3 perldiag - various Perl diagnostics
7 These messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing order of
10 (W) A warning (optional).
11 (D) A deprecation (enabled by default).
12 (S) A severe warning (enabled by default).
13 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
14 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
15 (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
16 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
18 The majority of messages from the first three classifications above
19 (W, D & S) can be controlled using the C<warnings> pragma.
21 If a message can be controlled by the C<warnings> pragma, its warning
22 category is included with the classification letter in the description
23 below. E.g. C<(W closed)> means a warning in the C<closed> category.
25 Optional warnings are enabled by using the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
26 and B<-W> switches. Warnings may be captured by setting C<$SIG{__WARN__}>
27 to a reference to a routine that will be called on each warning instead
28 of printing it. See L<perlvar>.
30 Severe warnings are always enabled, unless they are explicitly disabled
31 with the C<warnings> pragma or the B<-X> switch.
33 Trappable errors may be trapped using the eval operator. See
34 L<perlfunc/eval>. In almost all cases, warnings may be selectively
35 disabled or promoted to fatal errors using the C<warnings> pragma.
38 The messages are in alphabetical order, without regard to upper or
39 lower-case. Some of these messages are generic. Spots that vary are
40 denoted with a %s or other printf-style escape. These escapes are
41 ignored by the alphabetical order, as are all characters other than
42 letters. To look up your message, just ignore anything that is not a
47 =item accept() on closed socket %s
49 (W closed) You tried to do an accept on a closed socket. Did you forget
50 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
53 =item Aliasing via reference is experimental
55 (S experimental::refaliasing) This warning is emitted if you use
56 a reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment to
57 alias one variable to another. Simply suppress the warning if you
58 want to use the feature, but know that in doing so you are taking
59 the risk of using an experimental feature which may change or be
60 removed in a future Perl version:
62 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
63 use feature "refaliasing";
66 =item Allocation too large: %x
68 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS machine.
70 =item '%c' allowed only after types %s in %s
72 (F) The modifiers '!', '<' and '>' are allowed in pack() or unpack() only
73 after certain types. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
75 =item alpha->numify() is lossy
77 (W numeric) An alpha version can not be numified without losing
80 =item Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::%s(), qualify as such or use &
82 (W ambiguous) A subroutine you have declared has the same name as a Perl
83 keyword, and you have used the name without qualification for calling
84 one or the other. Perl decided to call the builtin because the
85 subroutine is not imported.
87 To force interpretation as a subroutine call, either put an ampersand
88 before the subroutine name, or qualify the name with its package.
89 Alternatively, you can import the subroutine (or pretend that it's
90 imported with the C<use subs> pragma).
92 To silently interpret it as the Perl operator, use the C<CORE::> prefix
93 on the operator (e.g. C<CORE::log($x)>) or declare the subroutine
94 to be an object method (see L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> or
97 =item Ambiguous range in transliteration operator
99 (F) You wrote something like C<tr/a-z-0//> which doesn't mean anything at
100 all. To include a C<-> character in a transliteration, put it either
101 first or last. (In the past, C<tr/a-z-0//> was synonymous with
102 C<tr/a-y//>, which was probably not what you would have expected.)
104 =item Ambiguous use of %s resolved as %s
106 (S ambiguous) You said something that may not be interpreted the way
107 you thought. Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate it by supplying
108 a missing quote, operator, parenthesis pair or declaration.
110 =item Ambiguous use of -%s resolved as -&%s()
112 (S ambiguous) You wrote something like C<-foo>, which might be the
113 string C<"-foo">, or a call to the function C<foo>, negated. If you meant
114 the string, just write C<"-foo">. If you meant the function call,
117 =item Ambiguous use of %c resolved as operator %c
119 (S ambiguous) C<%>, C<&>, and C<*> are both infix operators (modulus,
120 bitwise and, and multiplication) I<and> initial special characters
121 (denoting hashes, subroutines and typeglobs), and you said something
122 like C<*foo * foo> that might be interpreted as either of them. We
123 assumed you meant the infix operator, but please try to make it more
124 clear -- in the example given, you might write C<*foo * foo()> if you
125 really meant to multiply a glob by the result of calling a function.
127 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s} resolved to %c%s
129 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<@{foo}>, which might be
130 asking for the variable C<@foo>, or it might be calling a function
131 named foo, and dereferencing it as an array reference. If you wanted
132 the variable, you can just write C<@foo>. If you wanted to call the
133 function, write C<@{foo()}> ... or you could just not have a variable
134 and a function with the same name, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
136 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s[...]} resolved to %c%s[...]
138 =item Ambiguous use of %c{%s{...}} resolved to %c%s{...}
140 (W ambiguous) You wrote something like C<${foo[2]}> (where foo represents
141 the name of a Perl keyword), which might be looking for element number
142 2 of the array named C<@foo>, in which case please write C<$foo[2]>, or you
143 might have meant to pass an anonymous arrayref to the function named
144 foo, and then do a scalar deref on the value it returns. If you meant
145 that, write C<${foo([2])}>.
147 In regular expressions, the C<${foo[2]}> syntax is sometimes necessary
148 to disambiguate between array subscripts and character classes.
149 C</$length[2345]/>, for instance, will be interpreted as C<$length> followed
150 by the character class C<[2345]>. If an array subscript is what you
151 want, you can avoid the warning by changing C</${length[2345]}/> to the
152 unsightly C</${\$length[2345]}/>, by renaming your array to something
153 that does not coincide with a built-in keyword, or by simply turning
154 off warnings with C<no warnings 'ambiguous';>.
156 =item '|' and '<' may not both be specified on command line
158 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
159 redirection, and found that STDIN was a pipe, and that you also tried to
160 redirect STDIN using '<'. Only one STDIN stream to a customer, please.
162 =item '|' and '>' may not both be specified on command line
164 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
165 redirection, and thinks you tried to redirect stdout both to a file and
166 into a pipe to another command. You need to choose one or the other,
167 though nothing's stopping you from piping into a program or Perl script
168 which 'splits' output into two streams, such as
170 open(OUT,">$ARGV[0]") or die "Can't write to $ARGV[0]: $!";
177 =item Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
179 (W misc) The pattern match (C<//>), substitution (C<s///>), and
180 transliteration (C<tr///>) operators work on scalar values. If you apply
181 one of them to an array or a hash, it will convert the array or hash to
182 a scalar value (the length of an array, or the population info of a
183 hash) and then work on that scalar value. This is probably not what
184 you meant to do. See L<perlfunc/grep> and L<perlfunc/map> for
187 =item Arg too short for msgsnd
189 (F) msgsnd() requires a string at least as long as sizeof(long).
191 =item Argument "%s" isn't numeric%s
193 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to an operator
194 that expected a numeric value instead. If you're fortunate the message
195 will identify which operator was so unfortunate.
197 Note that for the C<Inf> and C<NaN> (infinity and not-a-number) the
198 definition of "numeric" is somewhat unusual: the strings themselves
199 (like "Inf") are considered numeric, and anything following them is
200 considered non-numeric.
202 =item Argument list not closed for PerlIO layer "%s"
204 (W layer) When pushing a layer with arguments onto the Perl I/O
205 system you forgot the ) that closes the argument list. (Layers
206 take care of transforming data between external and internal
207 representations.) Perl stopped parsing the layer list at this
208 point and did not attempt to push this layer. If your program
209 didn't explicitly request the failing operation, it may be the
210 result of the value of the environment variable PERLIO.
212 =item Argument "%s" treated as 0 in increment (++)
214 (W numeric) The indicated string was fed as an argument to the C<++>
215 operator which expects either a number or a string matching
216 C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/>. See L<perlop/Auto-increment and
217 Auto-decrement> for details.
219 =item Array passed to stat will be coerced to a scalar%s
221 (W syntax) You called stat() on an array, but the array will be
222 coerced to a scalar - the number of elements in the array.
224 =item A signature parameter must start with '$', '@' or '%'
226 (F) Each subroutine signature parameter declaration must start with a valid
229 sub foo ($a, $, $b = 1, @c) {}
231 =item A slurpy parameter may not have a default value
233 (F) Only scalar subroutine signature parameters may have a default value;
236 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
237 sub foo (@a = (1)) {} # invalid
238 sub foo (%a = (a => b)) {} # invalid
240 =item assertion botched: %s
242 (X) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
244 =item Assertion %s failed: file "%s", line %d
246 (X) A general assertion failed. The file in question must be examined.
248 =item Assigned value is not a reference
250 (F) You tried to assign something that was not a reference to an lvalue
251 reference (e.g., C<\$x = $y>). If you meant to make $x an alias to $y, use
254 =item Assigned value is not %s reference
256 (F) You tried to assign a reference to a reference constructor, but the
257 two references were not of the same type. You cannot alias a scalar to
258 an array, or an array to a hash; the two types must match.
263 \$x = $y; # error; did you mean \$y?
265 =item Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible
267 (F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled (e.g., under C<use v5.16;>)
268 the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
270 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
272 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
273 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
274 know which context to supply to the right side.
