3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
23 below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Aliasing via reference is experimental
55 (S experimental::refaliasing) This warning is emitted if you use
56 a reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment to
57 alias one variable to another. Simply suppress the warning if you
58 want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
59 the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be
60 removed in a future Perl version:
62 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
63 use feature "refaliasing";
66 =item Allocation too large: %x
68 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
70 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
72 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
73 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
75 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
77 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
78 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
79 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
80 subroutine is not imported.
82 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
83 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
84 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
85 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
87 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
88 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
89 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
92 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
94 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
95 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
96 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
97 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
99 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
101 (S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
102 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
103 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
105 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
107 (S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
108 string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
109 the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
112 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
114 (S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
115 bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
116 (denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
117 like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
118 assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
119 clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
120 really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
122 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
124 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
125 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
126 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
127 the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
128 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
129 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
131 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
133 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
135 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
136 the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
137 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
138 might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
139 foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
140 that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
142 In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
143 to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
144 C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
145 by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
146 want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
147 unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
148 that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
149 off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
151 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
153 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
154 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
155 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
157 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
159 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
160 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
161 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
162 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
163 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
165 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
172 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
174 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
175 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
176 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
177 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
178 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
179 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
182 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
184 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
186 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
188 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
189 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
190 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
192 Note that for the C<Inf> and C<NaN> (infinity and not-a-number) the
193 definition of "numeric" is somewhat unusual: the strings themselves
194 (like "Inf") are considered numeric, and anything following them is
195 considered non-numeric.
197 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
199 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
200 system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
201 take care of transforming data between external and internal
202 representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
203 point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
204 didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
205 result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
207 =item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
209 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
210 operator which expects either a number or a string matching
211 C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
212 Auto-decrement> for details.
214 =item assertion botched: %s
216 (X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
218 =item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
220 (X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
222 =item Assigned value is not a reference
224 (F) You tried to assign something that was not a reference to an lvalue
225 reference (e.g., C<\$x = $y>). If you meant to make $x an alias to $y, use
228 =item Assigned value is not %s reference
230 (F) You tried to assign a reference to a reference constructor, but the
231 two references were not of the same type. You cannot alias a scalar to
232 an array, or an array to a hash; the two types must match.
237 \$x = $y; # error; did you mean \$y?
239 =item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
241 (F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
242 the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
244 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
246 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
247 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
248 know which context to supply to the right side.
250 =item <> at require-statement should be quotes
252 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
255 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
257 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
258 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
260 =item Attempt to bless into a freed package
262 (F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
263 the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
264 do, so it throws up in hands in despair.
266 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
268 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
269 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
270 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
276 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
278 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
279 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
282 bless $self, "$proto";
284 =item Attempt to clear deleted array
286 (S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
287 Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
288 can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
289 callback on the array.
291 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
293 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
294 which is not in its key set.
296 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
298 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
299 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
301 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
303 (S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
304 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
305 outside any of those arenas.
307 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
309 (S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
310 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
311 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
312 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
314 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
316 (S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
317 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
318 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
319 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
322 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
324 (S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
326 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
328 (S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
329 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
330 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
331 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
332 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
333 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
336 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
338 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
339 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
340 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
341 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
342 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
345 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
347 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
348 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
349 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
352 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
354 (W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
355 been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
356 scalar representing the last index of an array and later
357 assigning through that reference. For example
359 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
362 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
364 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
365 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
366 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
368 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
370 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
371 "locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
372 obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
373 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
375 =item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
377 (W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
378 example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
379 declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
381 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
383 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
384 the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
385 The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
386 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
388 =item av_reify called on tied array
390 (S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
391 confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
393 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
395 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
396 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
397 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
398 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
400 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
402 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
403 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
404 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
406 =item Bad filehandle: %s
408 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
409 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
410 open(), or did it in another package.
412 =item Bad free() ignored
414 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
415 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
416 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
418 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
419 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
420 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
424 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
426 =item Badly placed ()'s
428 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
429 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
432 =item Bad name after %s
434 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
435 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
444 $sym = "mypack::$var";
446 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
448 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
451 =item Bad realloc() ignored
453 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
454 had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
455 be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
457 =item Bad symbol for array
459 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
460 wasn't a symbol table entry.
462 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
464 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
465 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
467 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
469 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
470 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
472 =item Bad symbol for hash
474 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
475 wasn't a symbol table entry.
477 =item Bad symbol for scalar
479 (P) An internal request asked to add a scalar entry to something that
480 wasn't a symbol table entry.
482 =item Bareword found in conditional
484 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
485 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
486 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
490 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
493 use constant TYPO => 1;
494 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
496 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
498 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
500 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
501 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
502 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
504 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
506 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
507 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
508 you need to predeclare a package?
510 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
512 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
513 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
516 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
518 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
519 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
520 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
521 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
522 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
524 =item \%d better written as $%d
526 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
527 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
528 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
529 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
530 there are more than 9 backreferences.
532 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
534 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
535 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
536 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
538 =item bind() on closed socket %s
540 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
541 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
543 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
545 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
546 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
548 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
550 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
552 =item Bizarre copy of %s
554 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
557 =item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
559 (P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
560 encountered an invalid data type.
562 =item Both or neither range ends should be Unicode in regex; marked by
565 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
567 In a bracketed character class in a regular expression pattern, you
568 had a range which has exactly one end of it specified using C<\N{}>, and
569 the other end is specified using a non-portable mechanism. Perl treats
570 the range as a Unicode range, that is, all the characters in it are
571 considered to be the Unicode characters, and which may be different code
572 points on some platforms Perl runs on. For example, C<[\N{U+06}-\x08]>
573 is treated as if you had instead said C<[\N{U+06}-\N{U+08}]>, that is it
574 matches the characters whose code points in Unicode are 6, 7, and 8.
575 But that C<\x08> might indicate that you meant something different, so
576 the warning gets raised.
578 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
580 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
581 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
582 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
584 =item Callback called exit
586 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
587 exited by calling exit.
589 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
591 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
592 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
593 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
594 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
595 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
596 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
597 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
598 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
600 =item Calling POSIX::%s() is deprecated
602 (D deprecated) You called a function whose use is deprecated. See
603 the function's name in L<POSIX> for details.
607 (F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
609 =item Cannot compress %f in pack
611 (F) You tried compressing an infinity or not-a-number as an unsigned
612 integer with BER, which makes no sense.
614 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
616 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress.
617 The BER compressed integer format can only be used with positive
618 integers, and you attempted to compress a very large number (> 1e308).
619 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
621 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
623 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
624 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
626 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
628 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
629 in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
630 The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
631 no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
633 =item Cannot copy to %s
635 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
636 be directly assigned to.
638 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
640 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
641 either with open() or binmode().
643 =item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
645 (F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an integer,
646 which makes no sense.
