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<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
116 the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
117 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
118 might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
119 foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
120 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> followed
125 by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
126 want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
127 unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
128 that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
129 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 '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
140 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
141 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
142 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
144 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
146 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
147 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
148 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
149 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
150 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
152 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
159 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
161 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
162 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
163 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
164 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
165 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
166 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
169 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
171 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
173 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
175 (F) The argument to exists() must be a hash or array element or a
176 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
182 =item %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
184 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash or array element,
190 or a hash or array slice, such as:
192 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
193 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
195 =item %s argument is not a subroutine name
197 (F) The argument to exists() for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine
198 name, and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this
201 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
203 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
204 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
205 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
207 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
209 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
210 system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
211 take care of transforming data between external and internal
212 representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
213 point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
214 didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
215 result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
217 =item Array @%s missing the @ in argument %d of %s()
219 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the @ on array names in some
220 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
222 =item assertion botched: %s
224 (X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
226 =item Assertion failed: file "%s"
228 (X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
230 =item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
232 (F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
233 the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
235 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
237 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
238 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
239 know which context to supply to the right side.
241 =item A thread exited while %d threads were running
243 (W threads)(S) When using threaded Perl, a thread (not necessarily
244 the main thread) exited while there were still other threads running.
245 Usually it's a good idea first to collect the return values of the
246 created threads by joining them, and only then to exit from the main
247 thread. See L<threads>.
249 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
251 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
252 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
254 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
256 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
257 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
258 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
264 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
266 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
267 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
270 bless $self, "$proto";
272 =item Attempt to clear deleted array
274 (S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
275 Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
276 can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
277 callback on the array.
279 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
281 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
282 which is not in its key set.
284 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
286 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
287 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
289 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
291 (S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
292 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
293 outside any of those arenas.
295 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
297 (S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
298 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
299 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
300 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
302 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
304 (S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
305 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
306 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
307 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
310 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
312 (S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
314 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
316 (W internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
317 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
318 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
319 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
320 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
321 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
324 =item Attempt to join self
326 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
327 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may need
328 to move the join() to some other thread.
330 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
332 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
333 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
334 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
335 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
336 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
339 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
341 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
342 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
343 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
346 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
348 (W) You tried to set the length of an array which has been freed. You
349 can do this by storing a reference to the scalar representing the last index
350 of an array and later assigning through that reference. For example
352 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
355 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
357 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
358 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
359 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
361 =item Attribute "locked" is deprecated
363 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify the
364 "locked" attribute on a code reference. The :locked attribute is
365 obsolete, has had no effect since 5005 threads were removed, and
366 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
368 =item Attribute "unique" is deprecated
370 (D deprecated) You have used the attributes pragma to modify
371 the "unique" attribute on an array, hash or scalar reference.
372 The :unique attribute has had no effect since Perl 5.8.8, and
373 will be removed in a future release of Perl 5.
375 =item av_reify called on tied array
377 (S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
378 confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
380 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
382 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
383 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
384 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
385 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
387 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
389 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
390 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
391 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
393 =item Bad filehandle: %s
395 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
396 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
397 open(), or did it in another package.
399 =item Bad free() ignored
401 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
402 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
403 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
405 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
406 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
407 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
411 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
413 =item Badly placed ()'s
415 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
416 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
419 =item Bad name after %s
421 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
422 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
431 $sym = "mypack::$var";
433 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
435 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
438 =item Bad realloc() ignored
440 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
441 had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
442 be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
444 =item Bad symbol for array
446 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
447 wasn't a symbol table entry.
449 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
451 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
452 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
454 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
456 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
457 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
459 =item Bad symbol for hash
461 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
462 wasn't a symbol table entry.
464 =item Bareword found in conditional
466 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
467 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
468 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
472 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
475 use constant TYPO => 1;
476 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
478 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
480 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
482 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
483 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
484 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
486 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
488 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
489 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
490 you need to predeclare a package?
492 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
494 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
495 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
498 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
500 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
501 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
502 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
503 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
504 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
506 =item \1 better written as $1
508 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
509 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
510 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
511 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
512 there are more than 9 backreferences.
514 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
516 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
517 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
518 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
520 =item bind() on closed socket %s
522 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
523 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
525 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
527 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
528 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
530 =item "\b{" is deprecated; use "\b\{" instead
532 =item "\B{" is deprecated; use "\B\{" instead
534 (W deprecated, regexp) Use of an unescaped "{" immediately following a
535 C<\b> or C<\B> is now deprecated so as to reserve its use for Perl
536 itself in a future release.
538 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
540 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
542 =item Bizarre copy of %s
544 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
547 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
549 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
550 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
551 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
553 =item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
555 (P) When starting a new thread or return values from a thread, Perl
556 encountered an invalid data type.
558 =item Callback called exit
560 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
561 exited by calling exit.
563 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
565 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
566 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
567 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
568 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
569 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
570 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
571 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
572 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
574 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
576 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress. The BER
577 compressed integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you
578 attempted to compress Infinity or a very large number (> 1e308).
579 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
581 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
583 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
584 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
586 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
588 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
589 in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
590 The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
591 no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
593 =item Cannot copy to %s
595 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
596 be directly assigned to.
598 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
600 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
601 either with open() or binmode().
603 =item Cannot set tied @DB::args
605 (F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
606 is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
608 =item Cannot tie unreifiable array
610 (P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
611 keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
612 do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
613 Perl code, but are only used internally.
615 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
617 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
618 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
619 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
621 =item Can't bless non-reference value
623 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
624 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
626 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
628 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
629 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
631 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
633 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
635 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
637 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
638 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
639 like this will reproduce the error:
642 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
643 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
645 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
647 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
648 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
649 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
650 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
652 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
654 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
655 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
656 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
657 Something like this will reproduce the error:
660 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
661 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
663 =item Can't chdir to %s
665 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but C</foo/bar> is not a directory
666 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
668 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
670 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
673 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
675 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
676 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
686 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
688 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
690 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
693 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
695 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
696 quotas or other plumbing problems.
698 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
700 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
701 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
703 =item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
705 (F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
706 C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
707 issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
708 error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
710 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
712 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
713 a file in /dev, or a FIFO. The file was ignored.
715 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
717 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
720 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
722 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
723 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
724 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
726 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
728 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
729 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
730 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
732 =item Can't do {n,m} with n > m in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
734 (F) Minima must be less than or equal to maxima. If you really
735 want your regexp to match something 0 times, just put {0}. The
736 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
737 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
739 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
741 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
742 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
744 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
746 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
747 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
750 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
752 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
753 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
754 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
755 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
757 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
759 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
760 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
761 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
762 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
763 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
764 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
769 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
770 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
771 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
773 =item Can't execute %s
775 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
776 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
778 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
780 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
781 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
783 =item Can't find %s character property "%s"
785 (F) You used C<\p{}> or C<\P{}> but the character property by that name
786 could not be found. Maybe you misspelled the name of the property?
787 See L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
788 for a complete list of available properties.
790 =item Can't find label %s
792 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
793 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
795 =item Can't find %s on PATH
797 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
800 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
802 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
803 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
804 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
806 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
808 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
809 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
810 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
812 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
814 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
815 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
816 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
817 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
818 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
820 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
822 (F) You may have tried to use C<\p> which means a Unicode
823 property (for example C<\p{Lu}> matches all uppercase
824 letters). If you did mean to use a Unicode property, see
825 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
826 for a complete list of available properties. If you didn't
827 mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either by
828 C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
833 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
836 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
838 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
841 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
843 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
844 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
845 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
846 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
847 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
848 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
849 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
850 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
851 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
852 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
853 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
854 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
855 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
856 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
857 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
859 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
861 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
862 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
864 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
866 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
867 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
869 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
871 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
872 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
874 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
876 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
877 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
878 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
879 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
881 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
883 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
884 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
885 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
887 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
889 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
892 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
894 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
895 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
896 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
897 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
899 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
901 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
902 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
903 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
904 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
905 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
906 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
908 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
910 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
911 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
914 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
916 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
917 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
918 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
919 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
920 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
921 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
924 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
926 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
927 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
929 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
931 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
932 This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
933 that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
934 to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
935 dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
936 that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
939 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
941 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
942 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
943 want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
946 =item Can't localize through a reference
948 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
949 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
950 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
951 that $ref will still be a reference.
953 =item Can't locate %s
955 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
956 Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
957 the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
958 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
959 extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
960 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
961 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
963 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
965 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
966 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
967 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
968 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
970 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
972 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
973 for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
974 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
976 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
978 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
979 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
980 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
982 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
984 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
985 doesn't seem to exist.
987 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
989 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
990 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
992 =item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
994 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
997 =item Can't modify %s in %s
999 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1000 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
1002 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
1004 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1007 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
1009 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
1010 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1012 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
1014 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
1017 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1019 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1020 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1021 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1022 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1023 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1024 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1028 (F) You tried to run a perl built with MAD support with
1029 the PERL_XMLDUMP environment variable set, but the file
1030 named by that variable could not be opened.