276 =item Assuming NOT a POSIX class since %s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
278 (W regexp) You had something like these:
283 They look like they might have been meant to be the POSIX classes
284 C<[:alnum:]> or C<[:digit:]>. If so, they should be written:
289 Since these aren't legal POSIX class specifications, but are legal
290 bracketed character classes, Perl treats them as the latter. In the
291 first example, it matches the characters C<":">, C<"[">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
292 C<"m">, C<"n">, and C<"u">.
294 If these weren't meant to be POSIX classes, this warning message is
295 spurious, and can be suppressed by reordering things, such as
303 =item <> at require-statement should be quotes
305 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
308 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
310 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
311 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
313 =item Attempt to bless into a freed package
315 (F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
316 the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
317 do, so it throws up in hands in despair.
319 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
321 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
322 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
323 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
329 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
331 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
332 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
335 bless $self, "$proto";
337 =item Attempt to clear deleted array
339 (S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
340 Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
341 can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
342 callback on the array.
344 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
346 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
347 which is not in its key set.
349 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
351 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
352 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
354 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
356 (S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
357 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
358 outside any of those arenas.
360 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
362 (S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
363 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
364 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
365 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
367 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
369 (S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
370 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
371 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
372 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
375 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
377 (S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
379 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
381 (S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
382 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
383 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
384 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
385 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
386 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
389 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
391 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
392 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
393 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
394 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
395 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
398 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
400 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
401 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
402 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
405 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
407 (W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
408 been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
409 scalar representing the last index of an array and later
410 assigning through that reference. For example
412 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
415 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
417 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
418 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
419 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
421 =item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
423 (W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
424 example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
425 declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
427 =item av_reify called on tied array
429 (S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
430 confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
432 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
434 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
435 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
436 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
437 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
439 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
441 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
442 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
443 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
445 =item Bad filehandle: %s
447 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
448 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
449 open(), or did it in another package.
451 =item Bad free() ignored
453 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
454 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
455 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
457 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
458 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
459 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
463 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
465 =item Badly placed ()'s
467 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
468 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
471 =item Bad name after %s
473 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
474 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
483 $sym = "mypack::$var";
485 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
487 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
490 =item Bad realloc() ignored
492 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
493 had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
494 be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
496 =item Bad symbol for array
498 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
499 wasn't a symbol table entry.
501 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
503 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
504 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
506 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
508 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
509 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
511 =item Bad symbol for hash
513 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
514 wasn't a symbol table entry.
516 =item Bad symbol for scalar
518 (P) An internal request asked to add a scalar entry to something that
519 wasn't a symbol table entry.
521 =item Bareword found in conditional
523 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
524 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
525 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
529 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
532 use constant TYPO => 1;
533 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
535 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
537 =item Bareword in require contains "%s"
539 =item Bareword in require maps to disallowed filename "%s"
541 =item Bareword in require maps to empty filename
543 (F) The bareword form of require has been invoked with a filename which could
544 not have been generated by a valid bareword permitted by the parser. You
545 shouldn't be able to get this error from Perl code, but XS code may throw it
546 if it passes an invalid module name to C<Perl_load_module>.
548 =item Bareword in require must not start with a double-colon: "%s"
550 (F) In C<require Bare::Word>, the bareword is not allowed to start with a
551 double-colon. Write C<require ::Foo::Bar> as C<require Foo::Bar> instead.
553 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
555 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
556 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
557 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
559 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
561 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
562 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
563 you need to predeclare a package?
565 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
567 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
568 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
571 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
573 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
574 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
575 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
576 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
577 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
579 =item \%d better written as $%d
581 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
582 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
583 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
584 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
585 there are more than 9 backreferences.
587 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
589 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
590 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
591 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
593 =item bind() on closed socket %s
595 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
596 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
598 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
600 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
601 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
603 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
605 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
607 =item Bizarre copy of %s
609 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
612 =item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
614 (P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
615 encountered an invalid data type.
617 =item Both or neither range ends should be Unicode in regex; marked by
620 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
622 In a bracketed character class in a regular expression pattern, you
623 had a range which has exactly one end of it specified using C<\N{}>, and
624 the other end is specified using a non-portable mechanism. Perl treats
625 the range as a Unicode range, that is, all the characters in it are
626 considered to be the Unicode characters, and which may be different code
627 points on some platforms Perl runs on. For example, C<[\N{U+06}-\x08]>
628 is treated as if you had instead said C<[\N{U+06}-\N{U+08}]>, that is it
629 matches the characters whose code points in Unicode are 6, 7, and 8.
630 But that C<\x08> might indicate that you meant something different, so
631 the warning gets raised.
633 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
635 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
636 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
637 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
639 =item Callback called exit
641 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
642 exited by calling exit.
644 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
646 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
647 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
648 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
649 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
650 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
651 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
652 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
653 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
657 (F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
659 =item Cannot complete in-place edit of %s: %s
661 (F) Your perl script appears to have changed directory while
662 performing an in-place edit of a file specified by a relative path,
663 and your system doesn't include the directory relative POSIX functions
664 needed to handle that.
666 =item Cannot compress %f in pack
668 (F) You tried compressing an infinity or not-a-number as an unsigned
669 integer with BER, which makes no sense.
671 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
673 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress.
674 The BER compressed integer format can only be used with positive
675 integers, and you attempted to compress a very large number (> 1e308).
676 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
678 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
680 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
681 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
683 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
685 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
686 in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
687 The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
688 no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
690 =item Cannot copy to %s
692 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
693 be directly assigned to.
695 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
697 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
698 either with open() or binmode().
700 =item Cannot open %s as a dirhandle: it is already open as a filehandle
702 (F) You tried to use opendir() to associate a dirhandle to a symbol (glob
703 or scalar) that already holds a filehandle. Since this idiom might render
704 your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
707 =item Cannot open %s as a filehandle: it is already open as a dirhandle
709 (F) You tried to use open() to associate a filehandle to a symbol (glob
710 or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle. Since this idiom might render
711 your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
714 =item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
716 (F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an integer,
717 which makes no sense.
719 =item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
721 (F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
722 which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
724 =item Cannot set tied @DB::args
726 (F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
727 is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
729 =item Cannot tie unreifiable array
731 (P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
732 keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
733 do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
734 Perl code, but are only used internally.
736 =item Cannot yet reorder sv_catpvfn() arguments from va_list
738 (F) Some XS code tried to use C<sv_catpvfn()> or a related function with a
739 format string that specifies explicit indexes for some of the elements, and
740 using a C-style variable-argument list (a C<va_list>). This is not currently
741 supported. XS authors wanting to do this must instead construct a C array
742 of C<SV*> scalars containing the arguments.
744 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
746 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
747 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
748 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
750 =item Can't bless non-reference value
752 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
753 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
755 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
757 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
758 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
760 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
762 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
764 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
766 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
767 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
768 like this will reproduce the error:
771 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
772 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
774 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
776 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
777 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
778 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
779 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
781 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
783 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
784 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
785 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
786 Something like this will reproduce the error:
789 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
790 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
792 =item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
794 (P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
795 symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
797 =item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
799 (F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
800 not attached to the symbol table.
802 =item Can't chdir to %s
804 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
805 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
807 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
809 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
812 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
814 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
815 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
825 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
827 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
829 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
832 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
834 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
835 quotas or other plumbing problems.
837 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
839 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
840 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
842 =item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
844 (F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
845 C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
846 issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
847 error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
849 =item Can't determine class of operator %s, assuming BASEOP
851 (S) This warning indicates something wrong in the internals of perl.
852 Perl was trying to find the class (e.g. LISTOP) of a particular OP,
853 and was unable to do so. This is likely to be due to a bug in the perl
854 internals, or due to a bug in XS code which manipulates perl optrees.
856 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
858 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
859 a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
861 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
863 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
866 =item Can't do inplace edit without backup
868 (F) You're on a system such as MS-DOS that gets confused if you try
869 reading from a deleted (but still opened) file. You have to say
870 C<-i.bak>, or some such.
872 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
874 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
875 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
876 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
878 =item Can't do %s("%s") on non-UTF-8 locale; resolved to "%s".
880 (W locale) You are 1) running under "C<use locale>"; 2) the current
881 locale is not a UTF-8 one; 3) you tried to do the designated case-change
882 operation on the specified Unicode character; and 4) the result of this
883 operation would mix Unicode and locale rules, which likely conflict.
884 Mixing of different rule types is forbidden, so the operation was not
885 done; instead the result is the indicated value, which is the best
886 available that uses entirely Unicode rules. That turns out to almost
887 always be the original character, unchanged.
889 It is generally a bad idea to mix non-UTF-8 locales and Unicode, and
890 this issue is one of the reasons why. This warning is raised when
891 Unicode rules would normally cause the result of this operation to
892 contain a character that is in the range specified by the locale,
893 0..255, and hence is subject to the locale's rules, not Unicode's.
895 If you are using locale purely for its characteristics related to things
896 like its numeric and time formatting (and not C<LC_CTYPE>), consider
897 using a restricted form of the locale pragma (see L<perllocale/The "use
898 locale" pragma>) like "S<C<use locale ':not_characters'>>".
