3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Allocation too large: %x
55 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
57 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s
59 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
60 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
62 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
64 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
65 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
66 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
67 subroutine is not imported.
69 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
70 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
71 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
72 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
74 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
75 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
76 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
79 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
81 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
82 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
83 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
84 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
86 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
88 (W ambiguous)(S) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
89 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
90 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
92 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
94 (W ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
95 bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
96 (denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
97 like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
98 assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
99 clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
100 really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
102 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
104 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
105 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
106 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
107 the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
108 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
109 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
111 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
113 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
115 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo
116 represents the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for
117 element number 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write
118 C<$foo[2]>, or you might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to
119 the function named foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it
120 returns. If you meant that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
122 In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
123 to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
124 C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length>
125 followed by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what
126 you want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/>
127 to the unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to
128 something that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by
129 simply turning off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
131 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
133 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
134 string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
135 the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
138 =item Ambiguous use of 's//le...' resolved as 's// le...'; Rewrite as 's//el' if you meant 'use locale rules and evaluate rhs as an expression'. In Perl 5.16, it will be resolved the other way
140 (W deprecated, ambiguous) You wrote a pattern match with substitution
141 immediately followed by "le". In Perl 5.14 and earlier, this is
142 resolved as meaning to take the result of the substitution, and see if
143 it is stringwise less-than-or-equal-to what follows in the expression.
144 Having the "le" immediately following a pattern is deprecated behavior,
145 so in Perl 5.16, this expression will be resolved as meaning to do the
146 pattern match using the rules of the current locale, and evaluate the
147 rhs as an expression when doing the substitution. In 5.14, if you want
148 the latter interpretation, you can simply write "el" instead.
150 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
152 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
153 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
154 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
156 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
158 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
159 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
160 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
161 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
162 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
164 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
171 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
173 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
174 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
175 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
176 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
177 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
178 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
181 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
183 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
185 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
187 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
188 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
194 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
196 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
202 or a hash or array slice, such as:
204 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
205 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
207 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
209 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
210 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
213 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
215 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
216 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
217 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
219 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
221 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O system you
222 forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers take care of transforming
223 data between external and internal representations.) Perl stopped parsing
224 the layer list at this point and did not attempt to push this layer.
225 If your program didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be
226 the result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
228 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
230 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
231 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
233 =item assertion botched: %s
235 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
237 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
239 (P) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
241 =item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
243 (F) The special variable C<$[>, deprecated in older perls, is now a fixed
244 zero value, because the feature that it used to control has been removed.
246 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
248 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
249 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
250 know which context to supply to the right side.
252 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
254 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily the main
255 thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
256 Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
257 created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
258 thread. See L<threads>.
260 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
262 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
263 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
265 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
267 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
268 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
269 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
275 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
277 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
278 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
281 bless $self, "$proto";
283 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
285 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
286 which is not in its key set.
288 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
290 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
291 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
293 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
295 (P internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
296 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
297 outside any of those arenas.
299 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
301 (P internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
302 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
303 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
304 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
306 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely
308 (W debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
309 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
310 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
311 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
314 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
316 (P internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
318 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar
320 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
321 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
322 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
323 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
324 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
325 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
328 =item Attempt to join self
330 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
331 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
332 to move the join() to some other thread.
334 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
336 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
337 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
338 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
339 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
340 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
343 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
345 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
346 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
347 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
350 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
352 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
353 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
354 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
356 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
359 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
361 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
362 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
363 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
365 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
367 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the "locked"
368 attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is obsolete, has had no
369 effect since 5005 threads were removed, and will be removed in a future
372 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
374 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the "unique"
375 attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference. The :unique attribute has
376 had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and will be removed in a future release
379 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
381 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
382 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
383 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
384 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
386 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
388 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
389 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
390 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
392 =item Bad filehandle: %s
394 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
395 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
396 open(), or did it in another package.
398 =item Bad free() ignored
400 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
401 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
402 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
404 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
405 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
406 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
410 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
412 =item Badly placed ()'s
414 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
415 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
418 =item Bad name after %s::
420 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
421 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
430 $sym = "mypack::$var";
432 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
434 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
437 =item Bad realloc() ignored
439 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
440 never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled
441 by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
443 =item Bad symbol for array
445 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
446 wasn't a symbol table entry.
448 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
450 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
451 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
453 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
455 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
456 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
458 =item Bad symbol for hash
460 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
461 wasn't a symbol table entry.
463 =item Bareword found in conditional
465 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
466 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
467 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
471 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
474 use constant TYPO => 1;
475 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
477 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
479 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
481 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
482 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
483 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
485 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
487 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
488 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
489 you need to predeclare a package?
491 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
493 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
494 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
497 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
499 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
500 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
501 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
502 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
503 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
505 =item \1 better written as $1
507 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
508 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
509 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
510 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
511 there are more than 9 backreferences.
513 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
515 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
516 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
517 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
519 =item bind() on closed socket %s
521 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
522 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
524 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
526 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
527 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
529 =item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
531 =item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
533 (W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
534 C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
535 itself in a future release.
537 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
539 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
541 =item Bizarre copy of %s in %s
543 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
546 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
548 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
549 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
550 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
552 =item Callback called exit
554 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
555 exited by calling exit.
557 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
559 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
560 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
561 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
562 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
563 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
564 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
565 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
566 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
568 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
570 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
571 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
572 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
573 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
575 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
577 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
578 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
580 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
582 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference in it,
583 then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax. The access
584 triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is no legal conversion
585 from that type of reference to a typeglob.
587 =item Cannot copy to %s in %s
589 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
590 be directly assigned to.
592 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
594 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
595 either with open() or binmode().
597 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
599 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
600 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
601 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
603 =item Can't bless non-reference value
605 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
606 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
608 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
610 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
611 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
613 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
615 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
617 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
619 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
620 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
621 like this will reproduce the error:
624 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
625 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
627 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
629 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
630 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
631 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
632 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
634 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
636 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
637 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
638 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
639 Something like this will reproduce the error:
642 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
643 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
645 =item Can't chdir to %s
647 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
648 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
650 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
652 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
655 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
657 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
658 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
668 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
670 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
672 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
675 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
677 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
678 quotas or other plumbing problems.