648 =item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
650 (F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
651 which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
653 =item Cannot set tied @DB::args
655 (F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
656 is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
658 =item Cannot tie unreifiable array
660 (P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
661 keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
662 do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
663 Perl code, but are only used internally.
665 =item Cannot yet reorder sv_catpvfn() arguments from va_list
667 (F) Some XS code tried to use C<sv_catpvfn()> or a related function with a
668 format string that specifies explicit indexes for some of the elements, and
669 using a C-style variable-argument list (a C<va_list>). This is not currently
670 supported. XS authors wanting to do this must instead construct a C array of
671 C<SV*> scalars containing the arguments.
673 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
675 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
676 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
677 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
679 =item Can't bless non-reference value
681 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
682 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
684 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
686 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
687 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
689 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
691 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
693 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
695 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
696 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
697 like this will reproduce the error:
700 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
701 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
703 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
705 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
706 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
707 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
708 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
710 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
712 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
713 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
714 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
715 Something like this will reproduce the error:
718 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
719 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
721 =item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
723 (P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
724 symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
726 =item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
728 (F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
729 not attached to the symbol table.
731 =item Can't chdir to %s
733 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
734 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
736 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
738 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
741 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
743 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
744 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
754 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
756 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
758 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
761 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
763 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
764 quotas or other plumbing problems.
766 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
768 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
769 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
771 =item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
773 (F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
774 C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
775 issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
776 error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
778 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
780 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
781 a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
783 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
785 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
788 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
790 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
791 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
792 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
794 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
796 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
797 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
798 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
800 =item Can't do %s("%s") on non-UTF-8 locale; resolved to "%s".
802 (W locale) You are 1) running under "C<use locale>"; 2) the current
803 locale is not a UTF-8 one; 3) you tried to do the designated case-change
804 operation on the specified Unicode character; and 4) the result of this
805 operation would mix Unicode and locale rules, which likely conflict.
806 Mixing of different rule types is forbidden, so the operation was not
807 done; instead the result is the indicated value, which is the best
808 available that uses entirely Unicode rules. That turns out to almost
809 always be the original character, unchanged.
811 It is generally a bad idea to mix non-UTF-8 locales and Unicode, and
812 this issue is one of the reasons why. This warning is raised when
813 Unicode rules would normally cause the result of this operation to
814 contain a character that is in the range specified by the locale,
815 0..255, and hence is subject to the locale's rules, not Unicode's.
817 If you are using locale purely for its characteristics related to things
818 like its numeric and time formatting (and not C<LC_CTYPE>), consider
819 using a restricted form of the locale pragma (see L<perllocale/The "use
820 locale" pragma>) like "S<C<use locale ':not_characters'>>".
822 Note that failed case-changing operations done as a result of
823 case-insensitive C</i> regular expression matching will show up in this
824 warning as having the C<fc> operation (as that is what the regular
825 expression engine calls behind the scenes.)
827 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
829 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
830 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
832 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
834 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
835 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
838 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
840 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
841 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
842 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
843 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
845 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
847 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
848 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
849 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
850 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
851 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
852 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
857 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
858 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
859 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
861 =item Can't execute %s
863 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
864 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
866 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
868 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
869 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
871 =item Can't find label %s
873 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
874 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
876 =item Can't find %s on PATH
878 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
881 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
883 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
884 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
885 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
887 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
889 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
890 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
891 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
893 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
895 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
896 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
897 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
898 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
899 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
901 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
903 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
905 (F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
906 known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
907 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
908 for a complete list of available official
909 properties. If it is a
910 L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
911 it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
914 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
915 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
920 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
923 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
925 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
928 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
930 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
931 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
932 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
933 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
934 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
935 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
936 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
937 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
938 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
939 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
940 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
941 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
942 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
943 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
944 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
946 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
948 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
949 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
951 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
953 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
954 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
956 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
958 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
959 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
961 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
963 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
964 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
965 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
966 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
968 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
970 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
973 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
975 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
976 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
977 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
979 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
981 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
982 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
983 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
984 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
986 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
988 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
989 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
990 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
991 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
992 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
993 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
995 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
997 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
998 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
1001 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
1003 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
1004 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
1005 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
1006 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
1007 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
1008 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
1011 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
1013 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
1014 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
1016 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
1018 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
1019 This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
1020 that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
1021 to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
1022 dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
1023 that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
1026 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
1028 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
1029 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
1030 want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
1033 =item Can't localize through a reference
1035 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
1036 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
1037 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
1038 that $ref will still be a reference.
1040 =item Can't locate %s
1042 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
1043 Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
1044 the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
1045 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
1046 extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
1047 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
1048 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
1050 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
1052 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
1053 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
1054 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
1055 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
1057 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
1059 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
1060 for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
1061 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
1063 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
1065 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
1066 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
1067 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
1069 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
1072 (F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
1073 could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
1074 requires a package that has not been loaded.
1076 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
1078 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
1079 doesn't seem to exist.
1081 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1083 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1084 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1086 =item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
1088 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1091 =item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1093 (S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
1094 that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1095 process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1096 the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1097 from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1098 functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1100 =item Can't modify %s in %s
1102 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1103 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
1105 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
1107 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1110 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s
1112 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
1113 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1115 =item Can't modify reference to %s in %s assignment
1117 (F) Only a limited number of constructs can be used as the argument to a
1118 reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment, and what
1119 you used was not one of them. See L<perlref/Assigning to References>.
1121 =item Can't modify reference to localized parenthesized array in list
1124 (F) Assigning to C<\local(@array)> or C<\(local @array)> is not supported, as
1125 it is not clear exactly what it should do. If you meant to make @array
1126 refer to some other array, use C<\@array = \@other_array>. If you want to
1127 make the elements of @array aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1128 right-hand side, use C<\(@array) = @scalar_refs>.
1130 =item Can't modify reference to parenthesized hash in list assignment
1132 (F) Assigning to C<\(%hash)> is not supported. If you meant to make %hash
1133 refer to some other hash, use C<\%hash = \%other_hash>. If you want to
1134 make the elements of %hash into aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1135 right-hand side, use a hash slice: C<\@hash{@keys} = @those_scalar_refs>.
1137 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
1139 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
1142 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1144 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1145 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1146 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1147 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1148 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1149 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1151 =item Can't open %s: %s
1153 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1154 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1155 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1156 this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1157 you named on the command line.
1159 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1160 your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
1162 =item Can't open a reference
1164 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1165 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1169 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1170 open is not supported.
1172 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1174 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1175 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1176 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1177 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1179 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1181 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1182 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1183 the command line for writing.
1185 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1187 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1188 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1189 command line for reading.
1191 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1193 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1194 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1195 the command line for writing.
1197 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1199 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1200 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1203 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
1205 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1207 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1208 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1209 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1211 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1213 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1214 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1215 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1216 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1219 =item Can't redeclare "%s" in "%s"
1221 (F) A "my", "our" or "state" declaration was found within another declaration,
1222 such as C<my ($x, my($y), $z)> or C<our (my $x)>.