900 Note that failed case-changing operations done as a result of
901 case-insensitive C</i> regular expression matching will show up in this
902 warning as having the C<fc> operation (as that is what the regular
903 expression engine calls behind the scenes.)
905 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
907 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
908 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
910 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
912 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
913 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
916 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
918 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
919 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
920 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
921 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
923 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
925 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
926 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
927 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
928 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
929 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
930 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
935 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
936 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
937 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
939 =item Can't execute %s
941 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
942 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
944 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
946 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
947 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
949 =item Can't find label %s
951 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
952 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
954 =item Can't find %s on PATH
956 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
959 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
961 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
962 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
963 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
965 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
967 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
968 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
969 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
971 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
973 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
974 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
975 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
976 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
977 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
979 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
981 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
983 (F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
984 known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
985 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
986 for a complete list of available official
987 properties. If it is a
988 L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
989 it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
992 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
993 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
998 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
1001 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
1003 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
1006 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
1008 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
1009 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
1010 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
1011 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
1012 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
1013 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
1014 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
1015 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
1016 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
1017 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
1018 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
1019 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
1020 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
1021 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
1022 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
1024 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
1026 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
1027 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
1029 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
1031 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
1032 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
1034 =item Can't "goto" into a "given" block
1036 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a C<given>
1037 block. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1039 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
1041 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
1042 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1044 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
1046 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
1047 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
1048 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
1049 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1051 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
1053 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
1056 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
1058 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
1059 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
1060 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
1062 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
1064 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
1065 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
1066 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
1067 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1069 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
1071 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
1072 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
1073 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
1074 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
1075 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
1076 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
1078 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
1080 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
1081 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
1084 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
1086 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
1087 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
1088 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
1089 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
1090 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
1091 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
1094 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
1096 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
1097 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
1099 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
1101 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
1102 This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
1103 that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
1104 to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
1105 dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
1106 that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
1109 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
1111 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
1112 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
1113 want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
1116 =item Can't localize through a reference
1118 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
1119 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
1120 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
1121 that $ref will still be a reference.
1123 =item Can't locate %s
1125 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
1126 Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
1127 the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
1128 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
1129 extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
1130 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
1131 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
1133 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
1135 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
1136 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
1137 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
1138 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
1140 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
1142 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
1143 for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
1144 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
1146 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
1148 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
1149 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
1150 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
1152 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
1155 (F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
1156 could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
1157 requires a package that has not been loaded.
1159 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
1161 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
1162 doesn't seem to exist.
1164 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1166 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1167 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1169 =item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
1171 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1174 =item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1176 (S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
1177 that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1178 process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1179 the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1180 from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1181 functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1183 =item Can't modify %s in %s
1185 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1186 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
1188 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
1190 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1193 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s
1195 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s in %s
1197 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
1198 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1200 =item Can't modify reference to %s in %s assignment
1202 (F) Only a limited number of constructs can be used as the argument to a
1203 reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment, and what
1204 you used was not one of them. See L<perlref/Assigning to References>.
1206 =item Can't modify reference to localized parenthesized array in list
1209 (F) Assigning to C<\local(@array)> or C<\(local @array)> is not supported, as
1210 it is not clear exactly what it should do. If you meant to make @array
1211 refer to some other array, use C<\@array = \@other_array>. If you want to
1212 make the elements of @array aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1213 right-hand side, use C<\(@array) = @scalar_refs>.
1215 =item Can't modify reference to parenthesized hash in list assignment
1217 (F) Assigning to C<\(%hash)> is not supported. If you meant to make %hash
1218 refer to some other hash, use C<\%hash = \%other_hash>. If you want to
1219 make the elements of %hash into aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1220 right-hand side, use a hash slice: C<\@hash{@keys} = @those_scalar_refs>.
1222 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
1224 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
1227 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1229 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1230 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1231 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1232 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1233 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1234 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1236 =item Can't open %s: %s
1238 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1239 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1240 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1241 this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1242 you named on the command line.
1244 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1245 your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
1247 =item Can't open a reference
1249 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1250 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1254 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1255 open is not supported.
1257 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1259 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1260 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1261 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1262 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1264 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1266 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1267 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1268 the command line for writing.
1270 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1272 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1273 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1274 command line for reading.
1276 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1278 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1279 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1280 the command line for writing.
1282 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1284 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1285 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1288 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
1290 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1292 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1293 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1294 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1296 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1298 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1299 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1300 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1301 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1304 =item Can't redeclare "%s" in "%s"
1306 (F) A "my", "our" or "state" declaration was found within another declaration,
1307 such as C<my ($x, my($y), $z)> or C<our (my $x)>.
1309 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1311 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1312 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1313 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1314 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1315 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1316 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1318 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1320 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1321 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1322 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1324 =item Can't rename in-place work file '%s' to '%s': %s
1326 (F) When closed implicitly, the temporary file for in-place editing
1327 couldn't be renamed to the original filename.
1329 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1331 (F) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1332 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1334 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1336 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1337 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1339 =item Can't represent character for Ox%X on this platform
1341 (F) There is a hard limit to how big a character code point can be due
1342 to the fundamental properties of UTF-8, especially on EBCDIC
1343 platforms. The given code point exceeds that. The only work-around is
1344 to not use such a large code point.
1346 =item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1348 (F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1349 all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1350 the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1351 supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1353 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1355 (F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1356 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1357 package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1359 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1361 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1362 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1365 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1367 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1368 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1370 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1372 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1373 subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1374 think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1375 write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1376 Perl that the call should be in list context.
1378 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1380 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1381 open already. Bizarre.
1383 =item Can't take log of %g
1385 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1386 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1387 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1390 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1392 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1393 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1394 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1396 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1398 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1399 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1400 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1402 =item Can't unweaken a nonreference
1404 (F) You attempted to unweaken something that was not a reference. Only
1405 references can be unweakened.
1407 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1409 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1410 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1411 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1412 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1414 =item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1416 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1417 other than "=" after the module name.
1419 =item Can't use a hash as a reference
1421 (F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1422 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1423 <= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1424 have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1426 =item Can't use an array as a reference
1428 (F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1429 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1430 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1431 was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1433 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1435 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1436 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1437 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1439 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1441 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1442 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1444 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1446 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1447 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1449 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1451 (F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1452 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1453 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1455 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1457 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1458 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1459 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1461 =item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1463 (F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1464 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1465 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1467 =item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1469 (F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1471 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1472 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1473 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1474 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1475 generates a fatal error.
1477 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1478 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1484 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1485 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1486 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1489 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1491 (P) The parser got confused when trying to parse a C<foreach> loop.
1493 =item Can't use global %s in "%s"
1495 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1496 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1497 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1498 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1501 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1503 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1504 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1505 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1506 is inside a big-endian group.
1508 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1510 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1511 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1512 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1513 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1516 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1518 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1519 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1520 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1522 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1524 =item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1526 (F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1527 C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1528 L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1529 in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1530 for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1531 of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1532 symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
1534 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1536 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1537 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1538 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1540 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1542 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1543 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1544 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1545 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1546 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1549 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1551 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1552 references can be weakened.
1554 =item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1556 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1557 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1558 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1559 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1561 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1563 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1564 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1565 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1567 =item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
1569 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
1571 Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
1572 discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
1573 L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
1575 =item Character following \%c must be '{' or a single-character Unicode property name in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1577 (F) (In the above the C<%c> is replaced by either C<p> or C<P>.) You
1578 specified something that isn't a legal Unicode property name. Most
1579 Unicode properties are specified by C<\p{...}>. But if the name is a
1580 single character one, the braces may be omitted.
1582 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1588 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1589 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1590 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1594 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1597 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1603 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1604 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1605 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1607 pack("c", $x & 255);
1609 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1612 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1614 (W unpack) You tried something like
1616 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1618 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1619 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1620 value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1622 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1624 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1630 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1631 expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1634 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1636 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1638 (W pack) You tried something like
1640 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1642 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1643 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1644 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1646 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1648 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1650 (W unpack) You tried something like
1652 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1654 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1655 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1656 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1658 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1660 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple
1661 spaces; marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
1663 (F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1664 in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1665 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1666 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1667 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1669 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space;
1670 marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
1672 (F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1673 character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1674 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1675 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1676 See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1678 =item chdir() on unopened filehandle %s
1680 (W unopened) You tried chdir() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1682 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1684 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1685 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1686 is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1687 for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1688 between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
1690 =item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1692 (F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1694 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1696 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1697 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1699 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1701 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1703 =item Closure prototype called
1705 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1706 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1707 This subroutine cannot be called.
1709 =item \C no longer supported in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1711 (F) The \C character class used to allow a match of single byte
1712 within a multi-byte utf-8 character, but was removed in v5.24 as
1713 it broke encapsulation and its implementation was extremely buggy.
1714 If you really need to process the individual bytes, you probably
1715 want to convert your string to one where each underlying byte is
1716 stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1718 =item Code missing after '/'
1720 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1721 another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1723 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, and not portable
1725 (S non_unicode) You had a code point that has never been in any
1726 standard, so it is likely that languages other than Perl will NOT
1727 understand it. At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code
1728 points up to 0x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher, and this code point is higher.
