4025 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4026 Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4027 the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
4029 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
4031 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4033 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
4035 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4037 =item panic: kid popen errno read
4039 (F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
4041 =item panic: last, type=%u
4043 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4044 it wasn't a block context.
4046 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4048 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4051 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
4053 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4054 invalid enum on the top of it.
4056 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4058 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4059 references to an object.
4061 =item panic: malloc, %s
4063 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4065 =item panic: memory wrap
4067 (P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4070 =item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
4072 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4073 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4075 =item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
4077 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4078 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4080 =item panic: pad_free po
4082 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4084 =item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
4086 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4087 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4089 =item panic: pad_sv po
4091 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4093 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
4095 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4096 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4098 =item panic: pad_swipe po
4100 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4102 =item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
4104 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4106 =item panic: pp_match%s
4108 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4111 =item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
4113 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
4115 =item panic: realloc, %s
4117 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4119 =item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4121 (P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4122 reference count other than 1.
4124 =item panic: restartop in %s
4126 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4127 didn't supply the destination.
4129 =item panic: return, type=%u
4131 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4132 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4134 =item panic: scan_num, %s
4136 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4138 =item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
4140 (P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
4141 blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4142 seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4144 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4146 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4147 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4148 is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4150 =item panic: sv_chop %s
4152 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4153 scalar's string buffer.
4155 =item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
4157 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4160 =item panic: top_env
4162 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
4164 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4166 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4167 permitted at run time.
4169 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4171 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
4172 to even) byte length.
4174 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4176 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4177 to even) byte length.
4179 =item panic: yylex, %s
4181 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4183 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4185 (W parenthesis) You said something like
4191 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4193 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4195 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4197 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4200 =item Passing malformed UTF-8 to "%s" is deprecated
4202 (D deprecated, utf8) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl
4203 core or in XS code. Such code was trying to find out if a character,
4204 allegedly stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such
4205 as being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded in
4206 legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used by
4207 knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked against
4208 was. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a further message is raised,
4209 giving details of the malformation.
4211 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
4213 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
4214 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4215 the nesting limit is exceeded.
4217 =item C<-p> destination: %s
4219 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4220 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4221 redirected it with select().)
4223 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
4225 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
4226 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
4227 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
4229 =item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
4230 utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4232 (S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4233 and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4234 folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
4235 Please report this as a bug using the L<perlbug> utility.
4237 =item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4239 (S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4240 experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4241 simply disable this warning:
4243 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4245 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
4247 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4248 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4249 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4250 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4252 =item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4254 (F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4255 Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4256 of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4257 interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4258 decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4259 is equivalent to v5.100.
4261 =item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
4263 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4264 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4265 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4267 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4269 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
4270 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
4272 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4274 (X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
4276 =item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4278 (F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4279 on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4280 Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4281 wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4283 =item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4285 (S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
4286 contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4287 hash seed you think you are.
4289 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4291 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4293 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4294 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4297 are supported and installed on your system.
4298 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4300 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4301 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
4302 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4303 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4304 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4305 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4306 Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4307 fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4308 time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
4309 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
4311 =item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4313 (S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
4314 but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
4317 Numeric | String | Result
4318 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4319 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4320 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
4321 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4324 Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
4325 case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
4327 =item pid %x not a child
4329 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4330 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4331 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
4333 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
4335 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4337 =item pop on reference is experimental
4339 (S experimental::autoderef) C<pop> with a scalar argument is experimental
4340 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
4341 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
4343 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
4345 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<< <-- HERE in m/%s/ >>
4347 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
4348 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4349 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4350 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4351 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4353 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4355 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4356 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4358 =item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by
4359 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4361 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
4362 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
4363 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
4364 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
4365 will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
4366 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4368 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4369 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4371 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4372 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4373 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4374 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
4375 and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4376 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4378 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4379 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4381 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4382 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4383 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4384 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
4385 and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4386 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4388 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
4390 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
4391 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
4392 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
4393 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
4395 You probably wrote something like this:
4402 when you should have written this:
4409 If you really want comments, build your list the
4410 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
4414 'b', # another comment
4417 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
4419 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
4420 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
4421 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
4424 You probably wrote something like this:
4428 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
4429 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
4433 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
4435 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
4436 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
4437 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
4438 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
4440 =item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
4442 (W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
4443 flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
4446 sub { return $a or $b; }
4450 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
4452 Which is effectively just:
4456 Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
4458 Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
4462 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
4464 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
4465 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
4467 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
4469 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
4470 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
4471 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
4472 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
4474 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
4476 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
4477 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
4478 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
4479 followed by the word 'bar'.
4481 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
4482 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
4484 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
4485 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
4486 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
4488 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
4490 (W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
4491 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
4492 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
4493 to the array you apparently lost track of.
4495 =item Postfix dereference is experimental
4497 (S experimental::postderef) This warning is emitted if you use
4498 the experimental postfix dereference syntax. Simply suppress the
4499 warning if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing
4500 so you are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which
4501 may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
4503 no warnings "experimental::postderef";
4504 use feature "postderef", "postderef_qq";
4510 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
4512 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
4516 is now misinterpreted as
4520 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
4521 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
4522 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
4525 =item Premature end of script headers
4529 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
4531 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4532 before now. Check your control flow.
4534 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
4536 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
4537 before now. Check your control flow.
4539 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
4541 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
4542 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
4543 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
4544 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
4547 =item Property '%s' is unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4549 (F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
4550 known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
4551 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
4552 for a complete list of available official
4553 properties. If it is a L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
4554 it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
4557 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
4559 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
4560 useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
4562 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
4564 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
4565 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
4567 =item Prototype not terminated
4569 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
4572 =item Prototype '%s' overridden by attribute 'prototype(%s)' in %s
4574 (W prototype) A prototype was declared in both the parentheses after
4575 the sub name and via the prototype attribute. The prototype in
4576 parentheses is useless, since it will be replaced by the prototype
4577 from the attribute before it's ever used.
4579 =item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
4581 (W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
4582 match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
4583 use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
4584 class, which should know about the locale's rules.
4585 (See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
4587 Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
4588 Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
4591 Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
4592 locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
4593 CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
4594 "MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
4595 meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
4596 should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
4597 positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
4598 incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
4599 is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
4600 case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
4601 change when upper cased.
4603 =item push on reference is experimental
4605 (S experimental::autoderef) C<push> with a scalar argument is experimental
4606 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
4607 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
4609 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
4611 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by S<< <-- HERE in m/%s/ >>
4613 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
4614 you meant it literally. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
4615 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4617 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4620 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
4621 the {min,max} construct. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
4622 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4624 =item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex
4626 =item Quantifier {n,m} with n > m can't match in regex; marked by
4627 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4629 (W regexp) Minima should be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
4630 want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}.