680 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
682 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
683 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
685 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
687 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
688 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
690 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
692 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
695 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
697 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
698 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
699 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
701 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
703 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
704 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
705 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
707 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
709 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really want your
710 regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The <-- HERE shows in the
711 regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
713 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
715 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
716 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
718 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
720 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
721 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
724 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
726 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
727 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
728 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
729 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
731 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
733 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
734 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
735 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
736 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
737 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
738 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
743 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
744 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
745 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
747 =item Can't execute %s
749 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
750 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
752 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
754 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
755 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
757 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
759 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
760 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
761 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
762 for a complete list of available properties.
764 =item Can't find label %s
766 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
767 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
769 =item Can't find %s on PATH
771 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
774 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
776 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
777 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
778 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
780 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
782 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
783 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
784 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
786 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
788 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
789 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
790 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
791 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
792 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
794 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
796 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
797 property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
798 letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
799 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
800 for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
801 mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by C<\\p>
802 (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
807 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
810 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
812 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
815 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
817 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
818 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
819 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
820 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
821 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
822 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
823 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
824 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
825 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
826 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
827 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
828 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
829 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
830 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
831 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
833 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
835 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
836 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
838 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
840 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
841 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
843 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
845 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
846 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
848 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
850 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
851 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
852 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
853 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
855 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
857 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
858 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
859 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
861 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
863 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
866 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
868 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
869 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
870 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
871 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
873 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
875 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
876 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
877 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
878 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
879 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
880 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
882 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
884 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
885 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
888 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
890 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
891 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
892 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
893 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
894 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
895 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
898 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
900 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
901 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
903 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
905 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension. This
906 may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one that is
907 incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known to happen
908 between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your dynamic
909 extension was built against an older version of the library that is
910 installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old dynamic
913 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
915 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
916 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you want to
917 localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with the
920 =item Can't localize through a reference
922 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
923 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
924 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
925 that $ref will still be a reference.
927 =item Can't locate %s
929 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be
930 found. Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC,
931 unless the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you
932 need to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where
933 the extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
934 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
935 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
937 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
939 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
940 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
941 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
942 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
944 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
946 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
947 for example, C<foo.so> or C<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
948 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
950 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
952 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
953 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
954 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
956 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
958 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
959 doesn't seem to exist.
961 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
963 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
964 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
966 =item Can't make list assignment to \%ENV on this system
968 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
971 =item Can't modify %s in %s
973 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
974 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
976 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
978 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
981 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
983 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
984 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
986 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
988 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
991 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
993 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
994 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
995 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
996 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
997 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
998 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1000 =item Can't open %s: %s
1002 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1003 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1004 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually this
1005 is because you don't have read permission for a file which you named on
1008 =item Can't open a reference
1010 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1011 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1015 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1016 open is not supported.
1018 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1020 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1021 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1022 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1023 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1025 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1027 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1028 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1029 the command line for writing.
1031 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1033 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1034 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1035 command line for reading.
1037 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1039 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1040 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1041 the command line for writing.
1043 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1045 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1046 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1049 =item Can't open perl script%s
1051 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1053 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1054 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1055 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1057 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1059 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1060 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1061 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1062 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1065 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1067 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1068 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1069 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1070 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1071 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1072 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1074 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1076 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1077 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1078 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1080 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1082 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1083 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1085 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1087 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1088 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1090 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1092 (F|P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as opposed
1093 to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the package. If
1094 the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1096 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1098 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1099 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1102 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1104 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1105 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1107 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1109 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue subroutine,
1110 but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl think you meant
1111 to return only one value. You probably meant to write parentheses around
1112 the call to the subroutine, which tell Perl that the call should be in
1115 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1117 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1118 open already. Bizarre.
1120 =item Can't take log of %g
1122 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1123 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1124 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1127 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1129 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1130 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1131 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1133 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1135 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1136 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1137 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1139 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1141 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1142 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1143 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1144 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1146 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1148 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1149 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1150 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1152 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1154 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1155 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1157 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1159 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1160 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1162 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1164 (F) The first time the %! hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1165 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1166 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1168 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1170 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1171 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1172 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1174 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1176 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1179 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1181 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1182 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1183 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1184 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1187 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1189 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1190 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1191 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1192 is inside a big-endian group.
1194 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1196 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1197 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1198 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1199 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1202 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1204 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1205 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1206 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1208 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1210 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1211 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1213 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1215 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1216 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1217 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1219 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1221 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1222 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1223 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1224 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1225 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1228 =item Can't use "when" outside a topicalizer
1230 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1231 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1232 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1233 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1235 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1237 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1238 references can be weakened.
1240 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1242 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1243 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1244 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1246 =item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
1248 (F|W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1249 It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.16. In the
1250 cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1251 derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1253 Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
1255 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1261 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1262 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1263 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1267 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1270 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1276 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode expects
1277 all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved as if you
1280 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1282 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1288 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1289 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1290 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1292 pack("c", $x & 255);
1294 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1297 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1299 (W unpack) You tried something like
1301 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1303 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1304 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the value
1305 modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1307 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1309 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1311 (W pack) You tried something like
1313 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1315 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1316 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1317 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1319 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1321 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1323 (W unpack) You tried something like
1325 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1327 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1328 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1329 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1331 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1333 =item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1335 (D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1336 to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1337 evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
1338 ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.16. Just use a
1339 semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1341 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1343 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1344 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1345 written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1348 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1350 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1352 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1354 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1355 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1357 =item Closure prototype called
1359 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1360 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1361 This subroutine cannot be called.
1363 =item Code missing after '/'
1365 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be another
1366 template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1368 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1370 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed
1372 (W utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum of U+10FFFF.
1374 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code
1375 points, up to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on
1376 your system, but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems.
1377 At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
1378 0x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require
1379 larger than a 32 bit word.
1381 None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1382 code point. For example,
1384 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1386 will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1388 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1392 This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1394 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Fails.
1395 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also fails!
1397 and both these succeed:
1399 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Succeeds.
1400 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also succeeds!