1730 Acceptance of these code points is a Perl extension, and you should
1731 expect that nothing other than Perl can handle them; Perl itself on
1732 EBCDIC platforms before v5.24 does not handle them.
1734 Code points above 0xFFFF_FFFF require larger than a 32 bit word.
1736 Perl also makes no guarantees that the representation of these code
1737 points won't change at some point in the future, say when machines
1738 become available that have larger than a 64-bit word. At that time,
1739 files written by an older Perl would require conversion before being
1740 readable by a newer Perl.
1742 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1744 (S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1747 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, but
1748 these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. Further, even if
1749 these languages/systems accept these large code points, they may have
1750 chosen a different representation for them than the UTF-8-like one that
1751 Perl has, which would mean files are not exchangeable between them and
1754 On EBCDIC platforms, code points above 0x3FFF_FFFF have a different
1755 representation in Perl v5.24 than before, so any file containing these
1756 that was written before that version will require conversion before
1757 being readable by a later Perl.
1759 =item %s: Command not found
1761 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1762 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1763 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1767 =item %s: command not found
1769 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<bash> or another shell
1770 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1771 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1775 =item %s: command not found: %s
1777 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<zsh> or another shell
1778 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1779 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1783 =item Compilation failed in require
1785 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1786 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1787 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1789 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1791 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1792 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1793 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1794 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1795 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1796 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1797 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1798 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1799 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1801 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1803 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1804 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1805 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1807 =item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1809 (F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1810 (see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1811 L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1813 =item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1815 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1816 overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
1819 =item Constant is not %s reference
1821 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1822 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1823 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1824 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1825 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1827 =item Constants from lexical variables potentially modified elsewhere are
1828 deprecated. This will not be allowed in Perl 5.32
1830 (D deprecated) You wrote something like
1833 $sub = sub () { $var };
1835 but $var is referenced elsewhere and could be modified after the C<sub>
1836 expression is evaluated. Either it is explicitly modified elsewhere
1837 (C<$var = 3>) or it is passed to a subroutine or to an operator like
1838 C<printf> or C<map>, which may or may not modify the variable.
1840 Traditionally, Perl has captured the value of the variable at that
1841 point and turned the subroutine into a constant eligible for inlining.
1842 In those cases where the variable can be modified elsewhere, this
1843 breaks the behavior of closures, in which the subroutine captures
1844 the variable itself, rather than its value, so future changes to the
1845 variable are reflected in the subroutine's return value.
1847 This usage is deprecated, and will no longer be allowed in Perl 5.32,
1848 making it possible to change the behavior in the future.
1850 If you intended for the subroutine to be eligible for inlining, then
1851 make sure the variable is not referenced elsewhere, possibly by
1855 $sub = sub () { $var2 };
1857 If you do want this subroutine to be a closure that reflects future
1858 changes to the variable that it closes over, add an explicit C<return>:
1861 $sub = sub () { return $var };
1863 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1865 (W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1866 been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1867 for commentary and workarounds.
1869 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1871 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1872 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1875 =item Constant(%s) unknown
1877 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1878 to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1879 character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1880 forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?
1882 =item :const is experimental
1884 (S experimental::const_attr) The "const" attribute is experimental.
1885 If you want to use the feature, disable the warning with C<no warnings
1886 'experimental::const_attr'>, but know that in doing so you are taking
1887 the risk that your code may break in a future Perl version.
1889 =item :const is not permitted on named subroutines
1891 (F) The "const" attribute causes an anonymous subroutine to be run and
1892 its value captured at the time that it is cloned. Named subroutines are
1893 not cloned like this, so the attribute does not make sense on them.
1895 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1897 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1898 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1900 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1902 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1903 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
1904 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1905 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1907 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1908 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1910 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1912 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1914 =item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1916 (P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1917 one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1918 latter, report the problem through the L<perlbug> utility.
1920 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1922 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1923 expression compiler gave it.
1925 =item corrupted regexp program
1927 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1930 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1932 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1934 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1936 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1937 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1940 =item Declaring references is experimental
1942 (S experimental::declared_refs) This warning is emitted if you use
1943 a reference constructor on the right-hand side of C<my>, C<state>, C<our>, or
1944 C<local>. Simply suppress the warning if you want to use the feature, but
1945 know that in doing so you are taking the risk of using an experimental
1946 feature which may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
1948 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
1949 use feature "declared_refs";
1953 The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1954 share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1956 =item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1958 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1960 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1961 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1962 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1963 which case it indicates something else.
1965 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1966 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1968 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1969 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1971 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1972 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1973 of the C<....> part.
1975 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1978 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1980 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1981 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1983 =item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1985 (F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
1991 or a hash or array slice, such as:
1993 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1994 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
1996 or a hash key/value or array index/value slice, such as:
1998 %foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
1999 %{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2001 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
2003 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
2004 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
2005 that triggers this error.
2007 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30
2009 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
2010 has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
2011 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
2012 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
2013 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
2014 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
2015 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
2017 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
2021 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
2023 Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
2024 lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
2026 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
2028 This use of C<my()> in a false conditional has been deprecated since
2029 Perl 5.10, and it will become a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
2031 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
2033 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
2034 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
2035 than to create a dangling reference.
2037 =item Did not produce a valid header
2039 See L</500 Server error>.
2041 =item %s did not return a true value
2043 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
2044 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
2045 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
2046 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
2048 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
2050 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
2053 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
2055 (W shadow) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
2056 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
2059 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
2061 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
2062 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
2067 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
2068 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
2070 =item Document contains no data
2072 See L</500 Server error>.
2074 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
2076 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
2077 define a C<$VERSION>.
2079 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
2081 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
2082 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2084 =item do "%s" failed, '.' is no longer in @INC; did you mean do "./%s"?
2086 (D deprecated) Previously C< do "somefile"; > would search the current
2087 directory for the specified file. Since perl v5.26.0, F<.> has been
2088 removed from C<@INC> by default, so this is no longer true. To search the
2089 current directory (and only the current directory) you can write
2090 C< do "./somefile"; >.
2092 =item Don't know how to get file name
2094 (P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
2095 somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
2097 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
2099 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
2101 =item do_study: out of memory
2103 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
2105 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
2107 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2108 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
2109 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
2110 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
2111 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
2112 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
2113 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
2114 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
2116 =item dump() better written as CORE::dump(). dump() will no longer be available in Perl 5.30
2118 (D deprecated, misc) You used the obsolescent C<dump()> built-in function,
2119 without fully qualifying it as C<CORE::dump()>. Maybe it's a typo.
2121 Use of a unqualified C<dump()> was deprecated in Perl 5.8.0, and this
2122 will not be available in Perl 5.30.
2124 See L<perlfunc/dump>.
2126 =item dump is not supported
2128 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
2130 =item Duplicate free() ignored
2132 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
2135 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
2137 (W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
2138 type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2140 =item elseif should be elsif
2142 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
2143 it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
2144 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
2145 unlikely to be what you want.
2147 =item Empty \%c in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2149 =item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2151 (F) C<\p> and C<\P> are used to introduce a named Unicode property, as
2152 described in L<perlunicode> and L<perlre>. You used C<\p> or C<\P> in
2153 a regular expression without specifying the property name.
2155 =item ${^ENCODING} is no longer supported
2157 (F) The special variable C<${^ENCODING}>, formerly used to implement
2158 the C<encoding> pragma, is no longer supported as of Perl 5.26.0.
2160 Setting it to anything other than C<undef> is a fatal error as of Perl
2163 =item entering effective %s failed
2165 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2166 effective uids or gids failed.
2168 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
2170 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
2171 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
2172 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
2174 =item Error converting file specification %s
2176 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
2177 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
2178 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
2179 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
2180 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
2182 =item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
2184 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2185 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
2186 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
2188 =item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
2190 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
2191 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
2192 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
2193 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
2194 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
2195 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
2196 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
2198 =item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
2200 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
2201 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
2202 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
2204 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
2205 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2207 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
2208 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
2210 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2213 =item Excessively long <> operator
2215 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
2216 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
2217 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
2218 variable and glob that.
2220 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
2222 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
2223 OS. See L<perlport>.
2225 =item %sExecution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
2227 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
2229 =item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
2231 (F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
2232 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
2238 =item exists argument is not a subroutine name
2240 (F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
2241 and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
2243 =item Exiting eval via %s
2245 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
2246 goto, or a loop control statement.
2248 =item Exiting format via %s
2250 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
2251 goto, or a loop control statement.
2253 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
2255 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
2256 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
2257 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2259 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
2261 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
2262 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
2264 =item Exiting substitution via %s
2266 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
2267 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
2269 =item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2271 (F) You wrote something like
2275 to denote a capturing group of the form
2276 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
2277 but omitted the C<")">.
2279 =item Expecting close paren for nested extended charclass in regex; marked
2280 by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2282 (F) While parsing a nested extended character class like:
2284 (?[ ... (?flags:(?[ ... ])) ... ])
2287 we expected to see a close paren ')' (marked by ^) but did not.