1224 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1226 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1227 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1228 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1229 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1230 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1231 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1233 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1235 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1236 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1237 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1239 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1241 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1242 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1244 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1246 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1247 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1249 =item Can't represent character for Ox%X on this platform
1251 (F) There is a hard limit to how big a character code point can be due
1252 to the fundamental properties of UTF-8, especially on EBCDIC
1253 platforms. The given code point exceeds that. The only work-around is
1254 to not use such a large code point.
1256 =item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1258 (F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1259 all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1260 the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1261 supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1263 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1265 (F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1266 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1267 package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1269 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1271 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1272 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1275 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1277 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1278 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1280 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1282 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1283 subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1284 think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1285 write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1286 Perl that the call should be in list context.
1288 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1290 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1291 open already. Bizarre.
1293 =item Can't take log of %g
1295 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1296 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1297 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1300 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1302 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1303 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1304 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1306 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1308 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1309 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1310 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1312 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1314 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1315 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1316 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1317 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1319 =item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1321 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1322 other than "=" after the module name.
1324 =item Can't use a hash as a reference
1326 (F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1327 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1328 <= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1329 have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1331 =item Can't use an array as a reference
1333 (F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1334 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1335 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1336 was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1338 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1340 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1341 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1342 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1344 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1346 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1347 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1349 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1351 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1352 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1354 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1356 (F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1357 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1358 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1360 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1362 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1363 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1364 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1366 =item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1368 (F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1369 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1370 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1372 =item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1374 (F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1376 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1377 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1378 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1379 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1380 generates a fatal error.
1382 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1383 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1389 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1390 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1391 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1394 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1396 (P) The parser got confused when trying to parse a C<foreach> loop.
1398 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1400 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1401 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1402 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1403 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1406 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1408 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1409 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1410 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1411 is inside a big-endian group.
1413 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1415 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1416 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1417 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1418 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1421 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1423 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1424 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1425 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1427 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1429 =item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1431 (F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1432 C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1433 L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1434 in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1435 for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1436 of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1437 symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
1439 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1441 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1442 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1443 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1445 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1447 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1448 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1449 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1450 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1451 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1454 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1456 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1457 references can be weakened.
1459 =item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1461 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1462 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1463 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1464 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1466 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1468 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1469 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1470 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1472 =item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
1474 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
1476 Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
1477 discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
1478 L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
1480 =item Character following \%c must be '{' or a single-character Unicode property name in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1482 (F) (In the above the C<%c> is replaced by either C<p> or C<P>.) You
1483 specified something that isn't a legal Unicode property name. Most
1484 Unicode properties are specified by C<\p{...}>. But if the name is a
1485 single character one, the braces may be omitted.
1487 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1493 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1494 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1495 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1499 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1502 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1508 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1509 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1510 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1512 pack("c", $x & 255);
1514 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1517 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1519 (W unpack) You tried something like
1521 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1523 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1524 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1525 value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1527 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1529 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1535 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1536 expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1539 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1541 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1543 (W pack) You tried something like
1545 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1547 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1548 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1549 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1551 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1553 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1555 (W unpack) You tried something like
1557 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1559 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1560 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1561 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1563 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1565 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple spaces
1567 (F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1568 in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1569 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1570 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1571 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1573 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space
1575 (F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1576 character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1577 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1578 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1579 See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1581 =item chdir() on unopened filehandle %s
1583 (W unopened) You tried chdir() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1585 =item \C no longer supported in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1587 (F) The \C character class used to allow a match of single byte within a
1588 multi-byte utf-8 character, but was removed in v5.24 as it broke
1589 encapsulation and its implementation was extremely buggy. If you really
1590 need to process the individual bytes, you probably want to convert your
1591 string to one where each underlying byte is stored as a character, with
1594 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1596 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1597 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1598 is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1599 for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1600 between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
1602 =item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1604 (F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1606 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1608 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1609 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1611 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1613 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1615 =item Closure prototype called
1617 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1618 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1619 This subroutine cannot be called.
1621 =item Code missing after '/'
1623 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1624 another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1626 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1628 (S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1631 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1632 to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1633 but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1634 it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1635 but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
1638 =item %s: Command not found
1640 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1641 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1642 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1646 =item Compilation failed in require
1648 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1649 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1650 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1652 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1654 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1655 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1656 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1657 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1658 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1659 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1660 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1661 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1662 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1664 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1666 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1667 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1668 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1670 =item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1672 (F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1673 (see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1674 L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1676 =item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1678 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1679 overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
1682 =item Constant is not %s reference
1684 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1685 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1686 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1687 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1688 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1690 =item Constants from lexical variables potentially modified elsewhere are
1693 (D deprecated) You wrote something like
1696 $sub = sub () { $var };
1698 but $var is referenced elsewhere and could be modified after the C<sub>
1699 expression is evaluated. Either it is explicitly modified elsewhere
1700 (C<$var = 3>) or it is passed to a subroutine or to an operator like
1701 C<printf> or C<map>, which may or may not modify the variable.
1703 Traditionally, Perl has captured the value of the variable at that
1704 point and turned the subroutine into a constant eligible for inlining.
1705 In those cases where the variable can be modified elsewhere, this
1706 breaks the behavior of closures, in which the subroutine captures
1707 the variable itself, rather than its value, so future changes to the
1708 variable are reflected in the subroutine's return value.
1710 This usage is deprecated, because the behavior is likely to change
1711 in a future version of Perl.
1713 If you intended for the subroutine to be eligible for inlining, then
1714 make sure the variable is not referenced elsewhere, possibly by
1718 $sub = sub () { $var2 };
1720 If you do want this subroutine to be a closure that reflects future
1721 changes to the variable that it closes over, add an explicit C<return>:
1724 $sub = sub () { return $var };
1726 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1728 (W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1729 been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1730 for commentary and workarounds.
1732 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1734 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1735 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1738 =item Constant(%s) unknown
1740 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1741 to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1742 character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1743 forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?
1745 =item :const is experimental
1747 (S experimental::const_attr) The "const" attribute is experimental.
1748 If you want to use the feature, disable the warning with C<no warnings
1749 'experimental::const_attr'>, but know that in doing so you are taking
1750 the risk that your code may break in a future Perl version.
1752 =item :const is not permitted on named subroutines
1754 (F) The "const" attribute causes an anonymous subroutine to be run and
1755 its value captured at the time that it is cloned. Named subroutines are
1756 not cloned like this, so the attribute does not make sense on them.
1758 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1760 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1761 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1763 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1765 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1766 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
1767 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1768 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1770 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1771 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1773 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1775 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1777 =item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1779 (P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1780 one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1781 latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1783 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1785 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1786 expression compiler gave it.
1788 =item corrupted regexp program
1790 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1793 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1795 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1797 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1799 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1800 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1804 The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1805 share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1807 =item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1809 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1811 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1812 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1813 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1814 which case it indicates something else.
1816 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1817 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1819 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1820 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1822 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1823 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1824 of the C<....> part.