1402 =item %s: Command not found
1404 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1405 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1407 =item Compilation failed in require
1409 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1410 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1411 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1413 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1415 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1416 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1417 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1418 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1419 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1420 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1421 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1422 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1423 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1425 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1427 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1428 cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_broadcast()
1429 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1430 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1431 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread
1432 first to wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1433 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1436 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1438 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to call
1439 cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The cond_signal()
1440 function is used to wake up another thread that is waiting in a
1441 cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't sent before the other thread
1442 has a chance to enter the wait, it is usual for the signaling thread
1443 first to wait for a lock on variable. This lock attempt will only succeed
1444 after the other thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the
1447 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1449 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1450 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1451 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1453 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1455 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1456 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1457 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1458 corresponding C<overload> or C<charnames> pragma? See L<charnames> and
1461 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1463 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1464 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1465 forgot to load the corresponding C<charnames> pragma?
1468 =item Constant is not %s reference
1470 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1471 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1472 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1473 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1474 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1476 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1478 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been
1479 eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for
1480 commentary and workarounds.
1482 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1484 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1485 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1488 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1490 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1491 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1493 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1495 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1496 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Most subroutines
1497 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1498 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1500 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1501 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1503 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1505 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1507 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1509 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1510 expression compiler gave it.
1512 =item corrupted regexp program
1514 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1517 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1519 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1521 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1523 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1524 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1527 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1529 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1530 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1531 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1532 which case it indicates something else.
1534 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1535 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1537 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1539 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1540 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1541 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1543 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1545 (D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1546 discouraged since 5.004.
1548 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1549 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1550 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1551 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1553 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1554 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1560 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1561 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1562 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1566 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1568 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1569 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1570 of the C<....> part.
1572 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1575 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1577 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1578 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1580 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1582 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1583 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1584 that triggers this error.
1586 =item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
1588 (D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1589 But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1590 are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1591 and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1592 parentheses or colons.
1594 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1596 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>.
1597 There has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1598 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1599 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1600 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1601 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1602 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1604 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1608 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1610 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to
1611 have lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1613 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1615 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1617 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1618 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather than
1619 to create a dangling reference.
1621 =item Did not produce a valid header
1625 =item %s did not return a true value
1627 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1628 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1629 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1630 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1632 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1634 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1637 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1639 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1640 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1643 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1645 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1646 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1651 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1652 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
1654 =item Document contains no data
1658 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1660 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1661 define a C<$VERSION.>
1663 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1665 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1666 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1668 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1670 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1672 =item do_study: out of memory
1674 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1676 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1678 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1679 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1680 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1681 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1682 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1683 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1684 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1685 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1687 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1689 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1690 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1692 =item dump is not supported
1694 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1696 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1698 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1701 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1703 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1704 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1706 =item elseif should be elsif
1708 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks it's
1709 ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method named
1710 "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1711 unlikely to be what you want.
1715 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1716 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1717 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1719 =item entering effective %s failed
1721 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1722 effective uids or gids failed.
1724 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1726 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1727 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1728 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1730 =item Error converting file specification %s
1732 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1733 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1734 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1735 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1736 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1738 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1740 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1741 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1742 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1744 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1746 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1747 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1748 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1749 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1750 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1751 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1752 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1754 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1756 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1757 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1758 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1760 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1762 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1763 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1765 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1768 =item Excessively long <> operator
1770 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1771 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1772 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1773 variable and glob that.
1775 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1777 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
1778 OS. See L<perlport>.
1780 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1782 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1784 =item Exiting eval via %s
1786 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1787 goto, or a loop control statement.
1789 =item Exiting format via %s
1791 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1792 goto, or a loop control statement.
1794 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1796 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1797 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1798 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1800 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1802 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1803 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1805 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1807 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1808 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1810 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1812 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1813 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1814 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1815 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1817 =item %s: Expression syntax
1819 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1820 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1822 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1824 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1825 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1826 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1828 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1830 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1831 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1832 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1833 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1834 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1836 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
1838 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1839 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1840 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1841 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1843 =item fcntl is not implemented
1845 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1846 PDP-11 or something?
1848 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1850 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1853 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1855 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1856 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1857 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1858 C<u63> as the format.
1860 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1862 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1863 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1864 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1865 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1867 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1869 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1870 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1871 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1872 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1873 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1874 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1876 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1878 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1879 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1882 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1884 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1885 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1887 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1889 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1890 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1891 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1894 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1896 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1897 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1898 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1901 =item Format not terminated
1903 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1904 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1906 =item Format %s redefined
1908 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1911 no warnings 'redefine';
1912 eval "format NAME =...";
1915 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1925 (or something like that).
1927 =item %s found where operator expected
1929 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1930 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1931 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1932 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1934 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1936 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1938 =item gethostent not implemented
1940 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
1941 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
1944 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
1946 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
1947 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
1949 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
1951 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
1952 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
1954 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
1956 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
1957 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1958 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
1960 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
1962 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
1963 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
1964 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
1965 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
1967 =item glob failed (%s)
1969 (W glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used for
1970 C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a
1971 C<glob> pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
1972 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
1973 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell) is
1974 broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables in
1975 config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it
1976 were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them all
1977 empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
1978 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
1979 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
1981 =item Glob not terminated
1983 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
1984 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
1985 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
1986 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
1988 =item gmtime(%f) too large
1990 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
1991 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1992 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
1993 not-a-number value).
1995 =item gmtime(%f) too small
1997 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
1998 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
1999 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2000 not-a-number value).
2002 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2004 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2005 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2007 =item goto must have label
2009 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2010 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2012 =item ()-group starts with a count
2014 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2015 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2017 =item %s had compilation errors.
2019 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2021 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2023 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2024 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2025 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2027 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2029 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2030 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
2032 =item %s has too many errors
2034 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2035 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2037 =item Having no space between pattern and following word is deprecated
2041 You had a word that isn't a regex modifier immediately following a
2042 pattern without an intervening space. If you are trying to use the C</le>
2043 flags on a substitution, use C</el> instead. Otherwise, add white space
2044 between the pattern and following word to eliminate the warning. As an
2045 example of the latter, the two constructs:
2047 $a =~ m/$foo/sand $bar
2048 $a =~ m/$foo/s and $bar
2050 both currently mean the same thing, but it is planned to disallow the first
2051 form in Perl 5.16. And,
2053 $a =~ m/$foo/and $bar
2055 will be disallowed too.