2289 =item Expecting close paren for wrapper for nested extended charclass in
2290 regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2292 (F) While parsing a nested extended character class like:
2294 (?[ ... (?flags:(?[ ... ])) ... ])
2297 we expected to see a close paren ')' (marked by ^) but did not.
2299 =item Expecting '(?flags:(?[...' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2301 (F) The C<(?[...])> extended character class regular expression construct
2302 only allows character classes (including character class escapes like
2303 C<\d>), operators, and parentheses. The one exception is C<(?flags:...)>
2304 containing at least one flag and exactly one C<(?[...])> construct.
2305 This allows a regular expression containing just C<(?[...])> to be
2306 interpolated. If you see this error message, then you probably
2307 have some other C<(?...)> construct inside your character class. See
2308 L<perlrecharclass/Extended Bracketed Character Classes>.
2310 =item Experimental aliasing via reference not enabled
2312 (F) To do aliasing via references, you must first enable the feature:
2314 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
2315 use feature "refaliasing";
2318 =item Experimental %s on scalar is now forbidden
2320 (F) An experimental feature added in Perl 5.14 allowed C<each>, C<keys>,
2321 C<push>, C<pop>, C<shift>, C<splice>, C<unshift>, and C<values> to be called with a
2322 scalar argument. This experiment is considered unsuccessful, and
2323 has been removed. The C<postderef> feature may meet your needs better.
2325 =item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
2327 (F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
2329 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
2330 use feature "signatures";
2331 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
2333 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
2335 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
2336 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
2337 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
2338 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
2340 =item %s: Expression syntax
2342 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
2343 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
2345 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
2347 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
2348 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
2349 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
2351 =item Failed to close in-place work file %s: %s
2353 (F) Closing an output file from in-place editing, as with the C<-i>
2354 command-line switch, failed.
2356 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2358 (W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
2359 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
2360 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
2361 construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
2362 the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
2363 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2365 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
2367 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
2368 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
2369 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
2370 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
2372 =item fcntl is not implemented
2374 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2375 PDP-11 or something?
2377 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2379 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2382 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2384 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
2385 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2386 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
2387 C<u63> as the format.
2389 =item File::Glob::glob() will disappear in perl 5.30. Use File::Glob::bsd_glob() instead.
2391 (D deprecated) C<< File::Glob >> has a function called C<< glob >>, which
2392 just calls C<< bsd_glob >>. However, its prototype is different from the
2393 prototype of C<< CORE::glob >>, and hence, C<< File::Glob::glob >> should
2396 C<< File::Glob::glob() >> was deprecated in perl 5.8.0. A deprecation
2397 message was issued from perl 5.26.0 onwards, and the function will
2398 disappear in perl 5.30.0.
2400 Code using C<< File::Glob::glob() >> should call
2401 C<< File::Glob::bsd_glob() >> instead.
2403 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
2405 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2406 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2407 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2408 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2410 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
2412 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2413 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
2414 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2415 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2416 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2417 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
2419 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2421 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2422 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
2425 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2427 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2428 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
2430 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2432 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
2433 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2434 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2437 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2439 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
2440 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
2441 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2444 =item Format not terminated
2446 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2447 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2449 =item Format %s redefined
2451 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
2454 no warnings 'redefine';
2455 eval "format NAME =...";
2458 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2468 (or something like that).
2470 =item %s found where operator expected
2472 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2473 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
2474 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2475 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
2477 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2479 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2481 =item gethostent not implemented
2483 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2484 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2487 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
2489 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2490 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2492 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2494 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2495 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2497 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2499 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2500 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2501 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2503 =item given is experimental
2505 (S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2506 is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2507 in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2508 L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
2510 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2513 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
2514 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
2515 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2516 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
2518 =item glob failed (%s)
2520 (S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
2521 for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2522 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
2523 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
2524 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2525 is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2526 in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2527 if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2528 all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
2529 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
2530 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
2532 =item Glob not terminated
2534 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2535 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2536 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2537 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2539 =item gmtime(%f) failed
2541 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2542 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2544 =item gmtime(%f) too large
2546 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
2547 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
2548 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2549 not-a-number value).
2551 =item gmtime(%f) too small
2553 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
2554 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
2556 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2558 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2559 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2561 =item goto must have label
2563 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2564 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2566 =item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2568 (F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2569 the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2570 has since been undefined.
2572 =item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
2573 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2575 (F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2576 they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2577 this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2579 =item ()-group starts with a count
2581 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2582 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2584 =item %s had compilation errors.
2586 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2588 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2590 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2591 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2592 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2594 =item %s has too many errors
2596 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2597 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2599 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2601 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
2602 than the floating point supports.
2604 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2606 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
2607 than the floating point supports. With the IEEE 754 floating point,
2608 this may also mean that the subnormals (formerly known as denormals)
2609 are being used, which may or may not be an error.
2611 =item Hexadecimal float: internal error (%s)
2613 (F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2615 =item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2617 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2618 the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2619 the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2621 =item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2623 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2624 digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2625 long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2626 (needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2628 =item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2630 (F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
2631 the internals of the long double format are unknown;
2632 therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2634 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2636 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2637 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2638 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2640 =item Identifier too long
2642 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2643 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2644 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2645 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2647 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2648 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2650 (W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
2651 zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character
2652 class its behavior is not well defined. Check that the correct
2653 escape has been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2655 =item Illegal binary digit '%c'
2657 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2659 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
2661 (W digit) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a
2662 binary number. Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the
2665 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2667 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2668 declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2669 indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2670 or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
2672 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2674 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as
2675 it would any other whitespace, which means you should never see
2676 this error when Perl was built using standard options. For some
2677 reason, your version of Perl appears to have been built without
2678 this support. Talk to your Perl administrator.
2680 =item Illegal character following sigil in a subroutine signature
2682 (F) A parameter in a subroutine signature contained an unexpected character
2683 following the C<$>, C<@> or C<%> sigil character. Normally the sigil
2684 should be followed by the variable name or C<=> etc. Perhaps you are
2685 trying use a prototype while in the scope of C<use feature 'signatures'>?
2688 sub foo ($$) {} # legal - a prototype
2690 use feature 'signatures;
2691 sub foo ($$) {} # illegal - was expecting a signature
2693 :prototype($$) {} # legal
2696 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2698 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2699 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2700 Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2701 that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2702 instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2704 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2706 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2707 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2709 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2711 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2713 =item Illegal division by zero
2715 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2716 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2719 =item Illegal hexadecimal digit %s ignored
2721 (W digit) You may have tried to use a character other than 0 - 9 or
2722 A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number. Interpretation of the hexadecimal
2723 number stopped before the illegal character.
2725 =item Illegal modulus zero
2727 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2728 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2730 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2732 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2733 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2735 =item Illegal octal digit '%c'
2737 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2739 =item Illegal octal digit %s ignored
2741 (W digit) You may have tried to use an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2742 Interpretation of the octal number stopped before the 8 or 9.
2744 =item Illegal operator following parameter in a subroutine signature
2746 (F) A parameter in a subroutine signature, was followed by something
2747 other than C<=> introducing a default, C<,> or C<)>.
2749 use feature 'signatures';
2750 sub foo ($=1) {} # legal
2751 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
2752 sub foo ($a += 1) {} # illegal
2753 sub foo ($a == 1) {} # illegal
2755 =item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2757 (F) You wrote something like
2761 The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2762 capturing group. See
2763 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2765 =item Illegal suidscript
2767 (F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2769 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2771 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2772 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2774 =item Illegal user-defined property name
2776 (F) You specified a Unicode-like property name in a regular expression
2777 pattern (using C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>) that Perl knows isn't an official
2778 Unicode property, and was likely meant to be a user-defined property
2779 name, but it can't be one of those, as they must begin with either C<In>
2780 or C<Is>. Check the spelling. See also
2781 L</Can't find Unicode property definition "%s">.
2783 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2785 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2786 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2787 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2789 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2791 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2792 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2793 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2796 =item (in cleanup) %s
2798 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2799 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2800 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2801 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2802 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2804 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2805 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2807 =item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2810 (F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
2811 expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2812 too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2813 enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2815 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2818 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2819 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2820 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2822 =item Indentation on line %d of here-doc doesn't match delimiter
2824 (F) You have an indented here-document where one or more of its lines
2825 have whitespace at the beginning that does not match the closing
2828 For example, line 2 below is wrong because it does not have at least
2829 2 spaces, but lines 1 and 3 are fine because they have at least 2:
2839 Note that tabs and spaces are compared strictly, meaning 1 tab will
2842 =item Infinite recursion in regex
2844 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2845 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2846 either consume text or fail.
2848 =item Infinite recursion via empty pattern
2850 (F) You tried to use the empty pattern inside of a regex code block,
2851 for instance C</(?{ s!!! })/>, which resulted in re-executing
2852 the same pattern, which is an infinite loop which is broken by
2853 throwing an exception.