1826 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1829 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1831 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1832 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1834 =item delete argument is index/value array slice, use array slice
1836 (F) You used index/value array slice syntax (C<%array[...]>) as
1837 the argument to C<delete>. You probably meant C<@array[...]> with
1838 an @ symbol instead.
1840 =item delete argument is key/value hash slice, use hash slice
1842 (F) You used key/value hash slice syntax (C<%hash{...}>) as the argument to
1843 C<delete>. You probably meant C<@hash{...}> with an @ symbol instead.
1845 =item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1847 (F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
1853 or a hash or array slice, such as:
1855 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1856 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
1858 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1860 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1861 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1862 that triggers this error.
1864 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1866 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1867 has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1868 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1869 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1870 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1871 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1872 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1874 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1878 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1880 Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
1881 lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1883 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1885 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1887 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1888 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1889 than to create a dangling reference.
1891 =item Did not produce a valid header
1895 =item %s did not return a true value
1897 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1898 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1899 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1900 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1902 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1904 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1907 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1909 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1910 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1913 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1915 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1916 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1921 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1922 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
1924 =item Document contains no data
1928 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1930 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1931 define a C<$VERSION>.
1933 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1935 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1936 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1938 =item Don't know how to get file name
1940 (P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
1941 somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
1943 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
1945 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1947 =item do_study: out of memory
1949 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1951 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1953 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1954 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1955 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1956 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1957 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1958 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1959 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1960 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1962 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1964 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1965 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1967 =item dump is not supported
1969 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1971 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1973 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1976 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1978 (W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
1979 type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1981 =item elseif should be elsif
1983 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
1984 it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1985 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1986 unlikely to be what you want.
1988 =item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1990 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1991 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1992 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1994 =item entering effective %s failed
1996 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1997 effective uids or gids failed.
1999 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
2001 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
2002 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
2003 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
2005 =item Error converting file specification %s
2007 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
2008 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
2009 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
2010 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
2011 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
2013 =item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
2015 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2016 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
2017 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
2019 =item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
2021 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
2022 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
2023 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
2024 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
2025 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
2026 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
2027 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
2029 =item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
2031 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
2032 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
2033 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
2035 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
2036 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2038 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
2039 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
2041 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2044 =item Excessively long <> operator
2046 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
2047 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
2048 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
2049 variable and glob that.
2051 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
2053 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
2054 OS. See L<perlport>.
2056 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
2058 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
2060 =item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
2062 (F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
2063 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
2069 =item exists argument is not a subroutine name
2071 (F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
2072 and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
2074 =item Exiting eval via %s
2076 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
2077 goto, or a loop control statement.
2079 =item Exiting format via %s
2081 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
2082 goto, or a loop control statement.
2084 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
2086 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
2087 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
2088 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2090 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
2092 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
2093 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
2095 =item Exiting substitution via %s
2097 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
2098 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
2100 =item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2102 (F) You wrote something like
2106 to denote a capturing group of the form
2107 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
2108 but omitted the C<")">.
2110 =item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2112 (F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
2113 only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
2114 C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
2115 containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
2116 This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
2117 interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
2118 have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
2119 L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
2121 =item Experimental aliasing via reference not enabled
2123 (F) To do aliasing via references, you must first enable the feature:
2125 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
2126 use feature "refaliasing";
2129 =item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
2131 (F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
2133 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
2134 use feature "signatures";
2135 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
2137 =item Experimental %s on scalar is now forbidden
2139 (F) An experimental feature added in Perl 5.14 allowed C<each>, C<keys>,
2140 C<push>, C<pop>, C<shift>, C<splice>, C<unshift>, and C<values> to be called
2141 with a scalar argument. This experiment is considered unsuccessful, and has
2142 been removed. The C<postderef> feature may meet your needs better.
2144 =item Experimental "%s" subs not enabled
2146 (F) To use lexical subs, you must first enable them:
2148 no warnings 'experimental::lexical_subs';
2149 use feature 'lexical_subs';
2152 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
2154 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
2155 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
2156 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
2157 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
2159 =item %s: Expression syntax
2161 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
2162 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
2164 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
2166 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
2167 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
2168 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
2170 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2172 (W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
2173 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
2174 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
2175 construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
2176 the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
2177 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2179 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
2181 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
2182 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
2183 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
2184 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
2186 =item fcntl is not implemented
2188 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2189 PDP-11 or something?
2191 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2193 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2196 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2198 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
2199 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2200 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
2201 C<u63> as the format.
2203 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
2205 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2206 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2207 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2208 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2210 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
2212 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2213 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
2214 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2215 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2216 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2217 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
2219 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2221 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2222 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
2225 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2227 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2228 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
2230 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2232 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
2233 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2234 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2237 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2239 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
2240 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
2241 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2244 =item Format not terminated
2246 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2247 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2249 =item Format %s redefined
2251 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
2254 no warnings 'redefine';
2255 eval "format NAME =...";
2258 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2268 (or something like that).
2270 =item %s found where operator expected
2272 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2273 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
2274 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2275 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
2277 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2279 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2281 =item gethostent not implemented
2283 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2284 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2287 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
2289 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2290 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2292 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2294 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2295 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2297 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2299 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2300 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2301 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2303 =item given is experimental
2305 (S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2306 is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2307 in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2308 L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
2310 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2313 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
2314 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
2315 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2316 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
2318 =item glob failed (%s)
2320 (S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
2321 for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2322 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
2323 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
2324 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2325 is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2326 in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2327 if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2328 all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
2329 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
2330 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
2332 =item Glob not terminated
2334 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2335 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2336 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2337 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2339 =item gmtime(%f) failed
2341 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2342 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2344 =item gmtime(%f) too large
2346 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
2347 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
2348 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2349 not-a-number value).
2351 =item gmtime(%f) too small
2353 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
2354 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
2356 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2358 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2359 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2361 =item goto must have label
2363 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2364 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2366 =item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2368 (F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2369 the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2370 has since been undefined.
2372 =item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
2373 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2375 (F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2376 they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2377 this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2379 =item ()-group starts with a count
2381 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2382 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2384 =item %s had compilation errors.
2386 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2388 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2390 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2391 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2392 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2394 =item %s has too many errors
2396 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2397 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2399 =item Having more than one /%c regexp modifier is deprecated
2401 (D deprecated, regexp) You used the indicated regular expression pattern
2402 modifier at least twice in a string of modifiers. It is deprecated to
2403 do this with this particular modifier, to allow future extensions to the
2406 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2408 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
2409 than the floating point supports.
2411 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2413 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
2414 than the floating point supports.
2416 =item Hexadecimal float: internal error (%s)
2418 (F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2420 =item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2422 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2423 the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2424 the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2426 =item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2428 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2429 digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2430 long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2431 (needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2433 =item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2435 (F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
2436 the internals of the long double format are unknown;
2437 therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2439 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2441 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2442 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2443 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2445 =item Identifier too long
2447 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2448 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2449 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2450 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2452 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2453 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2455 (W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
2456 zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character
2457 class its behavior is not well defined. Check that the correct
2458 escape has been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2460 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2462 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2464 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2466 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2467 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2470 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2472 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2473 declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2474 indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2475 or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
2477 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2479 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2480 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2481 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2482 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2483 to your Perl administrator.