1032 =item Can't open %s: %s
1034 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1035 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1036 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1037 this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1038 you named on the command line.
1040 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1041 your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
1043 =item Can't open a reference
1045 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1046 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1050 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1051 open is not supported.
1053 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1055 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1056 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1057 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1058 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1060 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1062 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1063 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1064 the command line for writing.
1066 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1068 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1069 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1070 command line for reading.
1072 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1074 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1075 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1076 the command line for writing.
1078 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1080 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1081 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1084 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
1086 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1088 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1089 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1090 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1092 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1094 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1095 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1096 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1097 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1100 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1102 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1103 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1104 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1105 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1106 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1107 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1109 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1111 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1112 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1113 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1115 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1117 (S inplace) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1118 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1120 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1122 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1123 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1125 =item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1127 (F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1128 all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1129 the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1130 supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1132 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1134 (F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1135 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1136 package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1138 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1140 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1141 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1144 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1146 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1147 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1149 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1151 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1152 subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1153 think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1154 write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1155 Perl that the call should be in list context.
1157 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1159 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1160 open already. Bizarre.
1162 =item Can't take log of %g
1164 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1165 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1166 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1169 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1171 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1172 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1173 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1175 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1177 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1178 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1179 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1181 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1183 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1184 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1185 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1186 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1188 =item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1190 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1191 other than "=" after the module name.
1193 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1195 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1196 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1197 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1199 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1201 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1202 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1204 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1206 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1207 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1209 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1211 (F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1212 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1213 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1215 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1217 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1218 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1219 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1221 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1223 (F) Only a simple scalar variable may be used as a loop variable on a
1226 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1228 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1229 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1230 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1231 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1234 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1236 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1237 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1238 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1239 is inside a big-endian group.
1241 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1243 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1244 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1245 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1246 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1249 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1251 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1252 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1253 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1255 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1257 (F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1258 C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1259 L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1260 in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1261 for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1262 of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1263 symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
1265 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1267 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1268 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1269 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1271 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1273 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1274 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1275 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1276 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1277 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1280 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1282 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1283 references can be weakened.
1285 =item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1287 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1288 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1289 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1290 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1292 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1294 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1295 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1296 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1298 =item Character following "\c" must be ASCII
1300 (F)(W deprecated, syntax) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be an ASCII character.
1301 It is planned to make this fatal in all instances in Perl 5.18. In the
1302 cases where it isn't fatal, the character this evaluates to is
1303 derived by exclusive or'ing the code point of this character with 0x40.
1305 Note that non-alphabetic ASCII characters are discouraged here as well.
1307 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1313 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1314 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1315 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1319 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1322 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1328 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1329 expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1332 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1334 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1340 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1341 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1342 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1344 pack("c", $x & 255);
1346 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1349 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1351 (W unpack) You tried something like
1353 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1355 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1356 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1357 value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1359 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1361 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1363 (W pack) You tried something like
1365 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1367 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1368 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1369 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1371 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1373 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1375 (W unpack) You tried something like
1377 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1379 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1380 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1381 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1383 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1385 =item "\c{" is deprecated and is more clearly written as ";"
1387 (D deprecated, syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way
1388 to specify non-printable characters. You used it with a "{" which
1389 evaluates to ";", which is printable. It is planned to remove the
1390 ability to specify a semi-colon this way in Perl 5.18. Just use a
1391 semi-colon or a backslash-semi-colon without the "\c".
1393 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1395 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1396 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which is better
1397 written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash for non-word
1400 =item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1402 (F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1404 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1406 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1408 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1410 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1411 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1413 =item Closure prototype called
1415 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1416 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1417 This subroutine cannot be called.
1419 =item Code missing after '/'
1421 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1422 another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1424 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1426 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed
1428 (W utf8, non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1431 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, up
1432 to the limit of what is storable in an unsigned integer on your system,
1433 but these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. At one time,
1434 it was legal in some standards to have code points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF,
1435 but not higher. Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a
1438 None of the Unicode or Perl-defined properties will match a non-Unicode
1439 code point. For example,
1441 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\p{Any}/
1443 will not match, because the code point is not in Unicode. But
1445 chr(0x7FF_FFFF) =~ /\P{Any}/
1449 This may be counterintuitive at times, as both these fail:
1451 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Fails.
1452 chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also fails!
1454 and both these succeed:
1456 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Succeeds.
1457 chr(0x110000) =~ \P{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Also succeeds!
1459 =item %s: Command not found
1461 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1462 shell instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script
1463 into Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1467 =item Compilation failed in require
1469 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1470 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1471 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1473 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1475 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1476 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1477 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1478 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1479 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1480 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1481 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1482 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1483 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1485 =item cond_broadcast() called on unlocked variable
1487 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1488 call cond_broadcast() on a variable which wasn't locked.
1489 The cond_broadcast() function is used to wake up another thread
1490 that is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1491 sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1492 is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1493 variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1494 thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
1496 =item cond_signal() called on unlocked variable
1498 (W threads) Within a thread-enabled program, you tried to
1499 call cond_signal() on a variable which wasn't locked. The
1500 cond_signal() function is used to wake up another thread that
1501 is waiting in a cond_wait(). To ensure that the signal isn't
1502 sent before the other thread has a chance to enter the wait, it
1503 is usual for the signaling thread first to wait for a lock on
1504 variable. This lock attempt will only succeed after the other
1505 thread has entered cond_wait() and thus relinquished the lock.
1507 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1509 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1510 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1511 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1513 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s
1515 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting to define
1516 an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the character name
1517 specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you forgot to load the
1518 corresponding L<overload> pragma?.
1520 =item Constant(%s)%s: %s in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1522 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to find
1523 the character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape.
1525 =item Constant is not %s reference
1527 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1528 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1529 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1530 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1531 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1533 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1535 (W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1536 been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1537 for commentary and workarounds.
1539 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1541 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1542 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1545 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1547 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1548 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1550 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1552 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1553 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
1554 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1555 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1557 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1558 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1560 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1562 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1564 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1566 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1567 expression compiler gave it.
1569 =item corrupted regexp program
1571 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1574 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1576 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1578 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1580 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1581 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1584 =item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1586 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1588 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1589 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1590 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1591 which case it indicates something else.
1593 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1594 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1596 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1598 (D deprecated) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it
1599 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1600 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1602 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1604 (D deprecated) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes and has been
1605 discouraged since 5.004.
1607 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1608 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1609 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1610 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice.
1612 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1613 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1619 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1620 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1621 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1625 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1627 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1628 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1629 of the C<....> part.
1631 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1634 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1636 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1637 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1639 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
1641 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
1642 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
1643 that triggers this error.
1645 =item Deprecated character in \N{...}; marked by <-- HERE in \N{%s<-- HERE %s
1647 (D deprecated) Just about anything is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}>.
1648 But starting in 5.12, non-reasonable ones that don't look like names
1649 are deprecated. A reasonable name begins with an alphabetic character
1650 and continues with any combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces,
1651 parentheses or colons.
1653 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional
1655 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
1656 has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
1657 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
1658 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
1659 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
1660 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
1661 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
1663 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
1667 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
1669 Beginning with perl 5.9.4, you can also use C<state> variables to have
1670 lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
1672 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
1674 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
1676 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
1677 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
1678 than to create a dangling reference.
1680 =item Did not produce a valid header
1684 =item %s did not return a true value
1686 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
1687 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
1688 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
1689 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
1691 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
1693 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
1696 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
1698 (W misc) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
1699 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
1702 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
1704 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
1705 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
1710 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
1711 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
1713 =item Document contains no data
1717 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
1719 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
1720 define a C<$VERSION.>
1722 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
1724 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
1725 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1727 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type '%s'
1729 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
1731 =item do_study: out of memory
1733 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
1735 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
1737 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
1738 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
1739 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
1740 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
1741 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
1742 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
1743 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
1744 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
1746 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump()
1748 (W misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function, without fully
1749 qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo. See L<perlfunc/dump>.
1751 =item dump is not supported
1753 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1755 =item Duplicate free() ignored
1757 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
1760 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
1762 (W) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a type
1763 in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1765 =item elseif should be elsif
1767 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
1768 it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
1769 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
1770 unlikely to be what you want.
1774 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
1775 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
1776 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
1778 =item entering effective %s failed
1780 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1781 effective uids or gids failed.
1783 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
1785 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
1786 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
1787 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
1789 =item Error converting file specification %s
1791 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
1792 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
1793 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
1794 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
1795 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
1797 =item %s: Eval-group in insecure regular expression
1799 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
1800 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
1801 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
1803 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval'
1805 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
1806 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
1807 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
1808 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
1809 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
1810 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
1811 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1813 =item %s: Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval'
1815 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
1816 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
1817 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
1819 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1821 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
1822 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
1824 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
1827 =item Excessively long <> operator
1829 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
1830 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
1831 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
1832 variable and glob that.