2855 =item Initialization of state variables in list currently forbidden
2857 (F) C<state> only permits initializing a single variable, specified
2858 without parentheses. So C<state $a = 42> and C<state @a = qw(a b c)> are
2859 allowed, but not C<state ($a) = 42> or C<(state $a) = 42>. To initialize
2860 more than one C<state> variable, initialize them one at a time.
2862 =item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2864 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2865 (indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2866 it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2867 is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2868 returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2869 a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2870 expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2871 returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2873 =item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2875 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2876 (indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2877 better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2878 is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2879 it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2880 provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2881 if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2882 it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2884 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2886 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2887 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2888 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2889 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2890 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2891 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2892 L<perlsec> for more information.
2894 =item Insecure directory in %s
2896 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2897 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2898 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2901 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2903 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2904 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2905 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2906 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2907 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2909 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2911 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2912 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2913 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2914 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2916 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2918 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2919 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2920 integers for your architecture.
2922 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2924 (S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2925 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2926 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2927 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2928 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2929 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2930 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2931 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2934 =item Integer overflow in srand
2936 (S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2937 in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2938 replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2939 architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2940 you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2941 return the same sequence of random numbers.
2943 =item Integer overflow in version
2945 =item Integer overflow in version %d
2947 (W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2948 the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2949 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
2950 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2951 to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
2953 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2955 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2956 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2959 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2961 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2962 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2963 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2964 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2965 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2966 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2968 =item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2970 (S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2971 formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2972 C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2973 by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2974 message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2977 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2979 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2980 S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2983 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2985 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2986 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2987 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2988 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2990 =item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2991 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2993 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2994 expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2995 intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2998 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
3000 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
3001 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
3003 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
3005 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
3006 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
3008 =item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
3011 (F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
3012 the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
3013 the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3015 =item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
3017 (W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
3018 arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
3019 formerly ignored by system calls.
3021 =item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
3023 (F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
3024 indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3026 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
3028 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
3029 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
3031 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
3032 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3034 (W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
3035 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
3036 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
3037 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
3038 instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
3039 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
3040 escape was discovered.
3042 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
3044 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
3045 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3047 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
3048 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
3049 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
3051 =item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
3053 (F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
3054 cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
3055 arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
3056 B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
3058 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
3060 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
3061 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
3062 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
3063 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
3065 =item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
3067 (W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
3068 not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
3071 =item Invalid number '%s' for -C option.
3073 (F) You supplied a number to the -C option that either has extra leading
3074 zeroes or overflows perl's unsigned integer representation.
3076 =item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
3078 (S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
3079 with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
3080 See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
3082 =item Invalid quantifier in {,} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3084 (F) The pattern looks like a {min,max} quantifier, but the min or max
3085 could not be parsed as a valid number - either it has leading zeroes,
3086 or it represents too big a number to cope with. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3087 where in the regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3089 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3091 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
3092 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
3093 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
3094 up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
3095 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3097 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
3099 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
3100 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
3102 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
3104 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
3105 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
3106 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
3109 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
3111 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
3112 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
3113 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
3114 list was terminated too soon.
3116 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
3118 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
3119 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3120 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
3121 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
3122 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
3123 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
3125 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
3127 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
3128 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3130 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
3133 =item Invalid version format (%s)
3135 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
3136 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3137 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
3138 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
3139 must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
3140 optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
3141 trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
3142 after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
3143 text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
3144 for more details on allowed version formats.
3146 =item Invalid version object
3148 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
3149 Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
3150 an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
3152 =item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
3153 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3155 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in
3156 this context in a regular expression pattern should be an
3157 indivisible token, with nothing intervening between the C<"(">
3158 and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
3160 =item ioctl is not implemented
3162 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
3163 strange for a machine that supports C.
3165 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
3167 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
3168 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
3170 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
3172 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
3173 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
3176 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
3178 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
3179 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
3181 =item '%s' is an unknown bound type in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3183 (F) You used C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}> and the C<...> is not known to
3184 Perl. The current valid ones are given in
3185 L<perlrebackslash/\b{}, \b, \B{}, \B>.
3187 =item %s() is deprecated on :utf8 handles. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30
3189 (D deprecated) The sysread(), recv(), syswrite() and send() operators are
3190 deprecated on handles that have the C<:utf8> layer, either explicitly, or
3191 implicitly, eg., with the C<:encoding(UTF-16LE)> layer.
3193 Both sysread() and recv() currently use only the C<:utf8> flag for the stream,
3194 ignoring the actual layers. Since sysread() and recv() do no UTF-8
3195 validation they can end up creating invalidly encoded scalars.
3197 Similarly, syswrite() and send() use only the C<:utf8> flag, otherwise ignoring
3198 any layers. If the flag is set, both write the value UTF-8 encoded, even if
3199 the layer is some different encoding, such as the example above.
3201 Ideally, all of these operators would completely ignore the C<:utf8> state,
3202 working only with bytes, but this would result in silently breaking existing
3205 In Perl 5.30, it will no longer be possible to use sysread(), recv(),
3206 syswrite() or send() to read or send bytes from/to :utf8 handles.
3208 =item "%s" is more clearly written simply as "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3210 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
3212 You specified a character that has the given plainer way of writing it, and
3213 which is also portable to platforms running with different character sets.
3215 =item $* is no longer supported. Its use will be fatal in Perl 5.30
3217 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older
3218 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. In
3219 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
3220 matching within a string.
3222 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
3223 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
3224 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
3225 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
3227 Use of this variable will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
3229 =item $# is no longer supported. Its use will be fatal in Perl 5.30
3231 (D deprecated, syntax) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older
3232 perls, has been removed as of 5.10.0 and is no longer supported. You
3233 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
3235 Use of this variable will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
3237 =item '%s' is not a code reference
3239 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
3240 overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
3241 an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
3243 =item '%s' is not an overloadable type
3245 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
3248 =item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
3250 (S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
3251 that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
3252 given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
3253 make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
3254 it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
3255 should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
3256 line. See L<perlrun> for more details.
3258 =item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
3260 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
3262 =item Label not found for "last %s"
3264 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
3265 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3268 =item Label not found for "next %s"
3270 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
3271 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3274 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
3276 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
3277 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3280 =item leaving effective %s failed
3282 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
3283 effective uids or gids failed.
3285 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
3287 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
3288 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
3289 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3291 =item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
3293 (W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
3294 probably wanted a count of the items.
3296 Array size can be obtained by doing:
3300 The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
3304 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
3306 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
3307 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
3308 couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
3309 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
3310 it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
3312 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
3314 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
3317 =item listen() on closed socket %s
3319 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
3320 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3323 =item List form of piped open not implemented
3325 (F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
3326 form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
3327 Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
3329 =item %s: loadable library and perl binaries are mismatched (got handshake key %p, needed %p)
3331 (P) A dynamic loading library C<.so> or C<.dll> was being loaded into the
3332 process that was built against a different build of perl than the
3333 said library was compiled against. Reinstalling the XS module will
3334 likely fix this error.
3336 =item Locale '%s' may not work well.%s
3338 (W locale) You are using the named locale, which is a non-UTF-8 one, and
3339 which perl has determined is not fully compatible with what it can
3340 handle. The second C<%s> gives a reason.
3342 By far the most common reason is that the locale has characters in it
3343 that are represented by more than one byte. The only such locales that
3344 Perl can handle are the UTF-8 locales. Most likely the specified locale
3345 is a non-UTF-8 one for an East Asian language such as Chinese or
3346 Japanese. If the locale is a superset of ASCII, the ASCII portion of it
3349 Some essentially obsolete locales that aren't supersets of ASCII, mainly
3350 those in ISO 646 or other 7-bit locales, such as ASMO 449, can also have
3351 problems, depending on what portions of the ASCII character set get
3352 changed by the locale and are also used by the program.
3353 The warning message lists the determinable conflicting characters.
3355 Note that not all incompatibilities are found.
3357 If this happens to you, there's not much you can do except switch to use a
3358 different locale or use L<Encode> to translate from the locale into
3359 UTF-8; if that's impracticable, you have been warned that some things
3362 This message is output once each time a bad locale is switched into
3363 within the scope of C<S<use locale>>, or on the first possibly-affected
3364 operation if the C<S<use locale>> inherits a bad one. It is not raised
3365 for any operations from the L<POSIX> module.
3367 =item localtime(%f) failed
3369 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
3370 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
3372 =item localtime(%f) too large
3374 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
3375 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3376 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
3377 not-a-number value).
3379 =item localtime(%f) too small
3381 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
3382 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3385 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
3387 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
3388 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
3390 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
3392 (W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
3393 is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
3394 accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
3395 warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
3396 when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
3397 insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
3399 =item lstat() on filehandle%s
3401 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
3402 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
3403 instead on the filehandle.)
3405 =item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
3407 (W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
3408 attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
3409 does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
3410 want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
3411 details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
3412 if you really know what you are doing.
3414 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
3416 (W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
3417 subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
3418 not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
3419 add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
3420 foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
3422 See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
3424 =item Magical list constants are not supported
3426 (F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
3427 to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
3428 something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
3430 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
3432 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
3433 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3435 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
3437 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
3438 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3440 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3442 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3449 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
3450 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
3451 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3452 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
3454 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
3456 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
3457 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
3458 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
3459 when the function is called.