2057 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2059 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2060 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2061 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2063 =item Identifier too long
2065 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2066 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2067 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2068 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2070 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
2072 (W) Named Unicode character escapes (\N{...}) may return a
2073 zero length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class
2074 its behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
2075 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2077 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2079 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2081 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2083 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2084 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2087 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2089 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2090 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2092 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2094 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2095 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2096 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2097 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2098 to your Perl administrator.
2100 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2102 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2103 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2105 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2107 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2108 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2110 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2112 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2114 =item Illegal division by zero
2116 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2117 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2120 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2122 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2123 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2124 number stopped before the illegal character.
2126 =item Illegal modulus zero
2128 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2129 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2131 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2133 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2134 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2136 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2138 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2140 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2142 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2143 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2145 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2147 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2148 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2150 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2152 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2153 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2154 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2156 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2158 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2159 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2160 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2163 =item (in cleanup) %s
2165 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2166 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2167 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2168 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2169 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2171 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2172 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2174 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2176 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2177 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2178 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2180 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2182 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2183 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2184 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2186 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2188 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2189 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2190 either consume text or fail.
2192 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2195 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2197 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the initialization
2198 of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write C<state ($a) = 42> as
2199 C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar context. Constructions such
2200 as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be supported in a future perl release.
2202 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2204 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2205 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2206 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2207 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2208 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2209 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2210 L<perlsec> for more information.
2212 =item Insecure directory in %s
2214 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2215 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2216 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2219 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2221 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2222 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2223 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2224 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2225 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2227 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2229 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2230 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2231 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2232 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2234 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2236 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2237 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2238 integers for your architecture.
2240 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2242 (W overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2243 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2244 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2245 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2246 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2247 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2248 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2249 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2252 =item Integer overflow in version
2254 (F) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for the
2255 size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2256 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use a
2257 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by
2258 trying to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like
2261 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2263 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2264 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2267 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2269 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2270 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2271 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2272 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2273 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2274 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2276 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2278 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2279 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2282 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2284 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2285 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2286 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2287 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2289 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2291 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2292 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2294 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2296 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2297 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2299 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2301 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2302 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2304 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2306 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2307 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2308 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2309 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2310 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2311 escape was discovered.
2313 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2315 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2316 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
2317 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2319 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2321 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2322 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2323 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2324 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2326 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2328 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2329 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2330 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2331 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2332 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2334 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2336 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2337 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2339 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2341 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2342 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2343 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2346 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2348 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2349 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2350 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2351 list was terminated too soon.
2353 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2355 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2356 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2357 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2358 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2359 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2360 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2362 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2364 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2365 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2366 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2369 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2371 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2372 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2373 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2374 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it must
2375 have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is optional.
2376 Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha"
2377 component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or
2378 dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized text indicates which
2379 criteria were not met. See the L<version> module for more details on
2380 allowed version formats.
2382 =item Invalid version object
2384 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid. Perhaps
2385 the internals were modified directly in some way or an arbitrary reference
2386 was blessed into the "version" class.
2388 =item ioctl is not implemented
2390 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2391 strange for a machine that supports C.
2393 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2395 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2396 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
2398 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2400 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2401 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
2404 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2406 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2407 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2409 =item $* is no longer supported
2411 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2412 perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
2413 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2414 matching within a string.
2416 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2417 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2418 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2419 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2421 =item $# is no longer supported
2423 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2424 perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
2425 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
2427 =item `%s' is not a code reference
2429 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of overload::constant
2430 needs to be a code reference. Either an anonymous subroutine, or a reference
2433 =item `%s' is not an overloadable type
2435 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2438 =item junk on end of regexp
2440 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2442 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2444 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2445 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2448 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2450 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2451 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2454 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2456 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2457 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2460 =item leaving effective %s failed
2462 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2463 effective uids or gids failed.
2465 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2467 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2468 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2469 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2471 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2473 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2474 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character
2475 that couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2476 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where it
2477 is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
2479 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2481 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2484 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2486 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2487 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2490 =item localtime(%f) too large
2492 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
2493 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2494 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2495 not-a-number value).
2497 =item localtime(%f) too small
2499 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
2500 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2501 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2502 not-a-number value).
2504 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2506 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2507 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2509 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2511 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2512 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2513 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2514 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2515 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2516 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2518 =item lstat() on filehandle %s
2520 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2521 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2522 instead on the filehandle.)
2524 =item lvalue attribute cannot be removed after the subroutine has been defined
2526 (W misc) The lvalue attribute on a Perl subroutine cannot be turned off
2527 once the subroutine is defined.
2529 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2531 (W misc) Making a Perl subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been
2532 defined, whether by declaring the subroutine with an lvalue attribute
2533 or by using L<attributes.pm|attributes>, is not possible. To make the subroutine an
2534 lvalue subroutine, add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put
2535 the declaration before the definition.
2537 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2539 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2540 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2542 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2544 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2545 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2547 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2549 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2556 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2557 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2558 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2559 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2561 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2563 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2564 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2565 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2566 when the function is called.
2568 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2570 (S utf8) (F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2571 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2573 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2574 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2575 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2577 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2578 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2579 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2582 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2584 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2586 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2588 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2590 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2591 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2593 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2595 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2596 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2598 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2600 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2601 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2603 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2605 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2606 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2608 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2610 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2611 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2612 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2615 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2617 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2618 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2619 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2620 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2621 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2623 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2625 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2626 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2629 =item % may not be used in pack
2631 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2632 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2633 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2635 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2637 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2638 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2640 =item Method %s not permitted
2644 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2646 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2647 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2648 ended earlier on the current line.
2650 =item Misplaced _ in number
2652 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2653 separate two digits.