2485 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2487 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2488 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2489 Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2490 that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2491 instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2493 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2495 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2496 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2498 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2500 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2502 =item Illegal division by zero
2504 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2505 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2508 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2510 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2511 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2512 number stopped before the illegal character.
2514 =item Illegal modulus zero
2516 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2517 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2519 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2521 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2522 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2524 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2526 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2528 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2530 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2531 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2533 =item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2535 (F) You wrote something like
2539 The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2540 capturing group. See
2541 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2543 =item Illegal suidscript
2545 (F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2547 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2549 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2550 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2552 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2554 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2555 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2556 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2558 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2560 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2561 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2562 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2565 =item (in cleanup) %s
2567 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2568 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2569 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2570 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2571 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2573 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2574 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2576 =item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2579 (F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
2580 expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2581 too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2582 enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2584 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2587 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2588 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2589 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2591 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2593 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2594 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2595 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2597 =item Infinite recursion in regex
2599 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2600 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2601 either consume text or fail.
2603 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2605 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2606 initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2607 C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2608 context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2609 supported in a future perl release.
2611 =item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2613 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2614 (indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2615 it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2616 is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2617 returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2618 a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2619 expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2620 returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2622 =item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2624 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2625 (indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2626 better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2627 is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2628 it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2629 provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2630 if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2631 it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2633 =item %s() is deprecated on :utf8 handles
2635 (W deprecated) The sysread(), recv(), syswrite() and send() operators
2636 are deprecated on handles that have the C<:utf8> layer, either
2637 explicitly, or implicitly, eg., with the C<:encoding(UTF-16LE)> layer.
2639 Both sysread() and recv() currently use only the C<:utf8> flag for the
2640 stream, ignoring the actual layers. Since sysread() and recv() do no
2641 UTF-8 validation they can end up creating invalidly encoded scalars.
2643 Similarly, syswrite() and send() use only the C<:utf8> flag, otherwise
2644 ignoring any layers. If the flag is set, both write the value UTF-8
2645 encoded, even if the layer is some different encoding, such as the
2648 Ideally, all of these operators would completely ignore the C<:utf8>
2649 state, working only with bytes, but this would result in silently
2650 breaking existing code. To avoid this a future version of perl will
2651 throw an exception when any of sysread(), recv(), syswrite() or send()
2652 are called on handle with the C<:utf8> layer.
2654 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2656 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2657 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2658 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2659 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2660 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2661 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2662 L<perlsec> for more information.
2664 =item Insecure directory in %s
2666 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2667 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2668 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2671 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2673 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2674 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2675 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2676 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2677 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2679 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2681 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2682 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2683 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2684 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2686 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2688 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2689 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2690 integers for your architecture.
2692 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2694 (S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2695 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2696 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2697 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2698 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2699 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2700 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2701 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2704 =item Integer overflow in srand
2706 (S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2707 in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2708 replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2709 architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2710 you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2711 return the same sequence of random numbers.
2713 =item Integer overflow in version
2715 =item Integer overflow in version %d
2717 (W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2718 the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2719 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
2720 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2721 to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
2723 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2725 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2726 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2729 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2731 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2732 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2733 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2734 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2735 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2736 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2738 =item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2740 (S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2741 formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2742 C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2743 by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2744 message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2747 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2749 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2750 S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2753 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2755 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2756 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2757 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2758 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2760 =item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2761 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2763 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2764 expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2765 intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2768 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2770 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2771 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2773 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2775 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2776 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2778 =item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
2781 (F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
2782 the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
2783 the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2785 =item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
2787 (W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
2788 arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
2789 formerly ignored by system calls.
2791 =item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
2793 (F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
2794 indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
2796 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2798 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2799 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2801 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
2802 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2804 (W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2805 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2806 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2807 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
2808 instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
2809 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2810 escape was discovered.
2812 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2814 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
2815 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2817 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2818 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
2819 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2821 =item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2823 (F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2824 cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2825 arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2826 B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2828 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2830 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2831 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2832 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2833 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2835 =item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
2837 (W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
2838 not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
2841 =item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2843 (S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
2844 with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
2845 See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
2847 =item Invalid quantifier in {,} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2849 (F) The pattern looks like a {min,max} quantifier, but the min or max
2850 could not be parsed as a valid number - either it has leading zeroes,
2851 or it represents too big a number to cope with. The S<<-- HERE> shows
2852 where in the regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2854 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2856 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2857 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2858 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2859 up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
2860 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2862 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2864 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2865 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2867 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2869 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2870 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2871 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2874 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2876 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2877 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2878 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2879 list was terminated too soon.
2881 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2883 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2884 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2885 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2886 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2887 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2888 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2890 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2892 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2893 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2895 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2898 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2900 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2901 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2902 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2903 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2904 must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2905 optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2906 trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2907 after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2908 text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2909 for more details on allowed version formats.
2911 =item Invalid version object
2913 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2914 Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2915 an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
2917 =item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
2918 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2920 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in
2921 this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
2922 indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
2923 and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
2925 =item ioctl is not implemented
2927 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2928 strange for a machine that supports C.
2930 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2932 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2933 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
2935 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2937 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2938 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
2941 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2943 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2944 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2946 =item '%s' is an unknown bound type in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2948 (F) You used C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}> and the C<...> is not known to
2949 Perl. The current valid ones are given in
2950 L<perlrebackslash/\b{}, \b, \B{}, \B>.
2952 =item "%s" is more clearly written simply as "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2954 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
2956 You specified a character that has the given plainer way of writing it,
2957 and which is also portable to platforms running with different character
2960 =item $* is no longer supported
2962 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2963 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. In
2964 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2965 matching within a string.
2967 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2968 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2969 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2970 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2972 =item $# is no longer supported
2974 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2975 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. You
2976 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
2978 =item '%s' is not a code reference
2980 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2981 overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2982 an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
2984 =item '%s' is not an overloadable type
2986 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2989 =item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
2991 (S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
2992 that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
2993 given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
2994 make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
2995 it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
2996 should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
2997 line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
2999 =item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
3001 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
3003 =item Label not found for "last %s"
3005 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
3006 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3009 =item Label not found for "next %s"
3011 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
3012 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3015 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
3017 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
3018 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3021 =item leaving effective %s failed
3023 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
3024 effective uids or gids failed.
3026 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
3028 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
3029 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
3030 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3032 =item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
3034 (W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
3035 probably wanted a count of the items.
3037 Array size can be obtained by doing:
3041 The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
3045 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
3047 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
3048 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
3049 couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
3050 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
3051 it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
3053 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
3055 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
3058 =item listen() on closed socket %s
3060 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
3061 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3064 =item List form of piped open not implemented
3066 (F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
3067 form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
3068 Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
3070 =item %s: loadable library and perl binaries are mismatched (got handshake key %p, needed %p)
3072 (P) A dynamic loading library C<.so> or C<.dll> was being loaded into the
3073 process that was built against a different build of perl than the
3074 said library was compiled against. Reinstalling the XS module will
3075 likely fix this error.