3460 Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
3461 but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
3462 so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
3464 =item Malformed UTF-8 character%s
3466 (S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that should be UTF-8, but didn't
3467 comply with UTF-8 encoding rules, or represents a code point whose
3468 ordinal integer value doesn't fit into the word size of the current
3469 platform (overflows). Details as to the exact malformation are given in
3470 the variable, C<%s>, part of the message.
3472 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
3473 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit
3474 data). To guard against this, you can use C<Encode::decode('UTF-8', ...)>.
3476 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
3477 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is set
3478 without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error message.
3480 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
3482 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
3484 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
3486 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in "%s"
3488 (F) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl core or in XS
3489 code. Such code was trying to find out if a character, allegedly
3490 stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such as
3491 being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded
3492 in legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used
3493 by knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked
3496 Passing malformed strings was deprecated in Perl 5.18, and
3497 became fatal in Perl 5.26.
3499 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
3501 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3502 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3504 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
3506 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3507 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3509 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
3511 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3512 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3514 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
3516 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
3517 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
3519 =item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
3521 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
3522 $b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
3523 Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
3524 caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
3525 as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
3526 optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
3528 =item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
3531 (S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
3532 Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
3533 in an unsigned integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
3534 other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3535 containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3536 the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3537 C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3538 so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3539 in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3540 unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3541 given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3542 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3544 This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3545 immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3546 not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3547 the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3548 Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3549 every code point except these 22.)
3551 Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3552 should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3553 that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3554 category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3557 See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3559 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3562 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
3563 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
3564 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3567 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
3569 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
3570 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3571 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3572 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
3573 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
3575 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3577 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3578 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3581 =item '%' may not be used in pack
3583 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
3584 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3585 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3587 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3589 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3590 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3592 =item Method %s not permitted
3594 See L</500 Server error>.
3596 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3598 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3599 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3600 ended earlier on the current line.
3602 =item Misplaced _ in number
3604 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3605 separate two digits.
3607 =item Missing argument for %n in %s
3609 (F) A C<%n> was used in a format string with no corresponding argument for
3610 perl to write the current string length to.
3612 =item Missing argument in %s
3614 (W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3615 arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3617 Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3618 arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3619 other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3620 functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
3622 =item Missing argument to -%c
3624 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3625 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3627 =item Missing braces on \N{}
3629 =item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3631 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
3632 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3633 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3634 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3637 =item Missing braces on \o{}
3639 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3641 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3643 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3644 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3646 =item Missing command in piped open
3648 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3649 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3652 =item Missing control char name in \c
3654 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3657 =item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3659 (W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
3661 =item Missing name in "%s sub"
3663 (F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
3664 they have a name with which they can be found.
3666 =item Missing $ on loop variable
3668 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3669 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3670 can vary from one line to the next.
3672 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
3674 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3675 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
3677 =item Missing or undefined argument to %s
3679 (F) You tried to call require or do with no argument or with an undefined
3680 value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
3681 file-specification as an argument; do expects a filename. See
3682 L<perlfunc/require EXPR> and L<perlfunc/do EXPR>.
3684 =item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3686 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3688 =item Missing right brace on \N{}
3690 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
3692 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3694 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3695 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
3696 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
3697 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3698 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3700 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3701 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3702 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3704 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3705 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3706 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3707 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
3708 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3709 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3711 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3712 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3713 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3714 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
3716 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
3718 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3719 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3722 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3724 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3725 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
3726 the previous line just because you saw this message.
3728 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3730 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
3731 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
3732 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3734 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3737 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3739 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3740 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3743 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3744 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3747 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
3749 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3750 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3753 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
3755 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3756 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
3758 =item Module name must be constant
3760 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3762 =item Module name required with -%c option
3764 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3765 you omitted the name of the module. Consult L<perlrun> for full details
3766 about C<-M> and C<-m>.
3768 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
3770 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
3771 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3772 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3773 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3775 =item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3777 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3778 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3779 could not be made read-only.
3781 =item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3783 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3784 but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3786 =item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3788 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3789 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3790 buffer could not be made mutable.
3792 =item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3794 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
3795 L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3796 mutable before freeing the ops.
3798 =item msg%s not implemented
3800 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3802 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3804 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3805 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
3807 =item Multiple slurpy parameters not allowed
3809 (F) In subroutine signatures, a slurpy parameter (C<@> or C<%>) must be
3810 the last parameter, and there must not be more than one of them; for
3813 sub foo ($a, @b) {} # legal
3814 sub foo ($a, @b, %) {} # invalid
3816 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
3818 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3819 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3820 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3822 =item %s must not be a named sequence in transliteration operator
3824 (F) Transliteration (C<tr///> and C<y///>) transliterates individual
3825 characters. But a named sequence by definition is more than an
3826 individual charater, and hence doing this operation on it doesn't make
3829 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
3831 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3834 =item "my" subroutine %s can't be in a package
3836 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3837 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
3839 =item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3841 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3842 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3843 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3844 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3845 name, or rename the lexical variable.
3847 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
3849 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3850 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3851 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
3853 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3855 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3856 names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3857 just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
3858 declaration is also provided for this purpose.
3860 NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3861 only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3862 warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3863 %c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
3864 format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3865 but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3866 Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3867 identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
3869 =item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3871 (F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3872 exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3873 constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3875 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3876 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3877 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3879 The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
3880 need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3881 two separate things, you need to separate them:
3883 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3884 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3885 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3886 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3888 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
3890 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3891 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3893 =item Negative length
3895 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3896 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
3898 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3900 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3901 greater than or equal to zero.
3903 =item Negative repeat count does nothing
3905 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
3906 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3907 times, which doesn't make sense.
3909 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3911 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3912 So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3913 whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3915 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
3916 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
3918 =item %s never introduced
3920 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3921 scope before it could possibly have been used.
3923 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3925 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3926 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3929 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
3930 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3932 (F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
3933 bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
3934 class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
3935 probably not what you want.
3937 =item \N{} in inverted character class or as a range end-point is restricted to one character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3939 (F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
3940 multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
3941 supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
3942 whole thing correctly, except when the class is inverted (C<[^...]>),
3943 or the escape is the beginning or final end point of a range. The
3944 mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
3945 is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
3946 forbid it. Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
3947 C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
3949 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
3951 What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
3952 of code points, so this is made an error.
3954 =item \N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer in regex; marked by
3955 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3957 (F) When compiling a regex pattern, an unresolved named character or
3958 sequence was encountered. This can happen in any of several ways that
3959 bypass the lexer, such as using single-quotish context, or an extra
3960 backslash in double-quotish:
3962 $re = '\N{SPACE}'; # Wrong!
3963 $re = "\\N{SPACE}"; # Wrong!
3966 Instead, use double-quotes with a single backslash:
3968 $re = "\N{SPACE}"; # ok
3971 The lexer can be bypassed as well by creating the pattern from smaller
3975 /${re}{SPACE}/; # Wrong!
3977 It's not a good idea to split a construct in the middle like this, and
3978 it doesn't work here. Instead use the solution above.
3980 Finally, the message also can happen under the C</x> regex modifier when the
3981 C<\N> is separated by spaces from the C<{>, in which case, remove the spaces.
3983 /\N {SPACE}/x; # Wrong!
3986 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
3988 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
3989 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
3990 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
3991 securable. See L<perlsec>.
3993 =item No code specified for -%c
3995 (F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
3996 you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
3997 argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
4003 =item No comma allowed after %s
4005 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
4006 not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
4007 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
4009 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
4010 a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
4011 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
4012 system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
4013 use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
4014 please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
4015 explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
4016 it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
4017 still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
4018 the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
4019 constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
4021 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
4023 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4024 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
4025 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
4027 =item No DB::DB routine defined
4029 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
4030 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
4031 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
4034 =item No dbm on this machine
4036 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
4037 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
4039 =item No DB::sub routine defined
4041 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
4042 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
4043 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
4044 of each ordinary subroutine call.
4046 =item No directory specified for -I
4048 (F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
4049 I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
4051 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
4053 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4054 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
4055 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
4057 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
4059 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
4060 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4062 =item No input file after < on command line
4064 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4065 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
4066 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
4068 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
4070 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
4071 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
4072 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
4073 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
4075 =item Non-finite repeat count does nothing
4077 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
4078 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator C<Inf> (or
4079 C<-Inf>) or C<NaN> times, which doesn't make sense.
4081 =item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4083 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
4084 a hex one was expected, like
4089 =item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4091 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
4092 an octal one was expected, like
4096 =item Non-octal character '%c'. Resolved as "%s"
4098 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
4099 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
4102 =item "no" not allowed in expression
4104 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4105 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4107 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
4109 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
4110 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
4111 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4113 =item No output file after > on command line
4115 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4116 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
4117 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
4119 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
4121 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4122 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
4123 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
4125 =item No package name allowed for subroutine %s in "our"
4127 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
4129 (F) Fully qualified subroutine and variable names are not allowed in "our"
4130 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing rules.