2655 =item Missing argument in %s
2657 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2660 =item Missing argument to -%c
2662 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2663 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2665 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2667 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2668 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2669 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2670 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2673 =item Missing braces on \o{}
2675 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2677 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2679 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2680 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2682 =item Missing command in piped open
2684 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2685 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2688 =item Missing control char name in \c
2690 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2693 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2695 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2696 they have a name with which they can be found.
2698 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2700 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2701 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2702 can vary from one line to the next.
2704 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2706 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2707 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2709 =item Missing right brace on %s
2711 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2713 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
2715 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2717 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2718 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
2719 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2720 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2721 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2723 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2724 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2725 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2727 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2728 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2729 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2730 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2731 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2732 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2734 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2735 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2736 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2737 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2739 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2741 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2742 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2745 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2747 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2748 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2749 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2751 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2753 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2754 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2755 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2757 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2760 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2762 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2763 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2766 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2767 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to modify the 2
2770 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2772 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2773 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2776 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2778 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2779 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2781 =item Module name must be constant
2783 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2785 =item Module name required with -%c option
2787 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2788 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2789 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2791 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
2793 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2794 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2795 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2796 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2798 =item msg%s not implemented
2800 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2802 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2804 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2805 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2807 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2809 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2810 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2811 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2813 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2815 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2818 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2820 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2821 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2822 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2824 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2826 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2827 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2828 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2829 provided for this purpose.
2831 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2832 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2833 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2834 will not trigger this warning.
2836 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
2838 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2839 character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses
2840 its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not
2843 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2845 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
2846 sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
2847 bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
2848 backslash in double-quotish:
2850 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
2851 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
2854 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
2856 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2859 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2863 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2865 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2866 doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2868 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2869 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2871 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2874 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2876 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2877 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2879 =item Negative length
2881 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2882 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2884 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2886 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2887 greater than or equal to zero.
2889 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2891 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses. So
2892 things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
2893 expression about where the problem was discovered.
2895 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2896 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2898 =item %s never introduced
2900 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2901 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2903 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2905 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2906 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2909 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2911 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2912 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
2913 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
2914 securable. See L<perlsec>.
2916 =item No comma allowed after %s
2918 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is not
2919 allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
2920 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
2922 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported a
2923 constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
2924 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating system
2925 does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did use an
2926 explicit import list for the constants you expect to see; please see
2927 L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an explicit import list
2928 would probably have caught this error earlier it naturally does not
2929 remedy the fact that your operating system still does not support that
2930 constant. Maybe you have a typo in the constants of the symbol import
2931 list of B<use> or B<import> or in the constant name at the line where
2932 this error was triggered?
2934 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
2936 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2937 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
2938 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
2940 =item No DB::DB routine defined
2942 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2943 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2944 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
2947 =item No dbm on this machine
2949 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
2950 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
2952 =item No DB::sub routine defined
2954 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
2955 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
2956 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
2957 of each ordinary subroutine call.
2959 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
2961 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2962 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
2963 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
2965 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
2967 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
2968 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2970 =item No input file after < on command line
2972 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2973 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
2974 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
2976 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
2978 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
2979 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
2980 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
2981 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
2983 =item "no" not allowed in expression
2985 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
2986 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
2988 =item No output file after > on command line
2990 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2991 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
2992 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
2994 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
2996 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
2997 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
2998 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
3000 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3002 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3003 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3004 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
3006 =item No Perl script found in input
3008 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3009 with #! and containing the word "perl".
3011 =item No setregid available
3013 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3016 =item No setreuid available
3018 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3021 =item No %s specified for -%c
3023 (F) The indicated command line switch needs a mandatory argument, but
3024 you haven't specified one.
3026 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3028 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed variable
3029 but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type. The indicated
3030 package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the L<fields> pragma.
3032 =item No such class %s
3034 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3035 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
3037 =item No such hook: %s
3039 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3040 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3042 =item No such pipe open
3044 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
3045 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3046 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
3048 =item No such signal: SIG%s
3050 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3051 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3052 names on your system.
3054 =item Not a CODE reference
3056 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3057 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3058 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3061 =item Not a format reference
3063 (F) I'm not sure how you managed to generate a reference to an anonymous
3064 format, but this indicates you did, and that it didn't exist.
3066 =item Not a GLOB reference
3068 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3069 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3070 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3071 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3073 =item Not a HASH reference
3075 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3076 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3077 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3079 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3081 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3082 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3083 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3085 =item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3087 (F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3088 another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3089 or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3091 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3093 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3094 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3095 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3097 =item Not a subroutine reference
3099 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3100 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3101 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3104 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3106 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3107 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3109 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3111 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3113 =item Not enough format arguments
3115 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3116 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3120 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3121 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3124 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3126 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3127 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3128 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3129 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3130 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3132 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3134 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3135 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value is as
3138 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3140 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3141 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3142 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
3144 =item Null filename used
3146 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3147 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
3149 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3151 (P debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3154 =item Null picture in formline
3156 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3157 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3158 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3162 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3164 =item NULL regexp argument
3166 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3168 =item NULL regexp parameter
3170 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3172 =item Number too long
3174 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3175 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3176 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3177 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3180 =item Number with no digits
3182 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
3183 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
3186 =item Octal number in vector unsupported
3188 (F) Numbers with a leading C<0> are not currently allowed in vectors.
3189 The octal number interpretation of such numbers may be supported in a
3192 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3194 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3195 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3196 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3198 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3200 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3201 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3203 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3205 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3206 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3208 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3210 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3211 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3213 =item Offset outside string
3215 (F|W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3216 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3217 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3218 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3219 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3220 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3223 =item %s() on unopened %s
3225 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3226 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3227 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3229 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3231 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3232 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3236 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3240 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3242 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3244 (W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3245 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3246 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3249 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3251 (W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3252 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3253 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3256 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3258 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3259 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3260 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3261 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3263 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
3265 (W utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3267 point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not defined. Perl
3268 has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
3270 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3271 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3273 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3274 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
3276 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
3278 (W utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3279 semantics on a Unicode
3280 surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of surrogates for anything but
3281 storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics are (reluctantly) defined for
3282 the surrogates, and they are to do nothing for this operation. Because
3283 the use of surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
3285 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3286 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3288 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3289 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
3291 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3293 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3294 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3295 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3296 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3299 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3301 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3302 in the current lexical scope.