4632 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression in regex; marked by <--
4635 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
4636 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
4637 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
4638 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
4639 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
4641 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4644 =item Range iterator outside integer range
4646 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
4647 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
4648 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
4649 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
4651 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4653 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
4654 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4656 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
4658 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
4659 before now. Check your control flow.
4661 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
4663 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4665 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
4667 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4669 =item Reallocation too large: %x
4671 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
4673 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
4675 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
4678 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
4680 (S debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
4681 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
4682 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
4684 =item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
4686 (P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
4687 a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
4688 $fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
4689 loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
4691 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
4693 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
4694 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
4695 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
4697 =item Redundant argument in %s
4699 (W redundant) You called a function with more arguments than other
4700 arguments you supplied indicated would be needed. Currently only
4701 emitted when a printf-type format required fewer arguments than were
4702 supplied, but might be used in the future for e.g. L<perlfunc/pack>.
4704 =item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
4706 =item refcnt: fd %d%s
4708 =item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
4710 (P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
4711 you see this message, something is very wrong.
4713 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
4715 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
4716 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
4717 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
4718 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
4720 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
4721 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
4722 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
4723 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
4725 =item Reference is already weak
4727 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
4728 Doing so has no effect.
4730 =item Reference to invalid group 0 in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4732 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
4733 to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
4734 (normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4735 backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
4737 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4740 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
4741 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
4742 you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4743 expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
4745 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4748 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4751 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
4752 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
4753 such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
4754 spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
4756 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4759 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by
4760 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4762 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4763 are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4764 expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
4766 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4769 =item regexp memory corruption
4771 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4772 expression compiler gave it.
4774 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4776 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may appear a maximum of twice in regex; marked
4777 by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4779 (F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
4780 of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
4782 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-" in regex; marked by <--
4785 (F) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning on
4786 another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
4787 expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4788 the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4790 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4792 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear twice in regex; marked by <--
4795 (F) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
4796 of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
4798 =item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4800 =item Regexp modifiers "%c" and "%c" are mutually exclusive in regex;
4801 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4803 (F) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
4804 mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4805 supposed to be there.
4807 =item Regexp out of space in regex m/%s/
4809 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4812 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @#)
4814 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
4815 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
4816 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
4818 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
4820 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
4821 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
4824 =item '%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'
4826 (W misc, regexp) You wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179> in a
4827 double-quotish string. All but the last digit is treated as a single
4828 character, specified in octal. The last digit is the next character in
4829 the string. To tell Perl that this is indeed what you want, you can use
4830 the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use exactly three digits to specify the octal
4833 =item Reversed %s= operator
4835 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
4836 always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
4838 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4840 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed
4841 or not really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4843 =item Scalars leaked: %d
4845 (S internal) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping
4846 of scalars: not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time
4847 Perl exited. What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which
4848 is of course bad, especially if the Perl program is intended to be
4851 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4853 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4854 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4855 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4856 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4857 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4858 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4859 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4861 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
4862 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
4863 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4866 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4868 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
4869 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4870 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4871 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4872 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4873 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4874 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4876 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4877 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4878 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4881 =item Search pattern not terminated
4883 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4884 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4885 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
4887 Note that since Perl 5.10.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
4888 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
4889 in Perl 5.10.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4890 misparsed by pre-5.10.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4892 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4894 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4895 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4897 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4899 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4900 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4902 =item select not implemented
4904 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4906 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
4908 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4909 the current implementation.
4911 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
4913 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4914 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
4916 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4918 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4919 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
4921 =item sem%s not implemented
4923 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
4925 =item send() on closed socket %s
4927 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
4928 before now. Check your control flow.
4930 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4932 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
4933 S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4934 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4936 =item Sequence (?%c...) not implemented in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4939 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
4940 but has not yet been written. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
4941 regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4943 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4946 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense.
4947 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4948 discovered. This may happen when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4949 Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
4950 redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
4951 causes, see L<perlre>.
4953 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex m/%s/
4955 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
4956 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. See
4959 =item Sequence (?&... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4962 (F) A named reference of the form C<(?&...)> was missing the final
4963 closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
4964 in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4966 =item Sequence (?%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4969 (F) A named group of the form C<(?'...')> or C<< (?<...>) >> was missing the final
4970 closing quote or angle bracket. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
4971 regular expression the problem was discovered.
4973 =item Sequence (?(%c... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
4976 (F) A named reference of the form C<(?('...')...)> or C<< (?(<...>)...) >> was
4977 missing the final closing quote or angle bracket after the name. The
4978 S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
4981 =item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4984 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4985 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4987 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
4989 (F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
4990 followed immediately by a ')'.
4992 =item Sequence ?P=... not terminated in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4995 (F) A named reference of the form C<(?P=...)> was missing the final
4996 closing parenthesis after the name. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts
4997 in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4999 =item Sequence (?R) not terminated in regex m/%s/
5001 (F) An C<(?R)> or C<(?0)> sequence in a regular expression was missing the
5004 =item Server error (a.k.a. "500 Server error")
5006 (A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
5007 when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
5008 actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
5009 frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
5010 not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
5011 headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
5013 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
5015 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
5016 the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
5017 user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
5018 variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
5019 in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
5020 less. Please see the following for more information:
5022 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
5023 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
5024 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
5026 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
5028 =item setegid() not implemented
5030 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
5031 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5034 =item seteuid() not implemented
5036 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
5037 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5040 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
5042 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
5043 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
5046 =item setrgid() not implemented
5048 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
5049 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5052 =item setruid() not implemented
5054 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
5055 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
5058 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
5060 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
5061 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
5062 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
5064 =item Setting $/ to a reference to %s as a form of slurp is deprecated, treating as undef
5066 (W deprecated) You assigned a reference to a scalar to C<$/> where the
5067 referenced item is not a positive integer. In older perls this B<appeared>
5068 to work the same as setting it to C<undef> but was in fact internally
5069 different, less efficient and with very bad luck could have resulted in
5070 your file being split by a stringified form of the reference.
5072 In Perl 5.20.0 this was changed so that it would be B<exactly> the same as
5073 setting C<$/> to undef, with the exception that this warning would be
5076 You are recommended to change your code to set C<$/> to C<undef> explicitly
5077 if you wish to slurp the file. In future versions of Perl assigning
5078 a reference to will throw a fatal error.
5080 =item Setting $/ to %s reference is forbidden
5082 (F) You tried to assign a reference to a non integer to C<$/>. In older
5083 Perls this would have behaved similarly to setting it to a reference to
5084 a positive integer, where the integer was the address of the reference.
5085 As of Perl 5.20.0 this is a fatal error, to allow future versions of Perl
5086 to use non-integer refs for more interesting purposes.