1834 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
1836 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
1837 OS. See L<perlport>.
1839 =item Execution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
1841 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
1843 =item Exiting eval via %s
1845 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
1846 goto, or a loop control statement.
1848 =item Exiting format via %s
1850 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
1851 goto, or a loop control statement.
1853 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
1855 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
1856 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
1857 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
1859 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
1861 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
1862 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
1864 =item Exiting substitution via %s
1866 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
1867 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
1869 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
1871 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
1872 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
1873 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
1874 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
1876 =item %s: Expression syntax
1878 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
1879 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
1881 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
1883 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
1884 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
1885 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
1887 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1889 (W regexp) A character class range must start and end at a literal
1890 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
1891 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the
1892 "-", "\-". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
1893 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
1895 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
1897 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
1898 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
1899 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
1900 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
1902 =item fcntl is not implemented
1904 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
1905 PDP-11 or something?
1907 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1909 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
1912 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
1914 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string start with a length indicator
1915 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
1916 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
1917 C<u63> as the format.
1919 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
1921 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
1922 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
1923 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
1924 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
1926 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1928 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
1929 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
1930 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
1931 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
1932 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
1933 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
1935 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
1937 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1938 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
1941 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
1943 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
1944 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
1946 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
1948 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
1949 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
1950 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
1953 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
1955 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
1956 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
1957 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
1960 =item Format not terminated
1962 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
1963 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
1965 =item Format %s redefined
1967 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
1970 no warnings 'redefine';
1971 eval "format NAME =...";
1974 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
1984 (or something like that).
1986 =item %s found where operator expected
1988 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
1989 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
1990 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
1991 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
1993 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
1995 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
1997 =item gethostent not implemented
1999 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2000 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2003 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
2005 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2006 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2008 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2010 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2011 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2013 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2015 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2016 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2017 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2019 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name
2021 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
2022 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
2023 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2024 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
2026 =item glob failed (%s)
2028 (S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
2029 for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2030 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
2031 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
2032 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2033 is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2034 in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2035 if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2036 all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
2037 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
2038 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
2040 =item Glob not terminated
2042 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2043 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2044 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2045 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2047 =item gmtime(%f) too large
2049 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
2050 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
2051 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2052 not-a-number value).
2054 =item gmtime(%f) too small
2056 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
2057 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
2059 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2061 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2062 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2064 =item goto must have label
2066 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2067 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2069 =item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2071 (F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2072 the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2073 has since been undefined.
2075 =item ()-group starts with a count
2077 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2078 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2080 =item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2082 (F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2083 they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2084 this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2086 =item %s had compilation errors.
2088 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2090 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2092 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2093 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2094 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2096 =item Hash %%s missing the % in argument %d of %s()
2098 (D deprecated) Really old Perl let you omit the % on hash names in some
2099 spots. This is now heavily deprecated.
2101 =item %s has too many errors
2103 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2104 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2106 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2108 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2109 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2110 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2112 =item Identifier too long
2114 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2115 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2116 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2117 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2119 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class
2121 (W) Named Unicode character escapes C<(\N{...})> may return a zero-length
2122 sequence. When such an escape is used in a character class its
2123 behaviour is not well defined. Check that the correct escape has
2124 been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2126 =item Illegal binary digit %s
2128 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2130 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2132 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2133 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2136 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2138 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2139 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2141 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2143 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as it
2144 would any other whitespace, which means you should never see this error
2145 when Perl was built using standard options. For some reason, your
2146 version of Perl appears to have been built without this support. Talk
2147 to your Perl administrator.
2149 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2151 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2152 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2154 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2156 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2157 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2159 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2161 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2163 =item Illegal division by zero
2165 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2166 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2169 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2171 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2172 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2173 number stopped before the illegal character.
2175 =item Illegal modulus zero
2177 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2178 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2180 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2182 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2183 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2185 =item Illegal octal digit %s
2187 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2189 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2191 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2192 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2194 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2196 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2197 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2199 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2201 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2202 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2203 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2205 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2207 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2208 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2209 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2212 =item (in cleanup) %s
2214 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2215 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2216 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2217 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2218 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2220 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2221 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2223 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on parent '%s'
2225 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2226 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2227 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2229 =item In EBCDIC the v-string components cannot exceed 2147483647
2231 (F) An error peculiar to EBCDIC. Internally, v-strings are stored as
2232 Unicode code points, and encoded in EBCDIC as UTF-EBCDIC. The UTF-EBCDIC
2233 encoding is limited to code points no larger than 2147483647 (0x7FFFFFFF).
2235 =item Infinite recursion in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2237 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2238 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2239 either consume text or fail.
2241 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2244 =item Initialization of state variables in list context currently forbidden
2246 (F) Currently the implementation of "state" only permits the
2247 initialization of scalar variables in scalar context. Re-write
2248 C<state ($a) = 42> as C<state $a = 42> to change from list to scalar
2249 context. Constructions such as C<state (@a) = foo()> will be
2250 supported in a future perl release.
2252 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2254 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2255 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2256 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2257 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2258 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2259 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2260 L<perlsec> for more information.
2262 =item Insecure directory in %s
2264 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2265 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2266 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2269 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2271 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2272 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2273 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2274 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2275 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2277 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2279 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2280 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2281 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2282 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2284 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2286 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2287 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2288 integers for your architecture.
2290 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2292 (S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2293 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2294 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2295 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2296 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2297 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2298 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2299 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2302 =item Integer overflow in version
2304 (W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2305 the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2306 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
2307 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2308 to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
2310 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2312 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2313 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2316 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2318 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2319 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2320 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2321 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2322 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2323 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2325 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2327 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2328 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
2331 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2333 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2334 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2335 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2336 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2338 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2340 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
2341 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2343 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
2345 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
2346 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
2348 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
2350 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
2351 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
2353 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2355 (W regexp) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
2356 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
2357 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
2358 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) instead.
2359 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2360 escape was discovered.
2362 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
2364 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
2365 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
2366 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
2368 =item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
2370 (F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
2371 cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
2372 arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
2373 B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
2375 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
2377 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
2378 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
2379 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
2380 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
2382 =item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
2384 (F) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl with
2385 the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
2386 See also L<< perlrun/B<-D>I<letters> >>.
2388 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2390 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
2391 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
2392 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
2393 up to C<ff>. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
2394 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2396 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
2398 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
2399 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
2401 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
2403 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
2404 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
2405 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
2408 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
2410 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
2411 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
2412 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
2413 list was terminated too soon.
2415 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
2417 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
2418 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2419 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2420 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
2421 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
2422 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
2424 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
2426 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
2427 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2429 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
2432 =item Invalid version format (%s)
2434 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
2435 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
2436 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
2437 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
2438 must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
2439 optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
2440 trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
2441 after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
2442 text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
2443 for more details on allowed version formats.
2445 =item Invalid version object
2447 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
2448 Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
2449 an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
2451 =item ioctl is not implemented
2453 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
2454 strange for a machine that supports C.
2456 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
2458 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
2459 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
2461 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
2463 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
2464 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
2467 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
2469 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
2470 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
2472 =item $* is no longer supported
2474 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
2475 perls, has been removed as of 5.9.0 and is no longer supported. In
2476 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
2477 matching within a string.
2479 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
2480 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
2481 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
2482 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
2484 =item $# is no longer supported
2486 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
2487 perls, has been removed as of 5.9.3 and is no longer supported. You
2488 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
2490 =item '%s' is not a code reference
2492 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
2493 overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
2494 an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
2496 =item '%s' is not an overloadable type
2498 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
2501 =item junk on end of regexp
2503 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
2505 =item Label not found for "last %s"
2507 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
2508 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2511 =item Label not found for "next %s"
2513 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
2514 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2517 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
2519 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
2520 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
2523 =item leaving effective %s failed
2525 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2526 effective uids or gids failed.
2528 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
2530 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
2531 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
2532 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2534 =item length() used on %s
2536 (W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
2537 probably wanted a count of the items.
2539 Array size can be obtained by doing:
2543 The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
2547 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
2549 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
2550 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
2551 couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
2552 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
2553 it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
2555 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
2557 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
2560 =item listen() on closed socket %s
2562 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
2563 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2566 =item List form of piped open not implemented
2568 (F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
2569 form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
2570 Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
2572 =item localtime(%f) too large
2574 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
2575 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2576 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2577 not-a-number value).
2579 =item localtime(%f) too small
2581 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
2582 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
2585 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
2587 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
2588 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
2590 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
2592 (W) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one is too large
2593 for the underlying floating point representation to store accurately,
2594 hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this warning
2595 because it has already switched from integers to floating point when values
2596 are too large for integers, and now even floating point is insufficient.
2597 You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
2599 =item lstat() on filehandle%s
2601 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
2602 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
2603 instead on the filehandle.)
2605 =item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
2607 (W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
2608 attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
2609 does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
2610 want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
2611 details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
2612 if you really know what you are doing.