3304 =item Out of memory!
3306 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3307 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3308 no option but to exit immediately.
3310 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3311 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3312 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3313 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3314 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3316 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3318 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3319 the largest possible memory allocation.
3321 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3323 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3324 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3325 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3326 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3328 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3330 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3331 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3334 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3335 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3336 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3337 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3338 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3339 where the failed request happened.
3341 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3343 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3344 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3345 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3347 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3349 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3350 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3353 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3355 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3356 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3358 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3360 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3361 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3363 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3365 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3366 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3367 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3369 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3371 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3372 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3375 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3377 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3378 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3380 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3382 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3383 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3384 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3385 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3387 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3389 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3390 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3394 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3395 page. See L<perlform>.
3399 (P) An internal error.
3401 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3403 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3404 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3405 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3406 enter this branch on this platform.
3408 =item panic: ck_grep
3410 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3412 =item panic: ck_split
3414 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3416 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index
3418 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3419 there are in the savestack.
3421 =item panic: del_backref
3423 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3428 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3429 it wasn't an eval context.
3431 =item panic: do_subst
3433 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3436 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3438 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3441 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3443 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3448 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3452 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3453 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3455 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
3457 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
3458 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob. Most
3459 likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to the glob and a
3460 destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
3462 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD
3464 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3466 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT
3468 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3470 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3472 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3476 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3477 it wasn't a block context.
3479 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3481 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3484 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency
3486 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3487 invalid enum on the top of it.
3489 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3491 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3492 references to an object.
3496 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3498 =item panic: memory wrap
3500 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3502 =item panic: pad_alloc
3504 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3505 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3507 =item panic: pad_free curpad
3509 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3510 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3512 =item panic: pad_free po
3514 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3516 =item panic: pad_reset curpad
3518 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3519 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3521 =item panic: pad_sv po
3523 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3525 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad
3527 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3528 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3530 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3532 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3534 =item panic: pp_iter
3536 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3538 =item panic: pp_match%s
3540 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3543 =item panic: pp_split
3545 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3547 =item panic: realloc
3549 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3551 =item panic: restartop
3553 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3554 didn't supply the destination.
3558 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3559 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3561 =item panic: scan_num
3563 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3565 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3567 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3568 scalar's string buffer.
3570 =item panic: sv_insert
3572 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3575 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
3577 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
3578 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab" is
3579 shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
3581 =item panic: top_env
3583 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3585 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3587 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
3588 permitted at run time.
3590 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3592 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3593 to even) byte length.
3595 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3597 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3598 to even) byte length.
3602 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3604 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3606 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3609 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3611 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3612 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before the
3613 nesting limit is exceeded.
3615 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3618 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3620 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3626 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3628 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3630 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3632 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3633 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3634 redirected it with select().)
3636 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3638 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3639 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3640 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3642 =item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%x; please use the perlbug utility to report
3644 (W regex, deprecated) You used a regular expression with
3645 case-insensitive matching, and there is a bug in Perl in which the
3646 built-in regular expression folding rules are not accurate. This may
3647 lead to incorrect results. Please report this as a bug using the
3648 "perlbug" utility. (This message is marked deprecated, so that it by
3649 default will be turned-on.)
3651 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3653 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3654 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3655 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3656 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3658 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3660 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3661 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3662 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3664 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3666 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3667 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3669 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3671 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3673 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3675 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3677 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3678 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3681 are supported and installed on your system.
3682 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3684 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3685 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3686 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3687 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3688 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3689 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3690 Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
3691 fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
3692 time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3693 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3695 =item pid %x not a child
3697 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3698 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3699 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3701 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3703 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3705 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3707 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3708 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3709 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3710 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3711 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3713 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3715 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3716 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3718 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3720 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3721 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3722 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3723 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3724 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3725 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3727 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3729 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3730 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3731 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3732 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3733 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3734 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3736 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3738 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3739 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3740 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3741 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3742 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3743 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3745 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3747 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3748 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3749 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3750 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3752 You probably wrote something like this:
3759 when you should have written this:
3766 If you really want comments, build your list the
3767 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3771 'b', # another comment
3774 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3776 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3777 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3778 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3781 You probably wrote something like this:
3785 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3786 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3790 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3792 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3793 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3794 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3795 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3797 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3799 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3800 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3802 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3804 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3805 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3806 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3807 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3809 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3811 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3812 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3813 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3814 followed by the word 'bar'.
3816 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3817 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3819 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3820 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3821 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3823 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3825 (W ambiguous) You said something like `@foo' in a double-quoted string
3826 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3827 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3828 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3830 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3832 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3836 is now misinterpreted as
3840 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3841 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3842 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3845 =item Premature end of script headers
3849 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3851 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3852 before now. Check your control flow.
3854 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3856 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3857 before now. Check your control flow.
3859 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3861 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3862 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3863 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3864 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3867 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3869 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is useless,
3870 since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3872 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3874 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3875 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3877 =item Prototype not terminated
3879 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
3882 =item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
3884 (W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
3885 match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
3886 use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
3887 class, which should know about the locale's rules.
3888 (See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
3890 Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
3891 Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
3894 Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
3895 locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
3896 CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
3897 "MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
3898 meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
3899 should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
3900 positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
3901 incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
3902 is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
3903 case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
3904 change when upper cased.
3906 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3908 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if you
3909 meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3910 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3912 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3914 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of the
3915 {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where
3916 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3918 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3920 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
3921 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
3922 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
3923 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
3924 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
3926 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3929 =item Range iterator outside integer range
3931 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
3932 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
3933 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
3934 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
3936 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
3938 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
3939 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
3941 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
3943 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
3944 before now. Check your control flow.
3946 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
3948 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
3950 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
3952 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
3954 =item Reallocation too large: %x
3956 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
3958 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
3960 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
3963 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
3965 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
3966 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
3967 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
3969 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
3971 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
3972 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
3973 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
3975 =item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
3977 =item refcnt: fd %d%s
3979 =item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
3981 (P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
3982 you see this message, something is very wrong.