5088 =item shift on reference is experimental
5090 (S experimental::autoderef) C<shift> with a scalar argument is experimental
5091 and may change or be removed in a future Perl version. If you want to
5092 take the risk of using this feature, simply disable this warning:
5094 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
5096 =item shm%s not implemented
5098 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
5100 =item !=~ should be !~
5102 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
5103 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
5104 operators: probably not what you intended.
5106 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
5108 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
5109 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
5110 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
5111 probably not what you had in mind.
5113 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
5115 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
5118 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
5120 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
5121 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
5123 =item Slab leaked from cv %p
5125 (S) If you see this message, then something is seriously wrong with the
5126 internal bookkeeping of op trees. An op tree needed to be freed after
5127 a compilation error, but could not be found, so it was leaked instead.
5129 =item sleep(%u) too large
5131 (W overflow) You called C<sleep> with a number that was larger than
5132 it can reliably handle and C<sleep> probably slept for less time than
5135 =item Slurpy parameter not last
5137 (F) In a subroutine signature, you put something after a slurpy (array or
5138 hash) parameter. The slurpy parameter takes all the available arguments,
5139 so there can't be any left to fill later parameters.
5141 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
5143 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
5144 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure
5145 for the smart match.
5147 =item Smartmatch is experimental
5149 (S experimental::smartmatch) This warning is emitted if you
5150 use the smartmatch (C<~~>) operator. This is currently an experimental
5151 feature, and its details are subject to change in future releases of
5152 Perl. Particularly, its current behavior is noticed for being
5153 unnecessarily complex and unintuitive, and is very likely to be
5156 =item sort is now a reserved word
5158 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
5159 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
5161 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
5163 (F) A sort comparison subroutine written in XS must return exactly one
5164 item. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
5166 =item Source filters apply only to byte streams
5168 (F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
5169 source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
5170 not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
5171 C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
5173 =item splice() offset past end of array
5175 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
5176 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
5177 end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
5178 try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
5179 See L<perlfunc/splice>.
5181 =item splice on reference is experimental
5183 (S experimental::autoderef) C<splice> with a scalar argument
5184 is experimental and may change or be removed in a future
5185 Perl version. If you want to take the risk of using this
5186 feature, simply disable this warning:
5188 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
5192 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
5193 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
5194 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
5196 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
5198 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
5199 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
5200 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
5201 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
5204 =item "state %s" used in sort comparison
5206 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
5207 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
5208 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
5209 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
5210 name, or rename the lexical variable.
5212 =item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
5214 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
5215 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
5216 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
5218 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
5220 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
5221 was either never opened or has since been closed.
5223 =item Strings with code points over 0xFF may not be mapped into in-memory file handles
5225 (W utf8) You tried to open a reference to a scalar for read or append
5226 where the scalar contained code points over 0xFF. In-memory files
5227 model on-disk files and can only contain bytes.
5229 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
5231 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
5232 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
5233 C<can> may break this.
5235 =item Subroutine "&%s" is not available
5237 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
5238 attempting to capture an outer lexical subroutine that is not currently
5239 available. This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the lexical
5240 subroutine may be declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has
5241 not yet been created. (Remember that named subs are created at compile
5242 time, while anonymous subs are created at run-time.) For example,
5244 sub { my sub a {...} sub f { \&a } }
5246 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current "a" sub,
5247 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely, the
5248 following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by now
5249 been created and is live:
5251 sub { my sub a {...} eval 'sub f { \&a }' }->();
5253 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a lexical subroutine
5254 that has gone out of scope, for example,
5262 Here, when the '\&a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
5263 being executed, so its &a is not available for capture.
5265 =item "%s" subroutine &%s masks earlier declaration in same %s
5267 (W misc) A "my" or "state" subroutine has been redeclared in the
5268 current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to
5269 the previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error.
5270 Note that the earlier subroutine will still exist until the end of
5271 the scope or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
5273 =item Subroutine %s redefined
5275 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
5278 no warnings 'redefine';
5279 eval "sub name { ... }";
5282 =item Substitution loop
5284 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
5285 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
5286 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
5287 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
5289 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
5291 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
5292 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
5293 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
5295 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
5297 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
5298 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
5299 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
5301 =item substr outside of string
5303 (W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
5304 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
5305 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
5306 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
5307 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
5309 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
5311 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
5312 inferior to its current type.
5314 =item SWASHNEW didn't return an HV ref
5316 (P) Something went wrong internally when Perl was trying to look up
5319 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by
5320 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5322 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
5323 two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
5324 both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
5325 it in clustering parentheses:
5327 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
5329 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem
5330 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
5332 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5335 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
5336 is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5338 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
5339 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
5340 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
5341 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
5342 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
5343 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
5344 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
5345 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
5346 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
5348 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
5349 discovered. See L<perlre>.
5351 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
5353 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
5354 and effective uids or gids.
5358 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
5360 A keyword is misspelled.
5361 A semicolon is missing.
5363 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
5364 An opening or closing brace is missing.
5365 A closing quote is missing.
5367 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
5368 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
5369 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
5370 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
5371 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
5372 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
5373 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
5374 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
5375 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
5377 =item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
5379 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
5380 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
5383 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
5385 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
5386 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
5387 or "my $var" or "our $var".
5389 =item Syntax error in (?[...]) in regex m/%s/
5391 (F) Perl could not figure out what you meant inside this construct; this
5392 notifies you that it is giving up trying.
5396 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
5398 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
5400 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
5402 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
5404 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
5406 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
5408 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
5409 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
5410 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
5411 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
5413 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
5415 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
5416 before now. Check your control flow.
5418 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
5420 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
5421 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
5423 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
5425 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
5426 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
5428 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
5430 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
5431 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
5433 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
5435 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
5436 was either never opened or has since been closed.
5438 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
5440 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
5441 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
5450 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
5451 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[> and L<arybase>.
5453 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia.
5455 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
5456 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
5457 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
5458 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
5461 =item The %s function is unimplemented
5463 (F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture,
5464 according to the probings of Configure.
5466 =item The lexical_subs feature is experimental
5468 (S experimental::lexical_subs) This warning is emitted if you
5469 declare a sub with C<my> or C<state>. Simply suppress the warning
5470 if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you
5471 are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which may
5472 change or be removed in a future Perl version:
5474 no warnings "experimental::lexical_subs";
5475 use feature "lexical_subs";
5478 =item The regex_sets feature is experimental
5480 (S experimental::regex_sets) This warning is emitted if you
5481 use the syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression.