3077 =item Locale '%s' may not work well.%s
3079 (W locale) You are using the named locale, which is a non-UTF-8 one, and
3080 which perl has determined is not fully compatible with what it can
3081 handle. The second C<%s> gives a reason.
3083 By far the most common reason is that the locale has characters in it
3084 that are represented by more than one byte. The only such locales that
3085 Perl can handle are the UTF-8 locales. Most likely the specified locale
3086 is a non-UTF-8 one for an East Asian language such as Chinese or
3087 Japanese. If the locale is a superset of ASCII, the ASCII portion of it
3090 Some essentially obsolete locales that aren't supersets of ASCII, mainly
3091 those in ISO 646 or other 7-bit locales, such as ASMO 449, can also have
3092 problems, depending on what portions of the ASCII character set get
3093 changed by the locale and are also used by the program.
3094 The warning message lists the determinable conflicting characters.
3096 Note that not all incompatibilities are found.
3098 If this happens to you, there's not much you can do except switch to use a
3099 different locale or use L<Encode> to translate from the locale into
3100 UTF-8; if that's impracticable, you have been warned that some things
3103 This message is output once each time a bad locale is switched into
3104 within the scope of C<S<use locale>>, or on the first possibly-affected
3105 operation if the C<S<use locale>> inherits a bad one. It is not raised
3106 for any operations from the L<POSIX> module.
3108 =item localtime(%f) failed
3110 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
3111 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
3113 =item localtime(%f) too large
3115 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
3116 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3117 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
3118 not-a-number value).
3120 =item localtime(%f) too small
3122 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
3123 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3126 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
3128 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
3129 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
3131 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
3133 (W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
3134 is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
3135 accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
3136 warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
3137 when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
3138 insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
3140 =item lstat() on filehandle%s
3142 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
3143 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
3144 instead on the filehandle.)
3146 =item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
3148 (W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
3149 attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
3150 does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
3151 want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
3152 details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
3153 if you really know what you are doing.
3155 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
3157 (W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
3158 subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
3159 not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
3160 add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
3161 foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
3163 See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
3165 =item Magical list constants are not supported
3167 (F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
3168 to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
3169 something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
3171 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
3173 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
3174 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3176 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
3178 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
3179 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3181 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3183 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3190 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
3191 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
3192 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3193 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
3195 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
3197 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
3198 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
3199 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
3200 when the function is called.
3201 Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
3202 but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
3203 so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
3205 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
3207 (S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
3208 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
3210 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
3211 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
3212 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
3214 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
3215 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
3216 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
3219 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
3221 =item Malformed UTF-8 character immediately after '%s'
3223 (F) You said C<use utf8>, but the program file doesn't comply with UTF-8
3224 encoding rules. The message prints out the properly encoded characters
3225 just before the first bad one. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a
3226 warning is generated that gives more details about the type of
3229 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
3231 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
3233 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
3235 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3236 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3238 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
3240 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3241 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3243 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
3245 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3246 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3248 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
3250 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
3251 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
3253 =item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
3255 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
3256 $b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
3257 Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
3258 caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
3259 as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
3260 optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
3262 =item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
3265 (S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
3266 Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
3267 in an unsigned integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
3268 other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3269 containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3270 the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3271 C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3272 so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3273 in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3274 unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3275 given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3276 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3278 This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3279 immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3280 not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3281 the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3282 Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3283 every code point except these 22.)
3285 Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3286 should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3287 that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3288 category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3291 See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3293 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3296 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
3297 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
3298 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3301 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
3303 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
3304 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3305 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3306 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
3307 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
3309 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3311 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3312 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3315 =item '%' may not be used in pack
3317 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
3318 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3319 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3321 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3323 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3324 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3326 =item Method %s not permitted
3330 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3332 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3333 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3334 ended earlier on the current line.
3336 =item Misplaced _ in number
3338 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3339 separate two digits.
3341 =item Missing argument in %s
3343 (W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3344 arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3346 Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3347 arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3348 other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3349 functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
3351 =item Missing argument to -%c
3353 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3354 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3356 =item Missing braces on \N{}
3358 =item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3360 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
3361 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3362 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3363 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3366 =item Missing braces on \o{}
3368 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3370 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3372 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3373 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3375 =item Missing command in piped open
3377 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3378 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3381 =item Missing control char name in \c
3383 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3386 =item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3388 (W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
3390 =item Missing name in "%s sub"
3392 (F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
3393 they have a name with which they can be found.
3395 =item Missing $ on loop variable
3397 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3398 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3399 can vary from one line to the next.
3401 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
3403 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3404 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
3406 =item Missing or undefined argument to require
3408 (F) You tried to call require with no argument or with an undefined
3409 value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
3410 file-specification as an argument. See L<perlfunc/require>.
3412 =item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3414 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3416 =item Missing right brace on \N{}
3418 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
3420 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3422 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3423 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
3424 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
3425 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3426 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3428 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3429 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3430 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3432 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3433 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3434 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3435 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
3436 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3437 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3439 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3440 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3441 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3442 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
3444 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
3446 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3447 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3450 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3452 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3453 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
3454 the previous line just because you saw this message.
3456 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3458 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
3459 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
3460 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3462 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3465 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3467 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3468 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3471 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3472 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3475 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
3477 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3478 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3481 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
3483 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3484 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
3486 =item Module name must be constant
3488 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3490 =item Module name required with -%c option
3492 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3493 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3494 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
3496 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
3498 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
3499 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3500 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3501 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3503 =item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3505 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3506 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3507 could not be made read-only.
3509 =item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3511 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3512 but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3514 =item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3516 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3517 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3518 buffer could not be made mutable.
3520 =item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3522 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
3523 L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3524 mutable before freeing the ops.
3526 =item msg%s not implemented
3528 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3530 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3532 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3533 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
3535 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
3537 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3538 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3539 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3541 =item %s must not be a named sequence in transliteration operator
3543 (F) Transliteration (C<tr///> and C<y///>) transliterates individual
3544 characters. But a named sequence by definition is more than an
3545 individual charater, and hence doing this operation on it doesn't make
3548 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
3550 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3553 =item "my" subroutine %s can't be in a package
3555 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3556 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
3558 =item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3560 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3561 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3562 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3563 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3564 name, or rename the lexical variable.
3566 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
3568 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3569 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3570 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
3572 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3574 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3575 names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3576 just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
3577 declaration is also provided for this purpose.
3579 NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3580 only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3581 warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3582 %c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
3583 format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3584 but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3585 Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3586 identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
3588 =item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3590 (F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3591 exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3592 constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3594 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3595 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3596 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3598 The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
3599 need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3600 two separate things, you need to separate them:
3602 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3603 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3604 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3605 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3607 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
3609 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3610 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3612 =item Negative length
3614 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3615 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
3617 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3619 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3620 greater than or equal to zero.