2614 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
2616 (W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
2617 subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
2618 not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
2619 add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
2620 foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
2622 See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
2624 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
2626 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2627 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2629 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
2631 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
2632 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2634 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
2636 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
2643 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
2644 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
2645 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
2646 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
2648 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
2650 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
2651 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
2652 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
2653 when the function is called.
2655 =item Malformed UTF-8 character (%s)
2657 (S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that didn't comply with UTF-8
2658 encoding rules, even though it had the UTF8 flag on.
2660 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
2661 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy
2662 8-bit data). To guard against this, you can use Encode::decode_utf8.
2664 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
2665 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is
2666 set without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error
2669 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
2671 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N
2673 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
2675 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
2677 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2678 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2680 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
2682 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2683 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2685 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
2687 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
2688 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
2690 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
2692 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
2693 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
2695 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2697 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
2698 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The <-- HERE
2699 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2702 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
2704 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
2705 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
2706 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
2707 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
2708 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
2710 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
2712 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
2713 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
2716 =item '%' may not be used in pack
2718 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
2719 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
2720 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
2722 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
2724 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
2725 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
2727 =item Method %s not permitted
2731 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
2733 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
2734 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
2735 ended earlier on the current line.
2737 =item Misplaced _ in number
2739 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
2740 separate two digits.
2742 =item Missing argument in %s
2744 (W uninitialized) A printf-type format required more arguments than were
2747 =item Missing argument to -%c
2749 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
2750 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
2752 =item Missing braces on \N{}
2754 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
2755 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
2756 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
2757 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
2760 =item Missing braces on \o{}
2762 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
2764 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
2766 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
2767 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
2769 =item Missing command in piped open
2771 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
2772 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
2775 =item Missing control char name in \c
2777 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
2780 =item Missing name in "my sub"
2782 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
2783 they have a name with which they can be found.
2785 =item Missing $ on loop variable
2787 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
2788 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
2789 can vary from one line to the next.
2791 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
2793 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2794 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
2796 =item Missing right brace on %s
2798 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
2800 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
2802 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
2804 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
2805 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
2806 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
2807 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
2808 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
2810 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
2811 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
2812 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
2814 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
2815 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
2816 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
2817 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
2818 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
2819 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
2821 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
2822 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
2823 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
2824 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
2826 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
2828 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
2829 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
2832 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
2834 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2835 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
2836 the previous line just because you saw this message.
2838 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
2840 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
2841 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
2842 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
2844 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
2847 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
2849 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
2850 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
2853 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
2854 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
2857 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
2859 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
2860 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
2863 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
2865 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
2866 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
2868 =item Module name must be constant
2870 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
2872 =item Module name required with -%c option
2874 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
2875 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
2876 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
2878 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
2880 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
2881 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
2882 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
2883 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
2885 =item msg%s not implemented
2887 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
2889 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
2891 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
2892 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
2894 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
2896 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
2897 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
2898 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2900 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
2902 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
2905 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
2907 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
2908 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
2909 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
2911 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
2913 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
2914 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it
2915 again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our> declaration is
2916 provided for this purpose.
2918 NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c,
2919 %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered
2920 the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it
2921 will not trigger this warning.
2923 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...}
2925 (F) The new (5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed
2926 character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character class loses
2927 its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is probably not
2930 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer
2932 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
2933 sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
2934 bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
2935 backslash in double-quotish:
2937 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
2938 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
2941 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
2943 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
2946 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
2950 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
2952 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and it
2953 doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
2955 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
2956 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
2958 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
2961 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
2963 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
2964 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2966 =item Negative length
2968 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
2969 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
2971 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
2973 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
2974 greater than or equal to zero.
2976 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2978 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
2979 So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The <-- HERE shows in the
2980 regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
2982 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
2983 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
2985 =item %s never introduced
2987 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
2988 scope before it could possibly have been used.
2990 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
2992 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
2993 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
2996 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
2998 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
2999 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3000 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3001 securable. See L<perlsec>.
3003 =item No code specified for -%c
3005 (F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3006 you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3007 argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
3013 =item No comma allowed after %s
3015 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
3016 not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
3017 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
3019 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
3020 a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
3021 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
3022 system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
3023 use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
3024 please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
3025 explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
3026 it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
3027 still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
3028 the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
3029 constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
3031 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
3033 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3034 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
3035 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
3037 =item No DB::DB routine defined
3039 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3040 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3041 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
3044 =item No dbm on this machine
3046 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
3047 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
3049 =item No DB::sub routine defined
3051 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
3052 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
3053 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
3054 of each ordinary subroutine call.
3056 =item No directory specified for -I
3058 (F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
3059 I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
3061 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
3063 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3064 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
3065 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
3067 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
3069 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
3070 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3072 =item No input file after < on command line
3074 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3075 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
3076 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
3078 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
3080 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
3081 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
3082 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
3083 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
3085 =item "no" not allowed in expression
3087 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
3088 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
3090 =item No output file after > on command line
3092 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3093 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
3094 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
3096 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
3098 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
3099 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
3100 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
3102 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
3104 (F) Fully qualified variable names are not allowed in "our"
3105 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing
3106 semantics. Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
3108 =item No Perl script found in input
3110 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
3111 with #! and containing the word "perl".
3113 =item No setregid available
3115 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
3118 =item No setreuid available
3120 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
3123 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
3125 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
3126 variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
3127 The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
3130 =item No such class %s
3132 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
3133 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
3135 =item No such hook: %s
3137 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
3138 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
3140 =item No such pipe open
3142 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
3143 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
3144 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
3146 =item No such signal: SIG%s
3148 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
3149 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
3150 names on your system.
3152 =item Not a CODE reference
3154 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3155 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3156 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3159 =item Not a GLOB reference
3161 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
3162 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
3163 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
3164 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3166 =item Not a HASH reference
3168 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
3169 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
3170 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3172 =item Not an ARRAY reference
3174 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
3175 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3176 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3178 =item Not an unblessed ARRAY reference
3180 (F) You passed a reference to a blessed array to C<push>, C<shift> or
3181 another array function. These only accept unblessed array references
3182 or arrays beginning explicitly with C<@>.
3184 =item Not a SCALAR reference
3186 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
3187 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
3188 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
3190 =item Not a subroutine reference
3192 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
3193 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
3194 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
3197 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
3199 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3200 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3202 =item Not enough arguments for %s
3204 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
3206 =item Not enough format arguments
3208 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
3209 supplied. See L<perlform>.
3213 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
3214 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
3217 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
3219 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
3220 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
3221 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
3222 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
3223 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
3225 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
3227 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
3228 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
3231 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
3233 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
3234 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
3235 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
3237 =item Null filename used
3239 (F) You can't require the null filename, especially because on many
3240 machines that means the current directory! See L<perlfunc/require>.
3242 =item NULL OP IN RUN
3244 (S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
3247 =item Null picture in formline
3249 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
3250 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
3251 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
3255 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
3257 =item NULL regexp argument
3259 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
3261 =item NULL regexp parameter
3263 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
3265 =item Number too long
3267 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
3268 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
3269 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
3270 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
3273 =item Number with no digits
3275 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
3276 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
3279 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
3281 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
3282 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
3283 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
3285 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
3287 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
3288 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
3290 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
3292 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3293 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3295 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
3297 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
3298 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
3300 =item Offset outside string
3302 (F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
3303 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
3304 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
3305 take place when going past the end of the string when either
3306 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
3307 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behaviour
3310 =item %s() on unopened %s
3312 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
3313 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
3314 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
3316 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
3318 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
3319 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
3323 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3327 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
3329 =item Opening dirhandle %s also as a file
3331 (W io, deprecated) You used open() to associate a filehandle to
3332 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle.
3333 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3336 =item Opening filehandle %s also as a directory
3338 (W io, deprecated) You used opendir() to associate a dirhandle to
3339 a symbol (glob or scalar) that already holds a filehandle.
3340 Although legal, this idiom might render your code confusing
3343 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
3345 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
3346 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
3347 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
3348 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
3350 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
3352 (W utf8, non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3353 semantics on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do
3354 is not defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
3356 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3357 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3359 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3360 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
3362 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
3364 (W utf8, surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
3365 semantics on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use of
3366 surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but semantics
3367 are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and they are to do
3368 nothing for this operation. Because the use of surrogates can be
3369 dangerous, Perl warns.
3371 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
3372 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
3374 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
3375 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
3377 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
3379 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
3380 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
3381 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
3382 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
3385 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
3387 (W misc) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
3388 in the current lexical scope.
3390 =item Out of memory!
3392 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3393 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
3394 no option but to exit immediately.
3396 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
3397 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
3398 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
3399 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
3400 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
3402 =item Out of memory during %s extend
3404 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
3405 the largest possible memory allocation.
3407 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
3409 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
3410 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
3411 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
3412 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
3414 =item Out of memory during request for %s
3416 (X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
3417 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
3420 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
3421 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
3422 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
3423 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
3424 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
3425 where the failed request happened.