5482 The details of this feature are subject to change.
5483 if you want to use it, but know that in doing so you
5484 are taking the risk of using an experimental feature which may
5485 change in a future Perl version, you can do this to silence the
5488 no warnings "experimental::regex_sets";
5490 =item The signatures feature is experimental
5492 (S experimental::signatures) This warning is emitted if you unwrap a
5493 subroutine's arguments using a signature. Simply suppress the warning
5494 if you want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
5495 the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be removed
5496 in a future Perl version:
5498 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
5499 use feature "signatures";
5500 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
5502 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
5504 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
5505 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
5506 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
5509 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
5511 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
5513 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
5515 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
5517 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
5518 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
5519 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
5520 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
5521 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
5522 target of the change to
5523 %ENV which produced the warning.
5525 =item This Perl has not been built with support for randomized hash key traversal but something called Perl_hv_rand_set().
5527 (F) Something has attempted to use an internal API call which
5528 depends on Perl being compiled with the default support for randomized hash
5529 key traversal, but this Perl has been compiled without it. You should
5530 report this warning to the relevant upstream party, or recompile perl
5531 with default options.
5533 =item times not implemented
5535 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
5536 suspect you're not running on Unix.
5538 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
5540 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
5541 the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
5542 B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
5543 Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
5544 everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
5546 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
5547 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
5548 fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
5549 Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
5551 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
5552 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
5554 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
5556 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
5557 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
5558 specified an illegal mapping.
5559 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
5561 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
5563 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
5565 =item Too few args to syscall
5567 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
5568 system call to call, silly dilly.
5570 =item Too few arguments for subroutine
5572 (F) A subroutine using a signature received fewer arguments than required
5573 by the signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
5574 Inconveniently, this error will be reported at the location of the
5575 subroutine, not that of the caller.
5577 =item Too late for "-%s" option
5579 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
5580 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
5582 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
5583 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
5585 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
5586 well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
5587 specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
5588 it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
5591 =item Too late to run %s block
5593 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
5594 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
5595 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
5596 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
5599 =item Too many args to syscall
5601 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
5603 =item Too many arguments for %s
5605 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
5607 =item Too many arguments for subroutine
5609 (F) A subroutine using a signature received more arguments than required
5610 by the signature. The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
5611 Inconveniently, this error will be reported at the location of the
5612 subroutine, not that of the caller.
5616 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
5617 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
5621 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
5622 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
5624 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
5626 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
5627 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
5629 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
5631 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
5632 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
5633 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
5635 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
5637 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
5638 y/// or y[][] construct.
5640 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
5642 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
5643 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
5645 =item truncate not implemented
5647 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
5648 Configure knows about.
5650 =item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
5652 (F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
5653 to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
5654 ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
5655 nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
5657 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
5659 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
5660 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
5661 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
5662 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
5664 =item Type of argument to %s must be unblessed hashref or arrayref
5666 (F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with a scalar argument that
5667 was not a reference to an unblessed hash or array.
5669 =item umask not implemented
5671 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
5672 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
5674 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
5676 (S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
5677 many execution contexts were entered and left.
5679 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
5681 (S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
5682 many values were temporarily localized.
5684 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
5686 (S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
5687 many blocks were entered and left.
5689 =item Unbalanced string table refcount: (%d) for "%s"
5691 (S internal) On exit, Perl found some strings remaining in the shared
5692 string table used for copy on write and for hash keys. The entries
5693 should have been freed, so this indicates a bug somewhere.
5695 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
5697 (S internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
5698 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
5700 =item Undefined format "%s" called
5702 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
5703 another package? See L<perlform>.
5705 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
5707 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
5708 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
5710 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
5712 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
5713 since been undefined.
5715 =item Undefined subroutine called
5717 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
5718 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
5720 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
5722 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
5723 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
5725 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
5727 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
5728 another package? See L<perlform>.
5730 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
5732 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
5733 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
5736 =item %s: Undefined variable
5738 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
5739 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
5741 =item Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated, passed through in regex;
5742 marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
5744 (D deprecated, regexp) You used a literal C<"{"> character in a regular
5745 expression pattern. You should change to use C<"\{"> instead, because a
5746 future version of Perl (tentatively v5.26) will consider this to be a
5747 syntax error. If the pattern delimiters are also braces, any matching
5748 right brace (C<"}">) should also be escaped to avoid confusing the parser,
5753 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
5755 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
5756 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
5758 =item Unexpected binary operator '%c' with no preceding operand in regex;
5759 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5761 (F) You had something like this:
5765 where the C<"|"> is a binary operator with an operand on the right, but
5766 no operand on the left.
5768 =item Unexpected character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5770 (F) You had something like this:
5774 Within C<(?[ ])>, no literal characters are allowed unless they are
5775 within an inner pair of square brackets, like
5779 Another possibility is that you forgot a backslash. Perl isn't smart
5780 enough to figure out what you really meant.
5782 =item Unexpected constant lvalue entersub entry via type/targ %d:%d
5784 (P) When compiling a subroutine call in lvalue context, Perl failed an
5785 internal consistency check. It encountered a malformed op tree.
5787 =item Unexpected exit %u
5789 (S) exit() was called or the script otherwise finished gracefully when
5790 C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in C<PL_exit_flags>.
5792 =item Unexpected exit failure %d
5794 (S) An uncaught die() was called when C<PERL_EXIT_WARN> was set in
5797 =item Unexpected ')' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5799 (F) You had something like this:
5801 (?[ ( \p{Digit} + ) ])
5803 The C<")"> is out-of-place. Something apparently was supposed to
5804 be combined with the digits, or the C<"+"> shouldn't be there, or
5805 something like that. Perl can't figure out what was intended.
5807 =item Unexpected '(' with no preceding operator in regex; marked by
5808 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5810 (F) You had something like this:
5812 (?[ \p{Digit} ( \p{Lao} + \p{Thai} ) ])
5814 There should be an operator before the C<"(">, as there's
5815 no indication as to how the digits are to be combined
5816 with the characters in the Lao and Thai scripts.
5818 =item Unicode non-character U+%X is illegal for open interchange
5820 (S nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
5821 defined by the Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those
5822 are legal codepoints, but are reserved for internal use; so,
5823 applications shouldn't attempt to exchange them. An application
5824 may not be expecting any of these characters at all, and receiving
5825 them may lead to bugs. If you know what you are doing you can
5826 turn off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
5828 This is not really a "severe" error, but it is supposed to be
5829 raised by default even if warnings are not enabled, and currently
5830 the only way to do that in Perl is to mark it as serious.
5832 =item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
5834 (S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
5835 not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
5836 U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
5837 internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
5838 available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
5839 problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
5840 came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
5841 off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
5843 =item Unknown charname '%s'
5845 (F) The name you used inside C<\N{}> is unknown to Perl. Check the
5846 spelling. You can say C<use charnames ":loose"> to not have to be
5847 so precise about spaces, hyphens, and capitalization on standard Unicode
5848 names. (Any custom aliases that have been created must be specified
5849 exactly, regardless of whether C<:loose> is used or not.) This error may
5850 also happen if the C<\N{}> is not in the scope of the corresponding
5851 C<S<use charnames>>.
5855 (P) Perl was about to print an error message in C<$@>, but the C<$@> variable
5856 did not exist, even after an attempt to create it.