3622 =item Negative repeat count does nothing
3624 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
3625 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3626 times, which doesn't make sense.
3628 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3630 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3631 So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3632 whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3634 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
3635 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
3637 =item %s never introduced
3639 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3640 scope before it could possibly have been used.
3642 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3644 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3645 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3648 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
3649 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3651 (F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
3652 bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
3653 class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
3654 probably not what you want.
3656 =item \N{} in inverted character class or as a range end-point is restricted to one character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3658 (F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
3659 multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
3660 supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
3661 whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>),
3662 or the escape is the beginning or final end point of a range. The
3663 mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
3664 is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
3665 forbid it. Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
3666 C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
3668 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
3670 What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
3671 of code points, so this is made an error.
3673 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by
3674 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3676 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
3677 sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
3678 bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
3679 backslash in double-quotish:
3681 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
3682 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
3685 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
3687 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
3690 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
3694 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
3696 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and
3697 it doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
3699 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
3700 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
3702 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
3705 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
3707 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3708 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3709 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3710 securable. See L<perlsec>.
3712 =item NO-BREAK SPACE in a charnames alias definition is deprecated
3714 (D deprecated) You defined a character name which contained a no-break
3715 space character. Change it to a regular space. Usually these names are
3716 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
3717 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
3718 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3720 =item No code specified for -%c
3722 (F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3723 you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3724 argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3730 =item No comma allowed after %s
3732 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3733 not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
3734 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3736 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3737 a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3738 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3739 system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3740 use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3741 please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3742 explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3743 it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3744 still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3745 the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3746 constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
3748 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
3750 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3751 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3752 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
3754 =item No DB::DB routine defined
3756 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3757 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3758 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3761 =item No dbm on this machine
3763 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
3764 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
3766 =item No DB::sub routine defined
3768 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3769 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3770 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3771 of each ordinary subroutine call.
3773 =item No directory specified for -I
3775 (F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3776 I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3778 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
3780 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3781 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3782 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
3784 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3786 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
3787 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3789 =item No input file after < on command line
3791 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3792 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3793 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
3795 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3797 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3798 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3799 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3800 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3802 =item Non-finite repeat count does nothing
3804 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
3805 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator C<Inf> (or
3806 C<-Inf>) or C<NaN> times, which doesn't make sense.
3808 =item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3810 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
3811 a hex one was expected, like
3816 =item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3818 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
3819 an octal one was expected, like
3823 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3825 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3826 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3829 =item "no" not allowed in expression
3831 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3832 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3834 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3836 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3837 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3838 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
3840 =item No output file after > on command line
3842 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3843 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3844 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
3846 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
3848 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3849 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3850 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
3852 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3854 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3855 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3856 rules. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
3858 =item No Perl script found in input
3860 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3861 with #! and containing the word "perl".
3863 =item No setregid available
3865 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3868 =item No setreuid available
3870 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3873 =item No such class %s
3875 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3876 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
3878 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3880 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3881 variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3882 The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3885 =item No such hook: %s
3887 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3888 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3890 =item No such pipe open
3892 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
3893 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3894 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
3896 =item No such signal: SIG%s
3898 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3899 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3900 names on your system.
3902 =item Not a CODE reference
3904 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3905 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3906 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3909 =item Not a GLOB reference
3911 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3912 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3913 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3914 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3916 =item Not a HASH reference
3918 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3919 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3920 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3922 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3924 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3925 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3926 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3928 =item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3930 (F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3931 another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3932 or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3934 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3936 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3937 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3938 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3940 =item Not a subroutine reference
3942 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3943 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3944 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3947 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3949 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3950 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3952 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3954 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3956 =item Not enough format arguments
3958 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3959 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3963 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3964 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3967 =item (?[...]) not valid in locale in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3969 (F) C<(?[...])> cannot be used within the scope of a C<S<use locale>> or with
3970 an C</l> regular expression modifier, as that would require deferring
3971 to run-time the calculation of what it should evaluate to, and it is
3972 regex compile-time only.
3974 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3976 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3977 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3978 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3979 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3980 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3982 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3984 (S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3987 =item Null picture in formline
3989 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3990 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3991 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3995 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3997 =item NULL regexp argument
3999 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
4001 =item NULL regexp parameter
4003 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
4005 =item Number too long
4007 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
4008 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
4009 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
4010 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
4013 =item Number with no digits
4015 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
4016 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
4019 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
4021 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
4022 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
4023 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
4025 =item Odd name/value argument for subroutine
4027 (F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
4028 received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
4029 the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
4030 The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault. Inconveniently,
4031 this error will be reported at the location of the subroutine, not that
4034 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
4036 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
4037 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
4039 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
4041 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4042 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4044 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
4046 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4047 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4049 =item Offset outside string
4051 (F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
4052 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
4053 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
4054 take place when going past the end of the string when either
4055 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
4056 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behavior
4059 =item %s() on unopened %s
4061 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
4062 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
4063 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
4065 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
4067 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
4068 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
4072 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
4076 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
4078 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
4080 (D io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
4081 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
4082 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
4085 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
4087 (D io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
4088 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
4089 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
4092 =item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4095 (F) You wrote something like
4097 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
4099 There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
4102 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
4104 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
4105 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
4106 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
4107 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
4109 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
4111 (S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode rules
4112 on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
4113 defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
4115 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4116 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4118 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
4119 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
4121 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
4123 (S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
4124 rules on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
4125 of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
4126 rules are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
4127 they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
4128 surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
4130 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4131 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4133 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
4134 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
4136 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
4138 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
4139 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
4140 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
4141 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
4144 =item Optional parameter lacks default expression
4146 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
4147 named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
4148 parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
4149 have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
4151 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
4153 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
4154 in the current lexical scope.
4156 =item Out of memory!
4158 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
4159 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
4160 no option but to exit immediately.
4162 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
4163 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
4164 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
4165 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
4166 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
4168 =item Out of memory during %s extend
4170 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
4171 the largest possible memory allocation.
4173 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
4175 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
4176 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
4177 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
4178 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
4180 =item Out of memory during request for %s
4182 (X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
4183 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
4186 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
4187 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
4188 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
4189 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
4190 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
4191 where the failed request happened.
4193 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
4195 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
4196 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
4197 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
4199 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
4201 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
4202 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
4205 =item '.' outside of string in pack
4207 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
4208 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
4210 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
4212 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
4213 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4215 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
4217 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
4218 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
4219 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4221 =item overload arg '%s' is invalid
4223 (W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
4224 recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
4226 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
4228 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
4229 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
4232 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
4234 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
4235 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
4237 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
4239 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
4240 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
4241 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
4242 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
4244 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
4246 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
4247 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4251 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
4252 page. See L<perlform>.
4256 (P) An internal error.
4258 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
4260 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
4261 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
4262 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
4263 enter this branch on this platform.