3427 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
3429 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
3430 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
3431 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
3433 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
3435 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
3436 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
3439 =item '.' outside of string in pack
3441 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
3442 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
3444 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
3446 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3447 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3449 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
3451 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
3452 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
3453 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3455 =item overload arg '%s' is invalid
3457 (W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
3458 recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
3460 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
3462 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
3463 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
3466 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
3468 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
3469 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
3471 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
3473 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
3474 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
3475 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
3476 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
3478 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
3480 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
3481 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3485 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
3486 page. See L<perlform>.
3490 (P) An internal error.
3492 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
3494 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
3495 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
3496 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
3497 enter this branch on this platform.
3499 =item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
3501 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
3503 =item panic: ck_split, type=%u
3505 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a split.
3507 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
3509 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
3510 there are in the savestack.
3512 =item panic: del_backref
3514 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
3519 (P) We popped the context stack to an eval context, and then discovered
3520 it wasn't an eval context.
3522 =item panic: do_subst
3524 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
3527 =item panic: do_trans_%s
3529 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
3532 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
3534 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
3539 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
3541 =item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
3543 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
3544 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
3546 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
3548 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
3549 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
3550 Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
3551 the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
3553 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
3555 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
3557 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
3559 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
3561 =item panic: kid popen errno read
3563 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
3565 =item panic: last, type=%u
3567 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
3568 it wasn't a block context.
3570 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
3572 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
3575 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
3577 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
3578 invalid enum on the top of it.
3580 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
3582 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
3583 references to an object.
3585 =item panic: malloc, %s
3587 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
3589 =item panic: memory wrap
3591 (P) Something tried to allocate more memory than possible.
3593 =item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
3595 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3596 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3598 =item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
3600 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3601 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3603 =item panic: pad_free po
3605 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3607 =item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
3609 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3610 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3612 =item panic: pad_sv po
3614 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3616 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
3618 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
3619 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
3621 =item panic: pad_swipe po
3623 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
3625 =item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
3627 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
3629 =item panic: pp_match%s
3631 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
3634 =item panic: pp_split, pm=%p, s=%p
3636 (P) Something terrible went wrong in setting up for the split.
3638 =item panic: realloc, %s
3640 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
3642 =item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
3644 (P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
3645 reference count other than 1.
3647 =item panic: restartop in %s
3649 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
3650 didn't supply the destination.
3652 =item panic: return, type=%u
3654 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
3655 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
3657 =item panic: scan_num, %s
3659 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
3661 =item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found
3663 (P) while compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
3664 blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
3665 seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
3667 =item panic: sv_chop %s
3669 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
3670 scalar's string buffer.
3672 =item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
3674 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
3677 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
3679 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
3680 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab" is
3681 shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
3683 =item panic: top_env
3685 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
3687 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
3689 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
3690 permitted at run time.
3692 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
3694 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
3695 to even) byte length.
3697 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
3699 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
3700 to even) byte length.
3702 =item panic: yylex, %s
3704 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
3706 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
3708 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
3711 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3713 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
3714 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
3715 the nesting limit is exceeded.
3717 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
3720 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
3722 (W parenthesis) You said something like
3728 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
3730 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
3732 =item C<-p> destination: %s
3734 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
3735 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
3736 redirected it with select().)
3738 =item (perhaps you forgot to load "%s"?)
3740 (F) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3741 "Can't locate object method \"%s\" via package \"%s\"". It often means
3742 that a method requires a package that has not been loaded.
3744 =item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%x; please use the perlbug utility to report
3746 (W regex, deprecated) You used a regular expression with
3747 case-insensitive matching, and there is a bug in Perl in which the
3748 built-in regular expression folding rules are not accurate. This may
3749 lead to incorrect results. Please report this as a bug using the
3750 "perlbug" utility. (This message is marked deprecated, so that it by
3751 default will be turned-on.)
3753 =item Perl_my_%s() not available
3755 (F) Your platform has very uncommon byte-order and integer size,
3756 so it was not possible to set up some or all fixed-width byte-order
3757 conversion functions. This is only a problem when you're using the
3758 '<' or '>' modifiers in (un)pack templates. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3760 =item Perl %s required (did you mean %s?)--this is only %s, stopped
3762 (F) The code you are trying to run has asked for a newer version of
3763 Perl than you are running. Perhaps C<use 5.10> was written instead
3764 of C<use 5.010> or C<use v5.10>. Without the leading C<v>, the number is
3765 interpreted as a decimal, with every three digits after the
3766 decimal point representing a part of the version number. So 5.10
3767 is equivalent to v5.100.
3769 =item Perl %s required--this is only version %s, stopped
3771 (F) The module in question uses features of a version of Perl more
3772 recent than the currently running version. How long has it been since
3773 you upgraded, anyway? See L<perlfunc/require>.
3775 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
3777 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
3778 C<sh>-shell in. See "PERL_SH_DIR" in L<perlos2>.
3780 =item PERL_SIGNALS illegal: "%s"
3782 See L<perlrun/PERL_SIGNALS> for legal values.
3784 =item Perls since %s too modern--this is %s, stopped
3786 (F) The code you are trying to run claims it will not run
3787 on the version of Perl you are using because it is too new.
3788 Maybe the code needs to be updated, or maybe it is simply
3789 wrong and the version check should just be removed.
3791 =item perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3793 (S) The whole warning message will look something like:
3795 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
3796 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
3799 are supported and installed on your system.
3800 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
3802 Exactly what were the failed locale settings varies. In the above the
3803 settings were that the LC_ALL was "En_US" and the LANG had no value.
3804 This error means that Perl detected that you and/or your operating
3805 system supplier and/or system administrator have set up the so-called
3806 locale system but Perl could not use those settings. This was not
3807 dead serious, fortunately: there is a "default locale" called "C" that
3808 Perl can and will use, and the script will be run. Before you really
3809 fix the problem, however, you will get the same error message each
3810 time you run Perl. How to really fix the problem can be found in
3811 L<perllocale> section B<LOCALE PROBLEMS>.
3813 =item pid %x not a child
3815 (W exec) A warning peculiar to VMS. Waitpid() was asked to wait for a
3816 process which isn't a subprocess of the current process. While this is
3817 fine from VMS' perspective, it's probably not what you intended.
3819 =item 'P' must have an explicit size in unpack
3821 (F) The unpack format P must have an explicit size, not "*".
3823 =item POSIX class [:%s:] unknown in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3825 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown. The <-- HERE
3826 shows in the regular expression about where the problem was discovered.
3827 Note that the POSIX character classes do B<not> have the C<is> prefix
3828 the corresponding C interfaces have: in other words, it's C<[[:print:]]>,
3829 not C<isprint>. See L<perlre>.
3831 =item POSIX getpgrp can't take an argument
3833 (F) Your system has POSIX getpgrp(), which takes no argument, unlike
3834 the BSD version, which takes a pid.
3836 =item POSIX syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3838 (W regexp) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
3839 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct, for example:
3840 /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .] are not currently
3841 implemented; they are simply placeholders for future extensions and will
3842 cause fatal errors. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about
3843 where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3845 =item POSIX syntax [. .] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3847 (F regexp) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax
3848 beginning with "[." and ending with ".]" is reserved for future extensions.
3849 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
3850 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
3851 backslash: "\[." and ".\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
3852 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3854 =item POSIX syntax [= =] is reserved for future extensions in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3856 (F) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
3857 with "[=" and ending with "=]" is reserved for future extensions. If you
3858 need to represent those character sequences inside a regular expression
3859 character class, just quote the square brackets with the backslash: "\[="
3860 and "=\]". The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the
3861 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3863 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
3865 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
3866 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated as
3867 literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
3868 parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently used.)
3870 You probably wrote something like this:
3877 when you should have written this:
3884 If you really want comments, build your list the
3885 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
3889 'b', # another comment
3892 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
3894 (W qw) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore
3895 commas aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used
3896 different delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also
3899 You probably wrote something like this:
3903 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
3904 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
3908 =item Possible memory corruption: %s overflowed 3rd argument
3910 (F) An ioctl() or fcntl() returned more than Perl was bargaining for.
3911 Perl guesses a reasonable buffer size, but puts a sentinel byte at the
3912 end of the buffer just in case. This sentinel byte got clobbered, and
3913 Perl assumes that memory is now corrupted. See L<perlfunc/ioctl>.
3915 =item Possible precedence problem on bitwise %c operator
3917 (W precedence) Your program uses a bitwise logical operator in conjunction
3918 with a numeric comparison operator, like this :
3920 if ($x & $y == 0) { ... }
3922 This expression is actually equivalent to C<$x & ($y == 0)>, due to the
3923 higher precedence of C<==>. This is probably not what you want. (If you
3924 really meant to write this, disable the warning, or, better, put the
3925 parentheses explicitly and write C<$x & ($y == 0)>).
3927 =item Possible unintended interpolation of $\ in regex
3929 (W ambiguous) You said something like C<m/$\/> in a regex.
3930 The regex C<m/foo$\s+bar/m> translates to: match the word 'foo', the output
3931 record separator (see L<perlvar/$\>) and the letter 's' (one time or more)
3932 followed by the word 'bar'.