5858 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
5860 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
5861 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
5862 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
5864 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
5866 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
5867 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
5868 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
5869 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
5870 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
5871 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
5873 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
5875 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
5876 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
5877 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
5878 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
5880 =item Unknown regex modifier "%s"
5882 (F) Alphanumerics immediately following the closing delimiter
5883 of a regular expression pattern are interpreted by Perl as modifier
5884 flags for the regex. One of the ones you specified is invalid. One way
5885 this can happen is if you didn't put in white space between the end of
5886 the regex and a following alphanumeric operator:
5888 if ($a =~ /foo/and $bar == 3) { ... }
5890 The C<"a"> is a valid modifier flag, but the C<"n"> is not, and raises
5891 this error. Likely what was meant instead was:
5893 if ($a =~ /foo/ and $bar == 3) { ... }
5895 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
5897 (W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
5899 =item Unknown switch condition (?(...)) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5902 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
5903 is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
5905 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
5906 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
5907 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
5908 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
5909 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
5910 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
5911 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
5912 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
5913 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
5915 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
5916 discovered. See L<perlre>.
5918 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
5920 (F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
5921 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
5923 =item Unknown Unicode option value %d
5925 (F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
5926 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
5928 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5930 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
5931 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
5932 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
5934 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
5936 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
5937 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
5939 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
5940 module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
5943 =item Unmatched '[' in POSIX class in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5945 (F) You had something like this:
5949 That should be written:
5953 =item Unmatched '%c' in POSIX class in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
5956 (F) You had something like this:
5960 There should be a second C<":">, like this:
5964 =item Unmatched [ in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5966 (F) The brackets around a character class must match. If you wish to
5967 include a closing bracket in a character class, backslash it or put it
5968 first. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
5969 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
5971 =item Unmatched ( in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5973 =item Unmatched ) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
5975 (F) Unbackslashed parentheses must always be balanced in regular
5976 expressions. If you're a vi user, the % key is valuable for finding
5977 the matching parenthesis. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the
5978 regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
5980 =item Unmatched right %s bracket
5982 (F) The lexer counted more closing curly or square brackets than opening
5983 ones, so you're probably missing a matching opening bracket. As a
5984 general rule, you'll find the missing one (so to speak) near the place
5985 you were last editing.
5987 =item Unquoted string "%s" may clash with future reserved word
5989 (W reserved) You used a bareword that might someday be claimed as a
5990 reserved word. It's best to put such a word in quotes, or capitalize it
5991 somehow, or insert an underbar into it. You might also declare it as a
5994 =item Unrecognized character %s; marked by S<<-- HERE> after %s near column
5997 (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified character
5998 in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column. Perhaps you
5999 tried to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as
6002 =item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class in regex; marked by
6003 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6005 (F) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6006 recognized by Perl inside character classes. This is a fatal
6007 error when the character class is used within C<(?[ ])>.
6009 =item Unrecognized escape \%c in character class passed through in regex;
6010 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6012 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6013 recognized by Perl inside character classes. The character was
6014 understood literally, but this may change in a future version of Perl.
6015 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
6016 escape was discovered.
6018 =item Unrecognized escape \%c passed through
6020 (W misc) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6021 recognized by Perl. The character was understood literally, but this may
6022 change in a future version of Perl.
6024 =item Unrecognized escape \%s passed through in regex; marked by
6025 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6027 (W regexp) You used a backslash-character combination which is not
6028 recognized by Perl. The character(s) were understood literally, but
6029 this may change in a future version of Perl. The S<<-- HERE> shows
6030 whereabouts in the regular expression the escape was discovered.
6032 =item Unrecognized signal name "%s"
6034 (F) You specified a signal name to the kill() function that was not
6035 recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal names
6038 =item Unrecognized switch: -%s (-h will show valid options)
6040 (F) You specified an illegal option to Perl. Don't do that. (If you
6041 think you didn't do that, check the #! line to see if it's supplying the
6042 bad switch on your behalf.)
6044 =item unshift on reference is experimental
6046 (S experimental::autoderef) C<unshift> with a scalar argument
6047 is experimental and may change or be removed in a future
6048 Perl version. If you want to take the risk of using this
6049 feature, simply disable this warning:
6051 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
6053 =item Unsuccessful %s on filename containing newline
6055 (W newline) A file operation was attempted on a filename, and that
6056 operation failed, PROBABLY because the filename contained a newline,
6057 PROBABLY because you forgot to chomp() it off. See L<perlfunc/chomp>.
6059 =item Unsupported directory function "%s" called
6061 (F) Your machine doesn't support opendir() and readdir().
6063 =item Unsupported function %s
6065 (F) This machine doesn't implement the indicated function, apparently.
6066 At least, Configure doesn't think so.
6068 =item Unsupported function fork
6070 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
6072 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors
6073 of Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try
6074 changing the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
6076 =item Unsupported script encoding %s
6078 (F) Your program file begins with a Unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) which
6079 declares it to be in a Unicode encoding that Perl cannot read.
6081 =item Unsupported socket function "%s" called
6083 (F) Your machine doesn't support the Berkeley socket mechanism, or at
6084 least that's what Configure thought.
6086 =item Unterminated attribute list
6088 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the
6089 start of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
6090 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous
6091 attribute too soon. See L<attributes>.
6093 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
6095 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing
6096 an attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
6097 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
6098 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
6100 =item Unterminated compressed integer
6102 (F) An argument to unpack("w",...) was incompatible with the BER
6103 compressed integer format and could not be converted to an integer.
6104 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6106 =item Unterminated delimiter for here document
6108 (F) This message occurs when a here document label has an initial
6109 quotation mark but the final quotation mark is missing. Perhaps
6118 =item Unterminated \g... pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6120 =item Unterminated \g{...} pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6122 (F) In a regular expression, you had a C<\g> that wasn't followed by a
6123 proper group reference. In the case of C<\g{>, the closing brace is
6124 missing; otherwise the C<\g> must be followed by an integer. Fix the
6127 =item Unterminated <> operator
6129 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
6130 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
6131 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
6132 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
6134 =item Unterminated verb pattern argument in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6137 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB:ARG)> but did not terminate
6138 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
6140 =item Unterminated verb pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6142 (F) You used a pattern of the form C<(*VERB)> but did not terminate
6143 the pattern with a C<)>. Fix the pattern and retry.
6145 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
6147 (W untie) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was
6148 still valid when C<untie> was called.