4131 Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
4133 =item No Perl script found in input
4135 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
4136 with #! and containing the word "perl".
4138 =item No setregid available
4140 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
4143 =item No setreuid available
4145 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
4148 =item No such class %s
4150 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
4151 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
4153 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
4155 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
4156 variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
4157 The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
4160 =item No such hook: %s
4162 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
4163 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
4165 =item No such pipe open
4167 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
4168 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
4169 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
4171 =item No such signal: SIG%s
4173 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
4174 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
4175 names on your system.
4177 =item Not a CODE reference
4179 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4180 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
4181 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4184 =item Not a GLOB reference
4186 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
4187 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
4188 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
4189 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
4191 =item Not a HASH reference
4193 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
4194 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
4195 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
4197 =item '#' not allowed immediately following a sigil in a subroutine signature
4199 (F) In a subroutine signature definition, a comment following a sigil
4200 (C<$>, C<@> or C<%>), needs to be separated by whitespace or a commma etc., in
4201 particular to avoid confusion with the C<$#> variable. For example:
4204 sub f ($# ignore first arg
4207 sub f ($, # ignore first arg
4210 =item Not an ARRAY reference
4212 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
4213 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4214 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
4216 =item Not a SCALAR reference
4218 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
4219 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4220 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
4222 =item Not a subroutine reference
4224 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4225 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
4226 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4229 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
4231 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
4232 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
4234 =item Not enough arguments for %s
4236 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
4238 =item Not enough format arguments
4240 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
4241 supplied. See L<perlform>.
4245 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4246 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4249 =item (?[...]) not valid in locale in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4251 (F) C<(?[...])> cannot be used within the scope of a C<S<use locale>> or with
4252 an C</l> regular expression modifier, as that would require deferring
4253 to run-time the calculation of what it should evaluate to, and it is
4254 regex compile-time only.
4256 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
4258 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
4259 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
4260 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
4261 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
4262 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
4264 =item NULL OP IN RUN
4266 (S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
4269 =item Null picture in formline
4271 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
4272 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
4273 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
4277 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
4279 =item NULL regexp argument
4281 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
4283 =item NULL regexp parameter
4285 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
4287 =item Number too long
4289 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
4290 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
4291 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
4292 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
4295 =item Number with no digits
4297 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
4298 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
4301 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
4303 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
4304 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
4305 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
4307 =item Odd name/value argument for subroutine '%s'
4309 (F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
4310 received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
4311 the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
4312 The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
4314 The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
4315 subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
4316 regardless of what name the caller used.
4318 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
4320 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
4321 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
4323 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
4325 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4326 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4328 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
4330 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4331 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4333 =item Offset outside string
4335 (F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
4336 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
4337 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
4338 take place when going past the end of the string when either
4339 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
4340 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behavior
4343 =item Old package separator used in string
4345 (W syntax) You used the old package separator, "'", in a variable
4346 named inside a double-quoted string; e.g., C<"In $name's house">. This
4347 is equivalent to C<"In $name::s house">. If you meant the former, put
4348 a backslash before the apostrophe (C<"In $name\'s house">).
4350 =item %s() on unopened %s
4352 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
4353 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
4354 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
4356 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
4358 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
4359 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
4363 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
4367 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
4369 =item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4372 (F) You wrote something like
4374 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
4376 There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
4379 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
4381 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
4382 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
4383 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
4384 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
4386 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
4388 (S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode rules
4389 on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
4390 defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
4392 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4393 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4395 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
4396 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
4398 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
4400 (S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
4401 rules on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
4402 of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
4403 rules are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
4404 they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
4405 surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
4407 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4408 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4410 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
4411 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
4413 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
4415 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
4416 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
4417 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
4418 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
4421 =item Optional parameter lacks default expression
4423 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
4424 named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
4425 parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
4426 have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
4428 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
4430 (W shadow) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
4431 in the current lexical scope.
4433 =item Out of memory!
4435 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
4436 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
4437 no option but to exit immediately.
4439 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
4440 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
4441 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
4442 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
4443 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
4445 =item Out of memory during %s extend
4447 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
4448 the largest possible memory allocation.
4450 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
4452 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
4453 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
4454 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
4455 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
4457 =item Out of memory during request for %s
4459 (X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
4460 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
4463 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
4464 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
4465 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
4466 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
4467 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
4468 where the failed request happened.
4470 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
4472 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
4473 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
4474 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
4476 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
4478 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
4479 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
4482 =item '.' outside of string in pack
4484 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
4485 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
4487 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
4489 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
4490 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4492 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
4494 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
4495 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
4496 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4498 =item overload arg '%s' is invalid
4500 (W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
4501 recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
4503 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
4505 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
4506 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
4509 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
4511 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
4512 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
4514 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
4516 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
4517 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
4518 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
4519 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
4521 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
4523 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
4524 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4528 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
4529 page. See L<perlform>.
4533 (P) An internal error.
4535 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
4537 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
4538 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
4539 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
4540 enter this branch on this platform.
4542 =item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
4544 (P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
4545 was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
4546 able to initialize properly.
4548 =item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
4550 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
4552 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
4554 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
4555 there are in the savestack.
4557 =item panic: del_backref
4559 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4562 =item panic: do_subst
4564 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4567 =item panic: do_trans_%s
4569 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
4572 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4574 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
4577 =item panic: frexp: %f
4579 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4581 =item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
4583 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4584 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4586 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4588 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
4589 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4590 Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4591 the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
4593 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
4595 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4597 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
4599 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4601 =item panic: kid popen errno read
4603 (F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
4605 =item panic: last, type=%u
4607 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4608 it wasn't a block context.
4610 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4612 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4615 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
4617 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4618 invalid enum on the top of it.
4620 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4622 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4623 references to an object.
4625 =item panic: malloc, %s
4627 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4629 =item panic: memory wrap
4631 (P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4634 =item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
4636 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4637 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4639 =item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
4641 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4642 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4644 =item panic: pad_free po
4646 (P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. An attempt was
4647 made to free a target that had not been allocated to begin with.
4649 =item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
4651 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4652 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4654 =item panic: pad_sv po
4656 (P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. Most likely
4657 an operator needed a target but that target had not been allocated
4658 for whatever reason.
4660 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
4662 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4663 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4665 =item panic: pad_swipe po
4667 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4669 =item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
4671 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4673 =item panic: pp_match%s
4675 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4678 =item panic: realloc, %s
4680 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4682 =item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4684 (P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4685 reference count other than 1.
4687 =item panic: restartop in %s
4689 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4690 didn't supply the destination.
4692 =item panic: return, type=%u
4694 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4695 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4697 =item panic: scan_num, %s
4699 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4701 =item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
4703 (P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
4704 blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4705 seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4707 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4709 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4710 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4711 is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4713 =item panic: sv_chop %s
4715 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4716 scalar's string buffer.
4718 =item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
4720 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4723 =item panic: top_env
4725 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something weird like that.
4727 =item panic: unimplemented op %s (#%d) called
4729 (P) The compiler is screwed up and attempted to use an op that isn't
4730 permitted at run time.
4732 =item panic: unknown OA_*: %x
4734 (P) The internal routine that handles arguments to C<&CORE::foo()>
4735 subroutine calls was unable to determine what type of arguments
4738 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8: odd bytelen
4740 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8 with an odd (as opposed
4741 to even) byte length.
4743 =item panic: utf16_to_utf8_reversed: odd bytelen
4745 (P) Something tried to call utf16_to_utf8_reversed with an odd (as opposed
4746 to even) byte length.
4748 =item panic: yylex, %s
4750 (P) The lexer got into a bad state while processing a case modifier.
4752 =item Parentheses missing around "%s" list
4754 (W parenthesis) You said something like
4760 my ($foo, $bar) = @_;
4762 Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma.
4764 =item Parsing code internal error (%s)
4766 (F) Parsing code supplied by an extension violated the parser's API in
4769 =item Pattern subroutine nesting without pos change exceeded limit in regex
4771 (F) You used a pattern that uses too many nested subpattern calls without
4772 consuming any text. Restructure the pattern so text is consumed before
4773 the nesting limit is exceeded.
4775 =item C<-p> destination: %s
4777 (F) An error occurred during the implicit output invoked by the C<-p>
4778 command-line switch. (This output goes to STDOUT unless you've
4779 redirected it with select().)
4781 =item Perl API version %s of %s does not match %s
4783 (F) The XS module in question was compiled against a different incompatible
4784 version of Perl than the one that has loaded the XS module.
4786 =item Perl folding rules are not up-to-date for 0x%X; please use the perlbug
4787 utility to report; in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4789 (S regexp) You used a regular expression with case-insensitive matching,
4790 and there is a bug in Perl in which the built-in regular expression
4791 folding rules are not accurate. This may lead to incorrect results.
4792 Please report this as a bug using the L<perlbug> utility.
4794 =item PerlIO layer ':win32' is experimental
4796 (S experimental::win32_perlio) The C<:win32> PerlIO layer is
4797 experimental. If you want to take the risk of using this layer,
4798 simply disable this warning:
4800 no warnings "experimental::win32_perlio";