4265 =item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
4267 (P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
4268 was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
4269 able to initialize properly.
4271 =item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
4273 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
4275 =item panic: ck_split, type=%u
4277 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
4279 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
4281 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
4282 there are in the savestack.
4284 =item panic: del_backref
4286 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4291 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
4292 it wasn't an eval context.
4294 =item panic: do_subst
4296 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4299 =item panic: do_trans_%s
4301 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
4304 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4306 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
4309 =item panic: frexp: %f
4311 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4313 =item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
4315 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4316 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4318 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4320 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
4321 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4322 Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4323 the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
4325 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
4327 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4329 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
4331 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4333 =item panic: kid popen errno read
4335 (F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
4337 =item panic: last, type=%u
4339 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4340 it wasn't a block context.
4342 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4344 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4347 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
4349 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4350 invalid enum on the top of it.
4352 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4354 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4355 references to an object.
4357 =item panic: malloc, %s
4359 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4361 =item panic: memory wrap
4363 (P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4366 =item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
4368 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4369 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4371 =item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
4373 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4374 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4376 =item panic: pad_free po
4378 (P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. An attempt was
4379 made to free a target that had not been allocated to begin with.
4381 =item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
4383 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4384 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4386 =item panic: pad_sv po
4388 (P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. Most likely
4389 an operator needed a target but that target had not been allocated
4390 for whatever reason.
4392 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
4394 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4395 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4397 =item panic: pad_swipe po
4399 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4401 =item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
4403 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4405 =item panic: pp_match%s
4407 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4410 =item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
4412 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
4414 =item panic: realloc, %s
4416 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4418 =item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4420 (P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4421 reference count other than 1.
4423 =item panic: restartop in %s
4425 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4426 didn't supply the destination.
4428 =item panic: return, type=%u
4430 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4431 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4433 =item panic: scan_num, %s
4435 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4437 =item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
4439 (P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
4440 blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4441 seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4443 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4445 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4446 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4447 is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4449 =item panic: sv_chop %s
4451 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4452 scalar's string buffer.
4454 =item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
4456 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4459 =item panic: top_env
4461 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
4463 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4465 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4466 permitted at run time.
4468 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4470 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
4471 to even) byte length.
4473 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4475 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4476 to even) byte length.
4478 =item panic: yylex, %s
4480 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4482 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4484 (W parenthesis) You said something like
4490 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4492 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4494 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4496 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4499 =item Passing malformed UTF-8 to "%s" is deprecated
4501 (D deprecated, utf8) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl
4502 core or in XS code. Such code was trying to find out if a character,
4503 allegedly stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such
4504 as being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded in
4505 legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used by
4506 knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked against
4507 was. If C<utf8> warnings are enabled, a further message is raised,
4508 giving details of the malformation.
4510 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
4512 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
4513 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4514 the nesting limit is exceeded.
4516 =item C<-p> destination: %s
4518 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4519 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4520 redirected it with select().)
4522 =item Perl API version %s of %s does not match %s
4524 (F) The XS module in question was compiled against a different incompatible
4525 version of Perl than the one that has loaded the XS module.
4527 =item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
4528 utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4530 (S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4531 and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4532 folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
4533 Please report this as a bug using the L<perlbug> utility.
4535 =item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4537 (S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4538 experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4539 simply disable this warning:
4541 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";
4543 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
4545 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
4546 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
4547 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
4548 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4550 =item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
4552 (F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
4553 Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
4554 of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
4555 interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
4556 decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
4557 is equivalent to v5.100.
4559 =item Perl %s required--this is only %s, stopped
4561 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
4562 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
4563 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
4565 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
4567 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
4568 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
4570 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
4572 (X) See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
4574 =item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
4576 (F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
4577 on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
4578 Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
4579 wrong and the version check should just be removed.
4581 =item perl: warning: Non hex character in '$ENV{PERL_HASH_SEED}', seed only partially set
4583 (S) PERL_HASH_SEED should match /^\s*(?:0x)?[0-9a-fA-F]+\s*\z/ but it
4584 contained a non hex character. This could mean you are not using the
4585 hash seed you think you are.
4587 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4589 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
4591 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
4592 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
4595 are supported and installed on your system.
4596 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
4598 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
4599 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
4600 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
4601 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
4602 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
4603 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
4604 Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
4605 fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
4606 time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
4607 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
4609 =item perl: warning: strange setting in '$ENV{PERL_PERTURB_KEYS}': '%s'
4611 (S) Perl was run with the environment variable PERL_PERTURB_KEYS defined
4612 but containing an unexpected value. The legal values of this setting
4615 Numeric | String | Result
4616 --------+---------------+-----------------------------------------
4617 0 | NO | Disables key traversal randomization
4618 1 | RANDOM | Enables full key traversal randomization
4619 2 | DETERMINISTIC | Enables repeatable key traversal
4622 Both numeric and string values are accepted, but note that string values are
4623 case sensitive. The default for this setting is "RANDOM" or 1.
4625 =item pid %x not a child
4627 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
4628 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
4629 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
4631 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
4633 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
4635 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4637 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The S<<-- HERE>
4638 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
4639 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
4640 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
4641 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
4643 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
4645 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
4646 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
4648 =item POSIX syntax [%c %c] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by
4649 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4651 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
4652 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
4653 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
4654 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and
4655 will cause fatal errors. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular
4656 expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4658 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4659 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4661 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4662 with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4663 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4664 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[."
4665 and ".\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4666 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4668 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by
4669 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4671 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
4672 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
4673 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
4674 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
4675 and "=\]". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
4676 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4678 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
4680 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
4681 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
4682 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
4683 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
4685 You probably wrote something like this:
4692 when you should have written this:
4699 If you really want comments, build your list the
4700 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
4704 'b', # another comment
4707 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
4709 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
4710 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
4711 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
4714 You probably wrote something like this:
4718 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
4719 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
4723 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
4725 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
4726 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
4727 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
4728 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
4730 =item Possible precedence issue with control flow operator
4732 (W syntax) There is a possible problem with the mixing of a control
4733 flow operator (e.g. C<return>) and a low-precedence operator like
4736 sub { return $a or $b; }
4740 sub { (return $a) or $b; }
4742 Which is effectively just:
4746 Either use parentheses or the high-precedence variant of the operator.
4748 Note this may be also triggered for constructs like:
4752 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %s operator
4754 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
4755 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
4757 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
4759 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
4760 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
4761 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
4762 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
4764 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
4766 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
4767 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
4768 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
4769 followed by the word 'bar'.
4771 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
4772 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
4774 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
4775 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
4776 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
4778 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
4780 (W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
4781 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
4782 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
4783 to the array you apparently lost track of.
4785 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
4787 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
4791 is now misinterpreted as
4795 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
4796 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
4797 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
4800 =item Premature end of script headers
4804 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
4806 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4807 before now. Check your control flow.
4809 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
4811 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
4812 before now. Check your control flow.
4814 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
4816 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
4817 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
4818 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
4819 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"