3934 If this is what you intended then you can silence the warning by using
3935 C<m/${\}/> (for example: C<m/foo${\}s+bar/>).
3937 If instead you intended to match the word 'foo' at the end of the line
3938 followed by whitespace and the word 'bar' on the next line then you can use
3939 C<m/$(?)\/> (for example: C<m/foo$(?)\s+bar/>).
3941 =item Possible unintended interpolation of %s in string
3943 (W ambiguous) You said something like '@foo' in a double-quoted string
3944 but there was no array C<@foo> in scope at the time. If you wanted a
3945 literal @foo, then write it as \@foo; otherwise find out what happened
3946 to the array you apparently lost track of.
3948 =item Precedence problem: open %s should be open(%s)
3950 (S precedence) The old irregular construct
3954 is now misinterpreted as
3958 because of the strict regularization of Perl 5's grammar into unary and
3959 list operators. (The old open was a little of both.) You must put
3960 parentheses around the filehandle, or use the new "or" operator instead
3963 =item Premature end of script headers
3967 =item printf() on closed filehandle %s
3969 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
3970 before now. Check your control flow.
3972 =item print() on closed filehandle %s
3974 (W closed) The filehandle you're printing on got itself closed sometime
3975 before now. Check your control flow.
3977 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
3979 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
3980 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
3981 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
3982 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT"
3985 =item Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s
3987 (W illegalproto) A character follows % or @ in a prototype. This is
3988 useless, since % and @ gobble the rest of the subroutine arguments.
3990 =item Prototype mismatch: %s vs %s
3992 (S prototype) The subroutine being declared or defined had previously been
3993 declared or defined with a different function prototype.
3995 =item Prototype not terminated
3997 (F) You've omitted the closing parenthesis in a function prototype
4000 =item \p{} uses Unicode rules, not locale rules
4002 (W) You compiled a regular expression that contained a Unicode property
4003 match (C<\p> or C<\P>), but the regular expression is also being told to
4004 use the run-time locale, not Unicode. Instead, use a POSIX character
4005 class, which should know about the locale's rules.
4006 (See L<perlrecharclass/POSIX Character Classes>.)
4008 Even if the run-time locale is ISO 8859-1 (Latin1), which is a subset of
4009 Unicode, some properties will give results that are not valid for that
4012 Here are a couple of examples to help you see what's going on. If the
4013 locale is ISO 8859-7, the character at code point 0xD7 is the "GREEK
4014 CAPITAL LETTER CHI". But in Unicode that code point means the
4015 "MULTIPLICATION SIGN" instead, and C<\p> always uses the Unicode
4016 meaning. That means that C<\p{Alpha}> won't match, but C<[[:alpha:]]>
4017 should. Only in the Latin1 locale are all the characters in the same
4018 positions as they are in Unicode. But, even here, some properties give
4019 incorrect results. An example is C<\p{Changes_When_Uppercased}> which
4020 is true for "LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS", but since the upper
4021 case of that character is not in Latin1, in that locale it doesn't
4022 change when upper cased.
4024 =item Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4026 (F) You started a regular expression with a quantifier. Backslash it if
4027 you meant it literally. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4028 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4030 =item Quantifier in {,} bigger than %d in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4032 (F) There is currently a limit to the size of the min and max values of
4033 the {min,max} construct. The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression
4034 about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4036 =item Quantifier unexpected on zero-length expression; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4038 (W regexp) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where
4039 it makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion. Try putting the
4040 quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example, the way to match
4041 "abc" provided that it is followed by three repetitions of "xyz" is
4042 C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
4044 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4047 =item Range iterator outside integer range
4049 (F) One (or both) of the numeric arguments to the range operator ".."
4050 are outside the range which can be represented by integers internally.
4051 One possible workaround is to force Perl to use magical string increment
4052 by prepending "0" to your numbers.
4054 =item readdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4056 (W io) The dirhandle you're reading from is either closed or not really
4057 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4059 =item readline() on closed filehandle %s
4061 (W closed) The filehandle you're reading from got itself closed sometime
4062 before now. Check your control flow.
4064 =item read() on closed filehandle %s
4066 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4068 =item read() on unopened filehandle %s
4070 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4072 =item Reallocation too large: %x
4074 (F) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
4076 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
4078 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had
4081 =item Recompile perl with B<-D>DEBUGGING to use B<-D> switch
4083 (F debugging) You can't use the B<-D> option unless the code to produce
4084 the desired output is compiled into Perl, which entails some overhead,
4085 which is why it's currently left out of your copy.
4087 =item Recursive call to Perl_load_module in PerlIO_find_layer
4089 (P) It is currently not permitted to load modules when creating
4090 a filehandle inside an %INC hook. This can happen with C<open my
4091 $fh, '<', \$scalar>, which implicitly loads PerlIO::scalar. Try
4092 loading PerlIO::scalar explicitly first.
4094 =item Recursive inheritance detected in package '%s'
4096 (F) While calculating the method resolution order (MRO) of a package, Perl
4097 believes it found an infinite loop in the C<@ISA> hierarchy. This is a
4098 crude check that bails out after 100 levels of C<@ISA> depth.
4100 =item refcnt_dec: fd %d%s
4102 =item refcnt: fd %d%s
4104 =item refcnt_inc: fd %d%s
4106 (P) Perl's I/O implementation failed an internal consistency check. If
4107 you see this message, something is very wrong.
4109 =item Reference found where even-sized list expected
4111 (W misc) You gave a single reference where Perl was expecting a list
4112 with an even number of elements (for assignment to a hash). This
4113 usually means that you used the anon hash constructor when you meant
4114 to use parens. In any case, a hash requires key/value B<pairs>.
4116 %hash = { one => 1, two => 2, }; # WRONG
4117 %hash = [ qw/ an anon array / ]; # WRONG
4118 %hash = ( one => 1, two => 2, ); # right
4119 %hash = qw( one 1 two 2 ); # also fine
4121 =item Reference is already weak
4123 (W misc) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
4124 Doing so has no effect.
4126 =item Reference to invalid group 0
4128 (F) You used C<\g0> or similar in a regular expression. You may refer
4129 to capturing parentheses only with strictly positive integers
4130 (normal backreferences) or with strictly negative integers (relative
4131 backreferences). Using 0 does not make sense.
4133 =item Reference to nonexistent group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4135 (F) You used something like C<\7> in your regular expression, but there are
4136 not at least seven sets of capturing parentheses in the expression. If
4137 you wanted to have the character with ordinal 7 inserted into the regular
4138 expression, prepend zeroes to make it three digits long: C<\007>
4140 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4143 =item Reference to nonexistent named group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4145 (F) You used something like C<\k'NAME'> or C<< \k<NAME> >> in your regular
4146 expression, but there is no corresponding named capturing parentheses
4147 such as C<(?'NAME'...)> or C<< (?<NAME>...) >>. Check if the name has been
4148 spelled correctly both in the backreference and the declaration.
4150 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4153 =item Reference to nonexistent or unclosed group in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4155 (F) You used something like C<\g{-7}> in your regular expression, but there
4156 are not at least seven sets of closed capturing parentheses in the
4157 expression before where the C<\g{-7}> was located.
4159 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4162 =item regexp memory corruption
4164 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
4165 expression compiler gave it.
4167 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may appear a maximum of twice
4169 =item Regexp modifier "/%c" may not appear twice
4171 (F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had too many occurrences
4172 of the specified modifier. Remove the extraneous ones.
4174 =item Regexp modifier "%c" may not appear after the "-"
4176 (F regexp) Turning off the given modifier has the side effect of turning
4177 on another one. Perl currently doesn't allow this. Reword the regular
4178 expression to use the modifier you want to turn on (and place it before
4179 the minus), instead of the one you want to turn off.
4181 =item Regexp modifiers "/%c" and "/%c" are mutually exclusive
4183 (F syntax, regexp) The regular expression pattern had more than one of these
4184 mutually exclusive modifiers. Retain only the modifier that is
4185 supposed to be there.
4187 =item Regexp out of space
4189 (P) A "can't happen" error, because safemalloc() should have caught it
4192 =item Repeated format line will never terminate (~~ and @# incompatible)
4194 (F) Your format contains the ~~ repeat-until-blank sequence and a
4195 numeric field that will never go blank so that the repetition never
4196 terminates. You might use ^# instead. See L<perlform>.
4198 =item Replacement list is longer than search list
4200 (W misc) You have used a replacement list that is longer than the
4201 search list. So the additional elements in the replacement list
4204 =item Reversed %s= operator
4206 (W syntax) You wrote your assignment operator backwards. The = must
4207 always come last, to avoid ambiguity with subsequent unary operators.
4209 =item rewinddir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4211 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to do a rewinddir() on is either closed or not
4212 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4214 =item Scalars leaked: %d
4216 (P) Something went wrong in Perl's internal bookkeeping of scalars:
4217 not all scalar variables were deallocated by the time Perl exited.