3984 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
3986 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
3987 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This usually
3988 means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant to use
3989 parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
3991 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
3992 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
3993 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
3994 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
3996 =item Reference is already weak
3998 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
3999 Doing so has no effect.
4001 =item Reference miscount in sv_replace()
4003 (W internal) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with
4004 a reference count other than 1.
4006 =item Reference to invalid group 0
4008 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer to
4009 capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers (normal
4010 backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4011 backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
4013 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4015 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
4016 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
4017 you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4018 expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
4020 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4023 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4025 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
4026 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
4027 such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
4028 spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
4030 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4033 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4035 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4036 are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4037 expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
4039 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4042 =item regexp memory corruption
4044 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4045 expression compiler gave it.
4047 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4049 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4051 (F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
4052 of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
4054 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-"
4056 (F regexp) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning
4057 on another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
4058 expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4059 the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4061 =item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4063 (F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
4064 mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4065 supposed to be there.
4067 =item Regexp out of space
4069 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4072 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
4074 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
4075 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
4076 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
4078 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
4080 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
4081 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
4084 =item Reversed %s= operator
4086 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
4087 always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
4089 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4091 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
4092 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4094 =item Scalars leaked: %d
4096 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
4097 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
4098 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
4099 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
4101 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4103 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4104 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4105 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4106 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4107 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4108 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4109 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4111 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
4112 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
4113 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4116 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4118 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
4119 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4120 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4121 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4122 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4123 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4124 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4126 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4127 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4128 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4131 =item Search pattern not terminated
4133 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4134 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4135 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
4137 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
4138 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
4139 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4140 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4142 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
4144 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
4147 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
4148 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
4149 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
4150 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
4152 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4154 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4155 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4157 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4159 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4160 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4162 =item select not implemented
4164 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4166 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
4168 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4169 the current implementation.
4171 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
4173 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4174 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
4176 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4178 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4179 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
4181 =item sem%s not implemented
4183 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
4185 =item send() on closed socket %s
4187 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
4188 before now. Check your control flow.
4190 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4192 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The <-- HERE
4193 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4196 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4198 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved but
4199 has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
4200 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4202 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4204 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4205 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4206 discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4207 Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
4208 redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
4209 causes, see L<perlre>.
4211 =item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4213 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4214 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4216 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4218 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
4219 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
4220 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4223 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated or not {}-balanced in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4225 (F) If the contents of a (?{...}) clause contain braces, they must balance
4226 for Perl to detect the end of the clause properly. The <-- HERE shows in
4227 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4230 =item Z<>500 Server error
4236 (A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window when trying
4237 to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The actual error text
4238 varies widely from server to server. The most frequently-seen variants
4239 are "500 Server error", "Method (something) not permitted", "Document
4240 contains no data", "Premature end of script headers", and "Did not
4241 produce a valid header".
4243 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4245 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by the
4246 user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the user
4247 account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment variables
4248 (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't in a
4249 location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or less.
4250 Please see the following for more information:
4252 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4253 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4254 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
4256 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4258 =item setegid() not implemented
4260 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4261 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4264 =item seteuid() not implemented
4266 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4267 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4270 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4272 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4273 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4276 =item setrgid() not implemented
4278 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4279 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4282 =item setruid() not implemented
4284 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4285 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4288 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4290 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4291 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4292 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4294 =item shm%s not implemented
4296 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4298 =item !=~ should be !~
4300 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4301 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4302 operators: probably not what you intended.
4304 =item <> should be quotes
4306 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4309 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4311 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4312 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4313 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4314 probably not what you had in mind.
4316 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4318 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4321 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4323 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4324 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4326 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4328 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4329 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4332 =item sort is now a reserved word
4334 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4335 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4337 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4339 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4340 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4342 =item splice() offset past end of array
4344 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4345 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the end
4346 of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want, try
4347 explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset. See
4352 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4353 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4354 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4356 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4358 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4359 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4360 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4361 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4364 =item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
4366 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
4367 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
4368 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
4370 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4372 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4373 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4375 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4377 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4378 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4379 C<can> may break this.
4381 =item Subroutine %s redefined
4383 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
4386 no warnings 'redefine';
4387 eval "sub name { ... }";
4390 =item Substitution loop
4392 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4393 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4394 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
4395 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
4397 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
4399 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4400 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4401 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4403 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
4405 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4406 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4407 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4409 =item substr outside of string
4411 (W substr),(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4412 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4413 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4414 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4415 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
4417 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4419 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
4420 inferior to its current type.
4422 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4424 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most two
4425 branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or both to
4426 contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose it in
4427 clustering parentheses:
4429 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4431 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4432 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4434 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4436 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is
4437 a number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
4438 expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4440 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4442 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4443 and effective uids or gids.
4447 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4451 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4453 A keyword is misspelled.
4454 A semicolon is missing.
4456 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4457 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4458 A closing quote is missing.
4460 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4461 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4462 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4463 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4464 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4465 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4466 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4467 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4468 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
4470 =item syntax error at line %d: `%s' unexpected
4472 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4473 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4476 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4478 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4479 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4480 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4482 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4484 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4486 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4488 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4490 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4492 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4493 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4494 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4495 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4497 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4499 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4500 before now. Check your control flow.
4502 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4504 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4505 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4507 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4509 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4510 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4512 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4514 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4515 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4517 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4519 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4520 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4522 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4524 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4525 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4526 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4527 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4530 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4532 (F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4533 to the probings of Configure.
4535 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4537 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4538 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4539 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4542 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4544 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4546 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4548 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4550 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4551 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4552 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4553 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4554 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4555 target of the change to
4556 %ENV which produced the warning.
4558 =item thread failed to start: %s
4560 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4562 =item times not implemented
4564 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4565 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4567 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4569 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4570 B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with B<-T> in its command line.
4571 This is an error because, by the time Perl discovers a B<-T> in a
4572 script, it's too late to properly taint everything from the environment.
4575 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4576 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be fixed by
4577 editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of Perl's first
4578 argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
4580 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4581 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
4583 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4585 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4586 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4587 specified an illegal mapping.