6150 =item Usage: POSIX::%s(%s)
6152 (F) You called a POSIX function with incorrect arguments.
6153 See L<POSIX/FUNCTIONS> for more information.
6155 =item Usage: Win32::%s(%s)
6157 (F) You called a Win32 function with incorrect arguments.
6158 See L<Win32> for more information.
6160 =item $[ used in %s (did you mean $] ?)
6162 (W syntax) You used C<$[> in a comparison, such as:
6168 You probably meant to use C<$]> instead. C<$[> is the base for indexing
6169 arrays. C<$]> is the Perl version number in decimal.
6171 =item Use "%s" instead of "%s"
6173 (F) The second listed construct is no longer legal. Use the first one
6176 =item Useless assignment to a temporary
6178 (W misc) You assigned to an lvalue subroutine, but what
6179 the subroutine returned was a temporary scalar about to
6180 be discarded, so the assignment had no effect.
6182 =item Useless (?-%s) - don't use /%s modifier in regex; marked by
6183 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6185 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?-o) that has no
6186 meaning unless removed from the entire regexp:
6188 if ($string =~ /(?-o)$pattern/o) { ... }
6192 if ($string =~ /$pattern/) { ... }
6194 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6195 discovered. See L<perlre>.
6197 =item Useless localization of %s
6199 (W syntax) The localization of lvalues such as C<local($x=10)> is legal,
6200 but in fact the local() currently has no effect. This may change at
6201 some point in the future, but in the meantime such code is discouraged.
6203 =item Useless (?%s) - use /%s modifier in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
6206 (W regexp) You have used an internal modifier such as (?o) that has no
6207 meaning unless applied to the entire regexp:
6209 if ($string =~ /(?o)$pattern/) { ... }
6213 if ($string =~ /$pattern/o) { ... }
6215 The <-- HERE shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
6216 discovered. See L<perlre>.
6218 =item Useless use of /d modifier in transliteration operator
6220 (W misc) You have used the /d modifier where the searchlist has the
6221 same length as the replacelist. See L<perlop> for more information
6222 about the /d modifier.
6224 =item Useless use of \E
6226 (W misc) You have a \E in a double-quotish string without a C<\U>,
6227 C<\L> or C<\Q> preceding it.
6229 =item Useless use of greediness modifier '%c' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6231 (W regexp) You specified something like these:
6236 The C<"?"> and C<"+"> don't have any effect, as they modify whether to
6237 match more or fewer when there is a choice, and by specifying to match
6238 exactly a given numer, there is no room left for a choice.
6240 =item Useless use of %s in void context
6242 (W void) You did something without a side effect in a context that does
6243 nothing with the return value, such as a statement that doesn't return a
6244 value from a block, or the left side of a scalar comma operator. Very
6245 often this points not to stupidity on your part, but a failure of Perl
6246 to parse your program the way you thought it would. For example, you'd
6247 get this if you mixed up your C precedence with Python precedence and
6252 when you meant to say
6254 ($one, $two) = (1, 2);
6256 Another common error is to use ordinary parentheses to construct a list
6257 reference when you should be using square or curly brackets, for
6262 when you should have said
6266 The square brackets explicitly turn a list value into a scalar value,
6267 while parentheses do not. So when a parenthesized list is evaluated in
6268 a scalar context, the comma is treated like C's comma operator, which
6269 throws away the left argument, which is not what you want. See
6270 L<perlref> for more on this.
6272 This warning will not be issued for numerical constants equal to 0 or 1
6273 since they are often used in statements like
6275 1 while sub_with_side_effects();
6277 String constants that would normally evaluate to 0 or 1 are warned
6280 =item Useless use of (?-p) in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6282 (W regexp) The C<p> modifier cannot be turned off once set. Trying to do
6285 =item Useless use of "re" pragma
6287 (W) You did C<use re;> without any arguments. That isn't very useful.
6289 =item Useless use of sort in scalar context
6291 (W void) You used sort in scalar context, as in :
6295 This is not very useful, and perl currently optimizes this away.
6297 =item Useless use of %s with no values
6299 (W syntax) You used the push() or unshift() function with no arguments
6300 apart from the array, like C<push(@x)> or C<unshift(@foo)>. That won't
6301 usually have any effect on the array, so is completely useless. It's
6302 possible in principle that push(@tied_array) could have some effect
6303 if the array is tied to a class which implements a PUSH method. If so,
6304 you can write it as C<push(@tied_array,())> to avoid this warning.
6306 =item "use" not allowed in expression
6308 (F) The "use" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
6309 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
6311 =item Use of assignment to $[ is deprecated
6313 (D deprecated) The C<$[> variable (index of the first element in an array)
6314 is deprecated. See L<perlvar/"$[">.
6316 =item Use of bare << to mean <<"" is deprecated
6318 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the explicitly quoted
6319 form if you wish to use an empty line as the terminator of the
6322 =item Use of chdir('') or chdir(undef) as chdir() deprecated
6324 (D deprecated) chdir() with no arguments is documented to change to
6325 $ENV{HOME} or $ENV{LOGDIR}. chdir(undef) and chdir('') share this
6326 behavior, but that has been deprecated. In future versions they
6329 Be careful to check that what you pass to chdir() is defined and not
6330 blank, else you might find yourself in your home directory.
6332 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///
6334 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier in a substitution. The /c
6335 modifier is not presently meaningful in substitutions.
6337 =item Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g
6339 (W regexp) You used the /c modifier with a regex operand, but didn't
6340 use the /g modifier. Currently, /c is meaningful only when /g is
6341 used. (This may change in the future.)
6343 =item Use of comma-less variable list is deprecated
6345 (D deprecated) The values you give to a format should be
6346 separated by commas, not just aligned on a line.
6348 =item Use of each() on hash after insertion without resetting hash iterator results in undefined behavior
6350 (S internal) The behavior of C<each()> after insertion is undefined;
6351 it may skip items, or visit items more than once. Consider using
6352 C<keys()> instead of C<each()>.
6354 =item Use of := for an empty attribute list is not allowed
6356 (F) The construction C<my $x := 42> used to parse as equivalent to
6357 C<my $x : = 42> (applying an empty attribute list to C<$x>).
6358 This construct was deprecated in 5.12.0, and has now been made a syntax
6359 error, so C<:=> can be reclaimed as a new operator in the future.
6361 If you need an empty attribute list, for example in a code generator, add
6362 a space before the C<=>.
6364 =item Use of freed value in iteration
6366 (F) Perhaps you modified the iterated array within the loop?
6367 This error is typically caused by code like the following:
6370 @a = () for (1,2,@a);
6372 You are not supposed to modify arrays while they are being iterated over.
6373 For speed and efficiency reasons, Perl internally does not do full
6374 reference-counting of iterated items, hence deleting such an item in the
6375 middle of an iteration causes Perl to see a freed value.