4218 What this usually indicates is a memory leak, which is of course bad,
4219 especially if the Perl program is intended to be long-running.
4221 =item Scalar value @%s[%s] better written as $%s[%s]
4223 (W syntax) You've used an array slice (indicated by @) to select a
4224 single element of an array. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar
4225 value (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo[&bar]> always
4226 behaves like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4227 argument, while C<@foo[&bar]> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4228 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4229 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4231 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the array
4232 element as a list, you need to look into how references work, because
4233 Perl will not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4236 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
4238 (W syntax) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single
4239 element of a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value
4240 (indicated by $). The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves
4241 like a scalar, both when assigning to it and when evaluating its
4242 argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves like a list when you assign to it,
4243 and provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
4244 if you're expecting only one subscript.
4246 On the other hand, if you were actually hoping to treat the hash element
4247 as a list, you need to look into how references work, because Perl will
4248 not magically convert between scalars and lists for you. See
4251 =item Search pattern not terminated
4253 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a // or m{}
4254 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4255 Missing the leading C<$> from a variable C<$m> may cause this error.
4257 Note that since Perl 5.9.0 a // can also be the I<defined-or>
4258 construct, not just the empty search pattern. Therefore code written
4259 in Perl 5.9.0 or later that uses the // as the I<defined-or> can be
4260 misparsed by pre-5.9.0 Perls as a non-terminated search pattern.
4262 =item Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
4264 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a C<?PATTERN?>
4267 The question mark is also used as part of the ternary operator (as in
4268 C<foo ? 0 : 1>) leading to some ambiguous constructions being wrongly
4269 parsed. One way to disambiguate the parsing is to put parentheses around
4270 the conditional expression, i.e. C<(foo) ? 0 : 1>.
4272 =item seekdir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4274 (W io) The dirhandle you are doing a seekdir() on is either closed or not
4275 really a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4277 =item %sseek() on unopened filehandle
4279 (W unopened) You tried to use the seek() or sysseek() function on a
4280 filehandle that was either never opened or has since been closed.
4282 =item select not implemented
4284 (F) This machine doesn't implement the select() system call.
4286 =item Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported
4288 (F) Self-ties are of arrays and hashes are not supported in
4289 the current implementation.
4291 =item Semicolon seems to be missing
4293 (W semicolon) A nearby syntax error was probably caused by a missing
4294 semicolon, or possibly some other missing operator, such as a comma.
4296 =item semi-panic: attempt to dup freed string
4298 (S internal) The internal newSVsv() routine was called to duplicate a
4299 scalar that had previously been marked as free.
4301 =item sem%s not implemented
4303 (F) You don't have System V semaphore IPC on your system.
4305 =item send() on closed socket %s
4307 (W closed) The socket you're sending to got itself closed sometime
4308 before now. Check your control flow.
4310 =item Sequence (? incomplete in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4312 (F) A regular expression ended with an incomplete extension (?. The
4313 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4314 discovered. See L<perlre>.
4316 =item Sequence (?%s...) not implemented in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4318 (F) A proposed regular expression extension has the character reserved
4319 but has not yet been written. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
4320 expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4322 =item Sequence (?%s...) not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4324 (F) You used a regular expression extension that doesn't make sense. The
4325 <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem was
4326 discovered. This happens when using the C<(?^...)> construct to tell
4327 Perl to use the default regular expression modifiers, and you
4328 redundantly specify a default modifier. For other
4329 causes, see L<perlre>.
4331 =item Sequence \%s... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4333 (F) The regular expression expects a mandatory argument following the escape
4334 sequence and this has been omitted or incorrectly written.
4336 =item Sequence (?#... not terminated in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4338 (F) A regular expression comment must be terminated by a closing
4339 parenthesis. Embedded parentheses aren't allowed. The <-- HERE shows in
4340 the regular expression about where the problem was discovered. See
4343 =item Sequence (?{...}) not terminated with ')'
4345 (F) The end of the perl code contained within the {...} must be
4346 followed immediately by a ')'.
4348 =item Z<>500 Server error
4354 (A) This is the error message generally seen in a browser window
4355 when trying to run a CGI program (including SSI) over the web. The
4356 actual error text varies widely from server to server. The most
4357 frequently-seen variants are "500 Server error", "Method (something)
4358 not permitted", "Document contains no data", "Premature end of script
4359 headers", and "Did not produce a valid header".
4361 B<This is a CGI error, not a Perl error>.
4363 You need to make sure your script is executable, is accessible by
4364 the user CGI is running the script under (which is probably not the
4365 user account you tested it under), does not rely on any environment
4366 variables (like PATH) from the user it isn't running under, and isn't
4367 in a location where the CGI server can't find it, basically, more or
4368 less. Please see the following for more information:
4370 http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
4371 http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/cgifaq.html
4372 http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
4374 You should also look at L<perlfaq9>.
4376 =item setegid() not implemented
4378 (F) You tried to assign to C<$)>, and your operating system doesn't
4379 support the setegid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4382 =item seteuid() not implemented
4384 (F) You tried to assign to C<< $> >>, and your operating system doesn't
4385 support the seteuid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4388 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
4390 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no
4391 arguments, unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process
4394 =item setrgid() not implemented
4396 (F) You tried to assign to C<$(>, and your operating system doesn't
4397 support the setrgid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4400 =item setruid() not implemented
4402 (F) You tried to assign to C<$<>, and your operating system doesn't
4403 support the setruid() system call (or equivalent), or at least Configure
4406 =item setsockopt() on closed socket %s
4408 (W closed) You tried to set a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
4409 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
4410 L<perlfunc/setsockopt>.
4412 =item shm%s not implemented
4414 (F) You don't have System V shared memory IPC on your system.
4416 =item !=~ should be !~
4418 (W syntax) The non-matching operator is !~, not !=~. !=~ will be
4419 interpreted as the != (numeric not equal) and ~ (1's complement)
4420 operators: probably not what you intended.
4422 =item <> should be quotes
4424 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
4427 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
4429 (W syntax) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
4430 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true or false
4431 result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string, which is
4432 probably not what you had in mind.
4434 =item shutdown() on closed socket %s
4436 (W closed) You tried to do a shutdown on a closed socket. Seems a bit
4439 =item SIG%s handler "%s" not defined
4441 (W signal) The signal handler named in %SIG doesn't, in fact, exist.
4442 Perhaps you put it into the wrong package?
4444 =item Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
4446 (F) You should not use the C<~~> operator on an object that does not
4447 overload it: Perl refuses to use the object's underlying structure for
4450 =item sort is now a reserved word
4452 (F) An ancient error message that almost nobody ever runs into anymore.
4453 But before sort was a keyword, people sometimes used it as a filehandle.
4455 =item Sort subroutine didn't return single value
4457 (F) A sort comparison subroutine may not return a list value with more
4458 or less than one element. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
4460 =item Source filters apply only to byte streams
4462 (F) You tried to activate a source filter (usually by loading a
4463 source filter module) within a string passed to C<eval>. This is
4464 not permitted under the C<unicode_eval> feature. Consider using
4465 C<evalbytes> instead. See L<feature>.
4467 =item splice() offset past end of array
4469 (W misc) You attempted to specify an offset that was past the end of
4470 the array passed to splice(). Splicing will instead commence at the
4471 end of the array, rather than past it. If this isn't what you want,
4472 try explicitly pre-extending the array by assigning $#array = $offset.
4473 See L<perlfunc/splice>.
4477 (P) The split was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a split shouldn't
4478 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
4479 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
4481 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
4483 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
4484 die(). This is almost always an error, because exec() never returns
4485 unless there was a failure. You probably wanted to use system()
4486 instead, which does return. To suppress this warning, put the exec() in
4489 =item "state" variable %s can't be in a package
4491 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
4492 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
4493 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
4495 =item stat() on unopened filehandle %s
4497 (W unopened) You tried to use the stat() function on a filehandle that
4498 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4500 =item Stub found while resolving method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
4502 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importation
4503 stubs. Stubs should never be implicitly created, but explicit calls to
4504 C<can> may break this.
4506 =item Subroutine %s redefined
4508 (W redefine) You redefined a subroutine. To suppress this warning, say
4511 no warnings 'redefine';
4512 eval "sub name { ... }";
4515 =item Substitution loop
4517 (P) The substitution was looping infinitely. (Obviously, a substitution
4518 shouldn't iterate more times than there are characters of input, which
4519 is what happened.) See the discussion of substitution in
4520 L<perlop/"Regexp Quote-Like Operators">.
4522 =item Substitution pattern not terminated
4524 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4525 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4526 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4528 =item Substitution replacement not terminated
4530 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of an s/// or s{}{}
4531 construct. Remember that bracketing delimiters count nesting level.
4532 Missing the leading C<$> from variable C<$s> may cause this error.
4534 =item substr outside of string
4536 (W substr)(F) You tried to reference a substr() that pointed outside of
4537 a string. That is, the absolute value of the offset was larger than the
4538 length of the string. See L<perlfunc/substr>. This warning is fatal if
4539 substr is used in an lvalue context (as the left hand side of an
4540 assignment or as a subroutine argument for example).