4588 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4590 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4592 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4594 =item Too few args to syscall
4596 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4597 system call to call, silly dilly.
4599 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4601 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4602 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4604 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options are
4605 not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4607 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as well
4608 (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either specify
4609 this option on the command line, or, if your system supports it, make your
4610 script executable and run it directly instead of passing it to perl.
4612 =item Too late to run %s block
4614 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4615 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4616 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4617 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4620 =item Too many args to syscall
4622 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4624 =item Too many arguments for %s
4626 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4630 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4631 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4635 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4636 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4638 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4640 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4641 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4643 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4645 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4646 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4647 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4649 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4651 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4652 y/// or y[][] construct.
4654 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4656 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4657 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4659 =item truncate not implemented
4661 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4662 Configure knows about.
4664 =item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
4666 (F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
4667 to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
4668 ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
4669 nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
4671 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4673 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4674 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4675 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4676 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4678 =item Type of argument to %s must be unblessed hashref or arrayref
4680 (F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with a scalar argument that
4681 was not a reference to an unblessed hash or array.
4683 =item umask not implemented
4685 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4686 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4688 =item Unable to create sub named "%s"
4690 (F) You attempted to create or access a subroutine with an illegal name.
4692 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4694 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4695 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4697 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores
4699 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4700 many values were temporarily localized.
4702 =item Unbalanced scopes: %d more ENTERs than LEAVEs
4704 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4705 many blocks were entered and left.
4707 =item Unbalanced tmps: %d more allocs than frees
4709 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4710 many mortal scalars were allocated and freed.
4712 =item Undefined format "%s" called
4714 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4715 another package? See L<perlform>.
4717 =item Undefined sort subroutine "%s" called
4719 (F) The sort comparison routine specified doesn't seem to exist.
4720 Perhaps it's in a different package? See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4722 =item Undefined subroutine &%s called
4724 (F) The subroutine indicated hasn't been defined, or if it was, it has
4725 since been undefined.
4727 =item Undefined subroutine called
4729 (F) The anonymous subroutine you're trying to call hasn't been defined,
4730 or if it was, it has since been undefined.
4732 =item Undefined subroutine in sort
4734 (F) The sort comparison routine specified is declared but doesn't seem
4735 to have been defined yet. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4737 =item Undefined top format "%s" called
4739 (F) The format indicated doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps it's really in
4740 another package? See L<perlform>.
4742 =item Undefined value assigned to typeglob
4744 (W misc) An undefined value was assigned to a typeglob, a la
4745 C<*foo = undef>. This does nothing. It's possible that you really mean
4748 =item %s: Undefined variable
4750 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4751 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4753 =item unexec of %s into %s failed!
4755 (F) The unexec() routine failed for some reason. See your local FSF
4756 representative, who probably put it there in the first place.
4758 =item Unicode non-character U+%X is illegal for open interchange
4760 (W utf8, nonchar) Certain codepoints, such as U+FFFE and U+FFFF, are
4762 Unicode standard to be non-characters. Those are legal codepoints, but are
4763 reserved for internal use; so, applications shouldn't attempt to exchange
4764 them. If you know what you are doing you can turn
4765 off this warning by C<no warnings 'nonchar';>.
4767 =item Unicode surrogate U+%X is illegal in UTF-8
4769 (W utf8, surrogate) You had a UTF-16 surrogate in a context where they are
4770 not considered acceptable. These code points, between U+D800 and
4771 U+DFFF (inclusive), are used by Unicode only for UTF-16. However, Perl
4772 internally allows all unsigned integer code points (up to the size limit
4773 available on your platform), including surrogates. But these can cause
4774 problems when being input or output, which is likely where this message
4775 came from. If you really really know what you are doing you can turn
4776 off this warning by C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
4778 =item Unknown BYTEORDER
4780 (F) There are no byte-swapping functions for a machine with this byte
4783 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
4785 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
4786 of valid modes: C<< < >>, C<< > >>, C<<< >> >>>, C<< +< >>,
4787 C<< +> >>, C<<< +>> >>>, C<-|>, C<|->, C<< <& >>, C<< >& >>.
4789 =item Unknown PerlIO layer "%s"
4791 (W layer) An attempt was made to push an unknown layer onto the Perl I/O
4792 system. (Layers take care of transforming data between external and
4793 internal representations.) Note that some layers, such as C<mmap>,
4794 are not supported in all environments. If your program didn't
4795 explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the result of the
4796 value of the environment variable PERLIO.
4798 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
4800 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
4801 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
4802 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
4803 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
4805 =item Unknown "re" subpragma '%s' (known ones are: %s)
4807 (W) You tried to use an unknown subpragma of the "re" pragma.
4809 =item Unknown switch condition (?(%s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4811 (F) The condition part of a (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct
4812 is not known. The condition must be one of the following:
4814 (1) (2) ... true if 1st, 2nd, etc., capture matched
4815 (<NAME>) ('NAME') true if named capture matched
4816 (?=...) (?<=...) true if subpattern matches
4817 (?!...) (?<!...) true if subpattern fails to match
4818 (?{ CODE }) true if code returns a true value
4819 (R) true if evaluating inside recursion
4820 (R1) (R2) ... true if directly inside capture group 1, 2, etc.
4821 (R&NAME) true if directly inside named capture
4822 (DEFINE) always false; for defining named subpatterns
4824 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4825 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4827 =item Unknown Unicode option letter '%c'
4829 (F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4830 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4832 =item Unknown Unicode option value %x
4834 (F) You specified an unknown Unicode option. See L<perlrun> documentation
4835 of the C<-C> switch for the list of known options.
4837 =item Unknown verb pattern '%s' in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4839 (F) You either made a typo or have incorrectly put a C<*> quantifier
4840 after an open brace in your pattern. Check the pattern and review
4841 L<perlre> for details on legal verb patterns.
4843 =item Unknown warnings category '%s'
4845 (F) An error issued by the C<warnings> pragma. You specified a warnings
4846 category that is unknown to perl at this point.
4848 Note that if you want to enable a warnings category registered by a
4849 module (e.g. C<use warnings 'File::Find'>), you must have loaded this
4852 =item unmatched [ in regex; marked by <--&nb