6377 =item Use of *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated
6379 (D deprecated) You are now encouraged to use the shorter *glob{IO} form
6380 to access the filehandle slot within a typeglob.
6382 =item Use of /g modifier is meaningless in split
6384 (W regexp) You used the /g modifier on the pattern for a C<split>
6385 operator. Since C<split> always tries to match the pattern
6386 repeatedly, the C</g> has no effect.
6388 =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
6390 (D deprecated) Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
6391 scope is deprecated and should be avoided.
6393 =item Use of inherited AUTOLOAD for non-method %s() is deprecated
6395 (D deprecated) As an (ahem) accidental feature, C<AUTOLOAD>
6396 subroutines are looked up as methods (using the C<@ISA> hierarchy)
6397 even when the subroutines to be autoloaded were called as plain
6398 functions (e.g. C<Foo::bar()>), not as methods (e.g. C<< Foo->bar() >> or
6399 C<< $obj->bar() >>).
6401 This bug will be rectified in future by using method lookup only for
6402 methods' C<AUTOLOAD>s. However, there is a significant base of existing
6403 code that may be using the old behavior. So, as an interim step, Perl
6404 currently issues an optional warning when non-methods use inherited
6407 The simple rule is: Inheritance will not work when autoloading
6408 non-methods. The simple fix for old code is: In any module that used
6409 to depend on inheriting C<AUTOLOAD> for non-methods from a base class
6410 named C<BaseClass>, execute C<*AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD> during
6413 In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
6414 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
6415 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
6417 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
6419 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
6420 only C. This usually means there's a better way to do it in Perl.
6422 =item Use of %s is deprecated
6424 (D deprecated) The construct indicated is no longer recommended for use,
6425 generally because there's a better way to do it, and also because the
6426 old way has bad side effects.
6428 =item Use of literal control characters in variable names is deprecated
6430 (D deprecated) Using literal control characters in the source to refer
6431 to the ^FOO variables, like C<$^X> and C<${^GLOBAL_PHASE}> is now
6432 deprecated. This only affects code like C<$\cT>, where \cT is a control in
6433 the source code: C<${"\cT"}> and C<$^T> remain valid.
6435 =item Use of -l on filehandle%s
6437 (W io) A filehandle represents an opened file, and when you opened the file
6438 it already went past any symlink you are presumably trying to look for.
6439 The operation returned C<undef>. Use a filename instead.
6441 =item Use of my $_ is experimental
6443 (S experimental::lexical_topic) Lexical $_ is an experimental feature and
6444 its behavior may change or even be removed in any future release of perl.
6445 See the explanation under L<perlvar/$_>.
6447 =item Use of %s on a handle without * is deprecated
6449 (D deprecated) You used C<tie>, C<tied> or C<untie> on a scalar but that scalar
6450 happens to hold a typeglob, which means its filehandle will be tied. If
6451 you mean to tie a handle, use an explicit * as in C<tie *$handle>.
6453 This was a long-standing bug that was removed in Perl 5.16, as there was
6454 no way to tie the scalar itself when it held a typeglob, and no way to
6455 untie a scalar that had had a typeglob assigned to it. If you see this
6456 message, you must be using an older version.
6458 =item Use of reference "%s" as array index
6460 (W misc) You tried to use a reference as an array index; this probably
6461 isn't what you mean, because references in numerical context tend
6462 to be huge numbers, and so usually indicates programmer error.
6464 If you really do mean it, explicitly numify your reference, like so:
6465 C<$array[0+$ref]>. This warning is not given for overloaded objects,
6466 however, because you can overload the numification and stringification
6467 operators and then you presumably know what you are doing.
6469 =item Use of state $_ is experimental
6471 (S experimental::lexical_topic) Lexical $_ is an experimental feature and
6472 its behavior may change or even be removed in any future release of perl.
6473 See the explanation under L<perlvar/$_>.
6475 =item Use of tainted arguments in %s is deprecated
6477 (W taint, deprecated) You have supplied C<system()> or C<exec()> with multiple
6478 arguments and at least one of them is tainted. This used to be allowed
6479 but will become a fatal error in a future version of perl. Untaint your
6480 arguments. See L<perlsec>.
6482 =item Use of uninitialized value%s
6484 (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already
6485 defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake.
6486 To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables.
6488 To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you
6489 the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases
6490 it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the
6491 undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program
6492 and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear
6493 literally in your program. For example, C<"that $foo"> is usually
6494 optimized into C<"that " . $foo>, and the warning will refer to the
6495 C<concatenation (.)> operator, even though there is no C<.> in
6498 =item Use \x{...} for more than two hex characters in regex; marked by
6499 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6501 (F) In a regular expression, you said something like
6505 Perl isn't sure if you meant this
6509 or if you meant this
6511 (?[ [ \x{BE} E F ] ])
6513 You need to add either braces or blanks to disambiguate.
6515 =item Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character class in
6516 regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6518 (W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a
6519 multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is supposed to
6520 match just one character of input, perl will match the whole thing
6521 correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>, or the escape
6522 is the beginning or final end point of a range. For these, what should
6523 happen isn't clear at all. In these circumstances, Perl discards all
6524 but the first character of the returned sequence, which is not likely
6527 =item Using !~ with %s doesn't make sense
6529 (F) Using the C<!~> operator with C<s///r>, C<tr///r> or C<y///r> is
6530 currently reserved for future use, as the exact behaviour has not
6531 been decided. (Simply returning the boolean opposite of the
6532 modified string is usually not particularly useful.)
6534 =item UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
6536 (S surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
6537 not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
6538 U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
6539 internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
6540 available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
6541 problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
6542 came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
6543 off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
6545 =item Value of %s can be "0"; test with defined()
6547 (W misc) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob),
6548 C<each()>, or C<readdir()> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs
6549 can return a value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression
6550 false, which is probably not what you intended. When using these
6551 constructs in conditional expressions, test their values with the
6552 C<defined> operator.
6554 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
6556 (W misc) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an
6557 %ENV element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string
6558 longer than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to
6561 =item values on reference is experimental
6563 (S experimental::autoderef) C<values> with a scalar argument
6564 is experimental and may change or be removed in a future
6565 Perl version. If you want to take the risk of using this
6566 feature, simply disable this warning:
6568 no warnings "experimental::autoderef";
6570 =item Variable "%s" is not available
6572 (W closure) During compilation, an inner named subroutine or eval is
6573 attempting to capture an outer lexical that is not currently available.
6574 This can happen for one of two reasons. First, the outer lexical may be
6575 declared in an outer anonymous subroutine that has not yet been created.