4542 =item sv_upgrade from type %d down to type %d
4544 (P) Perl tried to force the upgrade of an SV to a type which was actually
4545 inferior to its current type.
4547 =item Switch (?(condition)... contains too many branches in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4549 (F) A (?(condition)if-clause|else-clause) construct can have at most
4550 two branches (the if-clause and the else-clause). If you want one or
4551 both to contain alternation, such as using C<this|that|other>, enclose
4552 it in clustering parentheses:
4554 (?(condition)(?:this|that|other)|else-clause)
4556 The <-- HERE shows in the regular expression about where the problem
4557 was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4559 =item Switch condition not recognized in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4561 (F) If the argument to the (?(...)if-clause|else-clause) construct is
4562 a number, it can be only a number. The <-- HERE shows in the regular
4563 expression about where the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
4565 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
4567 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the real
4568 and effective uids or gids.
4572 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> succeeds.
4576 (F) Probably means you had a syntax error. Common reasons include:
4578 A keyword is misspelled.
4579 A semicolon is missing.
4581 An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
4582 An opening or closing brace is missing.
4583 A closing quote is missing.
4585 Often there will be another error message associated with the syntax
4586 error giving more information. (Sometimes it helps to turn on B<-w>.)
4587 The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line when
4588 it decided to give up. Sometimes the actual error is several tokens
4589 before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
4590 Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue moon
4591 the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
4592 C<perl -c> repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to see
4593 if the error went away. Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20 questions>.
4595 =item syntax error at line %d: '%s' unexpected
4597 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4598 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4601 =item syntax error in file %s at line %d, next 2 tokens "%s"
4603 (F) This error is likely to occur if you run a perl5 script through
4604 a perl4 interpreter, especially if the next 2 tokens are "use strict"
4605 or "my $var" or "our $var".
4607 =item sysread() on closed filehandle %s
4609 (W closed) You tried to read from a closed filehandle.
4611 =item sysread() on unopened filehandle %s
4613 (W unopened) You tried to read from a filehandle that was never opened.
4615 =item System V %s is not implemented on this machine
4617 (F) You tried to do something with a function beginning with "sem",
4618 "shm", or "msg" but that System V IPC is not implemented in your
4619 machine. In some machines the functionality can exist but be
4620 unconfigured. Consult your system support.
4622 =item syswrite() on closed filehandle %s
4624 (W closed) The filehandle you're writing to got itself closed sometime
4625 before now. Check your control flow.
4627 =item C<-T> and C<-B> not implemented on filehandles
4629 (F) Perl can't peek at the stdio buffer of filehandles when it doesn't
4630 know about your kind of stdio. You'll have to use a filename instead.
4632 =item Target of goto is too deeply nested
4634 (F) You tried to use C<goto> to reach a label that was too deeply nested
4635 for Perl to reach. Perl is doing you a favor by refusing.
4637 =item telldir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
4639 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to telldir() is either closed or not really
4640 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
4642 =item tell() on unopened filehandle
4644 (W unopened) You tried to use the tell() function on a filehandle that
4645 was either never opened or has since been closed.
4647 =item That use of $[ is unsupported
4649 (F) Assignment to C<$[> is now strictly circumscribed, and interpreted
4650 as a compiler directive. You may say only one of
4659 This is to prevent the problem of one module changing the array base out
4660 from under another module inadvertently. See L<perlvar/$[> and L<arybase>.
4662 =item The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia
4664 (F) Configure couldn't find the crypt() function on your machine,
4665 probably because your vendor didn't supply it, probably because they
4666 think the U.S. Government thinks it's a secret, or at least that they
4667 will continue to pretend that it is. And if you quote me on that, I
4670 =item The %s function is unimplemented
4672 (F) The function indicated isn't implemented on this architecture, according
4673 to the probings of Configure.
4675 =item The stat preceding %s wasn't an lstat
4677 (F) It makes no sense to test the current stat buffer for symbolic
4678 linkhood if the last stat that wrote to the stat buffer already went
4679 past the symlink to get to the real file. Use an actual filename
4682 =item The 'unique' attribute may only be applied to 'our' variables
4684 (F) This attribute was never supported on C<my> or C<sub> declarations.
4686 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
4688 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
4690 (W internal) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an
4691 element of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl
4692 wasn't built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll
4693 need to rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine
4694 F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the
4695 target of the change to
4696 %ENV which produced the warning.
4698 =item thread failed to start: %s
4700 (W threads)(S) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for some reason.
4702 =item times not implemented
4704 (F) Your version of the C library apparently doesn't do times(). I
4705 suspect you're not running on Unix.
4707 =item "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
4709 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains
4710 the B<-T> option (or the B<-t> option), but Perl was not invoked with
4711 B<-T> in its command line. This is an error because, by the time
4712 Perl discovers a B<-T> in a script, it's too late to properly taint
4713 everything from the environment. So Perl gives up.
4715 If the Perl script is being executed as a command using the #!
4716 mechanism (or its local equivalent), this error can usually be
4717 fixed by editing the #! line so that the B<-%c> option is a part of
4718 Perl's first argument: e.g. change C<perl -n -%c> to C<perl -%c -n>.
4720 If the Perl script is being executed as C<perl scriptname>, then the
4721 B<-%c> option must appear on the command line: C<perl -%c scriptname>.
4723 =item To%s: illegal mapping '%s'
4725 (F) You tried to define a customized To-mapping for lc(), lcfirst,
4726 uc(), or ucfirst() (or their string-inlined versions), but you
4727 specified an illegal mapping.
4728 See L<perlunicode/"User-Defined Character Properties">.
4730 =item Too deeply nested ()-groups
4732 (F) Your template contains ()-groups with a ridiculously deep nesting level.
4734 =item Too few args to syscall
4736 (F) There has to be at least one argument to syscall() to specify the
4737 system call to call, silly dilly.
4739 =item Too late for "-%s" option
4741 (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl script contains the
4742 B<-M>, B<-m> or B<-C> option.
4744 In the case of B<-M> and B<-m>, this is an error because those options
4745 are not intended for use inside scripts. Use the C<use> pragma instead.
4747 The B<-C> option only works if it is specified on the command line as
4748 well (with the same sequence of letters or numbers following). Either
4749 specify this option on the command line, or, if your system supports
4750 it, make your script executable and run it directly instead of passing
4753 =item Too late to run %s block
4755 (W void) A CHECK or INIT block is being defined during run time proper,
4756 when the opportunity to run them has already passed. Perhaps you are
4757 loading a file with C<require> or C<do> when you should be using C<use>
4758 instead. Or perhaps you should put the C<require> or C<do> inside a
4761 =item Too many args to syscall
4763 (F) Perl supports a maximum of only 14 args to syscall().
4765 =item Too many arguments for %s
4767 (F) The function requires fewer arguments than you specified.
4771 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4772 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4776 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
4777 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
4779 =item Trailing \ in regex m/%s/
4781 (F) The regular expression ends with an unbackslashed backslash.
4782 Backslash it. See L<perlre>.
4784 =item Transliteration pattern not terminated
4786 (F) The lexer couldn't find the interior delimiter of a tr/// or tr[][]
4787 or y/// or y[][] construct. Missing the leading C<$> from variables
4788 C<$tr> or C<$y> may cause this error.
4790 =item Transliteration replacement not terminated
4792 (F) The lexer couldn't find the final delimiter of a tr///, tr[][],
4793 y/// or y[][] construct.
4795 =item '%s' trapped by operation mask
4797 (F) You tried to use an operator from a Safe compartment in which it's
4798 disallowed. See L<Safe>.
4800 =item truncate not implemented
4802 (F) Your machine doesn't implement a file truncation mechanism that
4803 Configure knows about.
4805 =item Type of arg %d to &CORE::%s must be %s
4807 (F) The subroutine in question in the CORE package requires its argument
4808 to be a hard reference to data of the specified type. Overloading is
4809 ignored, so a reference to an object that is not the specified type, but
4810 nonetheless has overloading to handle it, will still not be accepted.
4812 =item Type of arg %d to %s must be %s (not %s)
4814 (F) This function requires the argument in that position to be of a
4815 certain type. Arrays must be @NAME or C<@{EXPR}>. Hashes must be
4816 %NAME or C<%{EXPR}>. No implicit dereferencing is allowed--use the
4817 {EXPR} forms as an explicit dereference. See L<perlref>.
4819 =item Type of argument to %s must be unblessed hashref or arrayref
4821 (F) You called C<keys>, C<values> or C<each> with a scalar argument that
4822 was not a reference to an unblessed hash or array.
4824 =item umask not implemented
4826 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the umask function and you tried to
4827 use it to restrict permissions for yourself (EXPR & 0700).
4829 =item Unbalanced context: %d more PUSHes than POPs
4831 (W internal) The exit code detected an internal inconsistency in how
4832 many execution contexts were entered and left.
4834 =item Unbalanced saves: %d more saves than restores