6576 (Remember that named subs are created at compile time, while anonymous
6577 subs are created at run-time.) For example,
6579 sub { my $a; sub f { $a } }
6581 At the time that f is created, it can't capture the current value of $a,
6582 since the anonymous subroutine hasn't been created yet. Conversely,
6583 the following won't give a warning since the anonymous subroutine has by
6584 now been created and is live:
6586 sub { my $a; eval 'sub f { $a }' }->();
6588 The second situation is caused by an eval accessing a variable that has
6589 gone out of scope, for example,
6597 Here, when the '$a' in the eval is being compiled, f() is not currently
6598 being executed, so its $a is not available for capture.
6600 =item Variable "%s" is not imported%s
6602 (S misc) With "use strict" in effect, you referred to a global variable
6603 that you apparently thought was imported from another module, because
6604 something else of the same name (usually a subroutine) is exported by
6605 that module. It usually means you put the wrong funny character on the
6606 front of your variable.
6608 =item Variable length lookbehind not implemented in regex m/%s/
6610 (F) Lookbehind is allowed only for subexpressions whose length is fixed and
6611 known at compile time. For positive lookbehind, you can use the C<\K>
6612 regex construct as a way to get the equivalent functionality. See
6613 L<perlre/(?<=pattern) \K>.
6615 There are non-obvious Unicode rules under C</i> that can match variably,
6616 but which you might not think could. For example, the substring C<"ss">
6617 can match the single character LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S. There are
6618 other sequences of ASCII characters that can match single ligature
6619 characters, such as LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFI matching C<qr/ffi/i>.
6620 Starting in Perl v5.16, if you only care about ASCII matches, adding the
6621 C</aa> modifier to the regex will exclude all these non-obvious matches,
6622 thus getting rid of this message. You can also say C<S<use re qw(/aa)>>
6623 to apply C</aa> to all regular expressions compiled within its scope.
6626 =item "%s" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same %s
6628 (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the
6629 current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the
6630 previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note
6631 that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope
6632 or until all closure references to it are destroyed.
6634 =item Variable syntax
6636 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
6637 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
6640 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
6642 (W closure) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a
6643 lexical variable defined in an outer named subroutine.
6645 When the inner subroutine is called, it will see the value of
6646 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the *first*
6647 call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call to the
6648 outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer subroutines will no
6649 longer share a common value for the variable. In other words, the
6650 variable will no longer be shared.
6652 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
6653 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
6654 reference variables in outer subroutines are created, they
6655 are automatically rebound to the current values of such variables.
6657 =item vector argument not supported with alpha versions
6659 (S printf) The %vd (s)printf format does not support version objects
6662 =item Verb pattern '%s' has a mandatory argument in regex; marked by
6663 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6665 (F) You used a verb pattern that requires an argument. Supply an
6666 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
6668 =item Verb pattern '%s' may not have an argument in regex; marked by
6669 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6671 (F) You used a verb pattern that is not allowed an argument. Remove the
6672 argument or check that you are using the right verb.
6674 =item Version number must be a constant number
6676 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
6677 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
6680 =item Version string '%s' contains invalid data; ignoring: '%s'
6682 (W misc) The version string contains invalid characters at the end, which
6685 =item Warning: something's wrong
6687 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
6688 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
6690 =item Warning: unable to close filehandle %s properly
6692 (S) The implicit close() done by an open() got an error indication on
6693 the close(). This usually indicates your file system ran out of disk
6696 =item Warning: Use of "%s" without parentheses is ambiguous
6698 (S ambiguous) You wrote a unary operator followed by something that
6699 looks like a binary operator that could also have been interpreted as a
6700 term or unary operator. For instance, if you know that the rand
6701 function has a default argument of 1.0, and you write
6705 you may THINK you wrote the same thing as
6709 but in actual fact, you got
6713 So put in parentheses to say what you really mean.
6715 =item when is experimental
6717 (S experimental::smartmatch) C<when> depends on smartmatch, which is
6718 experimental. Additionally, it has several special cases that may
6719 not be immediately obvious, and their behavior may change or
6720 even be removed in any future release of perl. See the explanation
6721 under L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
6723 =item Wide character in %s
6725 (S utf8) Perl met a wide character (>255) when it wasn't expecting
6726 one. This warning is by default on for I/O (like print). The easiest
6727 way to quiet this warning is simply to add the C<:utf8> layer to the
6728 output, e.g. C<binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'>. Another way to turn off the
6729 warning is to add C<no warnings 'utf8';> but that is often closer to
6730 cheating. In general, you are supposed to explicitly mark the
6731 filehandle with an encoding, see L<open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>.
6733 =item Within []-length '%c' not allowed
6735 (F) The count in the (un)pack template may be replaced by C<[TEMPLATE]>
6736 only if C<TEMPLATE> always matches the same amount of packed bytes that
6737 can be determined from the template alone. This is not possible if
6738 it contains any of the codes @, /, U, u, w or a *-length. Redesign
6741 =item write() on closed filehandle %s
6743 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
6744 before now. Check your control flow.
6746 =item %s "\x%X" does not map to Unicode
6748 (S utf8) When reading in different encodings, Perl tries to
6749 map everything into Unicode characters. The bytes you read
6750 in are not legal in this encoding. For example
6752 utf8 "\xE4" does not map to Unicode
6754 if you try to read in the a-diaereses Latin-1 as UTF-8.
6756 =item 'X' outside of string
6758 (F) You had a (un)pack template that specified a relative position before
6759 the beginning of the string being (un)packed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6761 =item 'x' outside of string in unpack
6763 (F) You had a pack template that specified a relative position after
6764 the end of the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
6766 =item YOU HAVEN'T DISABLED SET-ID SCRIPTS IN THE KERNEL YET!
6768 (F) And you probably never will, because you probably don't have the
6769 sources to your kernel, and your vendor probably doesn't give a rip
6770 about what you want. Your best bet is to put a setuid C wrapper around
6773 =item You need to quote "%s"
6775 (W syntax) You assigned a bareword as a signal handler name.
6776 Unfortunately, you already have a subroutine of that name declared,
6777 which means that Perl 5 will try to call the subroutine when the
6778 assignment is executed, which is probably not what you want. (If it IS
6779 what you want, put an & in front.)
6781 =item Your random numbers are not that random
6783 (F) When trying to initialize the random seed for hashes, Perl could
6784 not get any randomness out of your system. This usually indicates
6785 Something Very Wrong.
6787 =item Zero length \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
6789 (F) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a zero-length
6790 sequence. Such an escape was used in an extended character class, i.e.
6791 C<(?[...])>, which is not permitted. Check that the correct escape has
6792 been used, and the correct charnames handler is in scope. The S<<-- HERE>
6793 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
6799 L<warnings>, L<diagnostics>.