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 $[ is no longer possible
267 (F) When the "array_base" feature is disabled
268 (e.g., and under C<use v5.16;>, and as of Perl 5.30)
269 the special variable C<$[>, which is deprecated, is now a fixed zero value.
271 =item Assignment to both a list and a scalar
273 (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
274 must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't
275 know which context to supply to the right side.
277 =item Assuming NOT a POSIX class since %s in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
279 (W regexp) You had something like these:
284 They look like they might have been meant to be the POSIX classes
285 C<[:alnum:]> or C<[:digit:]>. If so, they should be written:
290 Since these aren't legal POSIX class specifications, but are legal
291 bracketed character classes, Perl treats them as the latter. In the
292 first example, it matches the characters C<":">, C<"[">, C<"a">, C<"l">,
293 C<"m">, C<"n">, and C<"u">.
295 If these weren't meant to be POSIX classes, this warning message is
296 spurious, and can be suppressed by reordering things, such as
304 =item <> at require-statement should be quotes
306 (F) You wrote C<< require <file> >> when you should have written
309 =item Attempt to access disallowed key '%s' in a restricted hash
311 (F) The failing code has attempted to get or set a key which is not in
312 the current set of allowed keys of a restricted hash.
314 =item Attempt to bless into a freed package
316 (F) You wrote C<bless $foo> with one argument after somehow causing
317 the current package to be freed. Perl cannot figure out what to
318 do, so it throws up its hands in despair.
320 =item Attempt to bless into a reference
322 (F) The CLASSNAME argument to the bless() operator is expected to be
323 the name of the package to bless the resulting object into. You've
324 supplied instead a reference to something: perhaps you wrote
330 bless $self, ref($proto) || $proto;
332 If you actually want to bless into the stringified version
333 of the reference supplied, you need to stringify it yourself, for
336 bless $self, "$proto";
338 =item Attempt to clear deleted array
340 (S debugging) An array was assigned to when it was being freed.
341 Freed values are not supposed to be visible to Perl code. This
342 can also happen if XS code calls C<av_clear> from a custom magic
343 callback on the array.
345 =item Attempt to delete disallowed key '%s' from a restricted hash
347 (F) The failing code attempted to delete from a restricted hash a key
348 which is not in its key set.
350 =item Attempt to delete readonly key '%s' from a restricted hash
352 (F) The failing code attempted to delete a key whose value has been
353 declared readonly from a restricted hash.
355 =item Attempt to free non-arena SV: 0x%x
357 (S internal) All SV objects are supposed to be allocated from arenas
358 that will be garbage collected on exit. An SV was discovered to be
359 outside any of those arenas.
361 =item Attempt to free nonexistent shared string '%s'%s
363 (S internal) Perl maintains a reference-counted internal table of
364 strings to optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other
365 strings. This indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count
366 of a string that can no longer be found in the table.
368 =item Attempt to free temp prematurely: SV 0x%x
370 (S debugging) Mortalized values are supposed to be freed by the
371 free_tmps() routine. This indicates that something else is freeing the
372 SV before the free_tmps() routine gets a chance, which means that the
373 free_tmps() routine will be freeing an unreferenced scalar when it does
376 =item Attempt to free unreferenced glob pointers
378 (S internal) The reference counts got screwed up on symbol aliases.
380 =item Attempt to free unreferenced scalar: SV 0x%x
382 (S internal) Perl went to decrement the reference count of a scalar to
383 see if it would go to 0, and discovered that it had already gone to 0
384 earlier, and should have been freed, and in fact, probably was freed.
385 This could indicate that SvREFCNT_dec() was called too many times, or
386 that SvREFCNT_inc() was called too few times, or that the SV was
387 mortalized when it shouldn't have been, or that memory has been
390 =item Attempt to pack pointer to temporary value
392 (W pack) You tried to pass a temporary value (like the result of a
393 function, or a computed expression) to the "p" pack() template. This
394 means the result contains a pointer to a location that could become
395 invalid anytime, even before the end of the current statement. Use
396 literals or global values as arguments to the "p" pack() template to
399 =item Attempt to reload %s aborted.
401 (F) You tried to load a file with C<use> or C<require> that failed to
402 compile once already. Perl will not try to compile this file again
403 unless you delete its entry from %INC. See L<perlfunc/require> and
406 =item Attempt to set length of freed array
408 (W misc) You tried to set the length of an array which has
409 been freed. You can do this by storing a reference to the
410 scalar representing the last index of an array and later
411 assigning through that reference. For example
413 $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
416 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
418 (W substr) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr()
419 used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
420 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
422 =item Attribute prototype(%s) discards earlier prototype attribute in same sub
424 (W misc) A sub was declared as sub foo : prototype(A) : prototype(B) {}, for
425 example. Since each sub can only have one prototype, the earlier
426 declaration(s) are discarded while the last one is applied.
428 =item av_reify called on tied array
430 (S debugging) This indicates that something went wrong and Perl got I<very>
431 confused about C<@_> or C<@DB::args> being tied.
433 =item Bad arg length for %s, is %u, should be %d
435 (F) You passed a buffer of the wrong size to one of msgctl(), semctl()
436 or shmctl(). In C parlance, the correct sizes are, respectively,
437 S<sizeof(struct msqid_ds *)>, S<sizeof(struct semid_ds *)>, and
438 S<sizeof(struct shmid_ds *)>.
440 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
442 (F) You've used the C</e> switch to evaluate the replacement for a
443 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
444 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
446 =item Bad filehandle: %s
448 (F) A symbol was passed to something wanting a filehandle, but the
449 symbol has no filehandle associated with it. Perhaps you didn't do an
450 open(), or did it in another package.
452 =item Bad free() ignored
454 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had never
455 been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
456 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 0.
458 This message can be seen quite often with DB_File on systems with "hard"
459 dynamic linking, like C<AIX> and C<OS/2>. It is a bug of C<Berkeley DB>
460 which is left unnoticed if C<DB> uses I<forgiving> system malloc().
464 (P) One of the internal hash routines was passed a null HV pointer.
466 =item Badly placed ()'s
468 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead
469 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
472 =item Bad name after %s
474 (F) You started to name a symbol by using a package prefix, and then
475 didn't finish the symbol. In particular, you can't interpolate outside
484 $sym = "mypack::$var";
486 =item Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'
488 (F) An extension using the keyword plugin mechanism violated the
491 =item Bad realloc() ignored
493 (S malloc) An internal routine called realloc() on something that
494 had never been malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can
495 be disabled by setting the environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
497 =item Bad symbol for array
499 (P) An internal request asked to add an array entry to something that
500 wasn't a symbol table entry.
502 =item Bad symbol for dirhandle
504 (P) An internal request asked to add a dirhandle entry to something
505 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
507 =item Bad symbol for filehandle
509 (P) An internal request asked to add a filehandle entry to something
510 that wasn't a symbol table entry.
512 =item Bad symbol for hash
514 (P) An internal request asked to add a hash entry to something that
515 wasn't a symbol table entry.
517 =item Bad symbol for scalar
519 (P) An internal request asked to add a scalar entry to something that
520 wasn't a symbol table entry.
522 =item Bareword found in conditional
524 (W bareword) The compiler found a bareword where it expected a
525 conditional, which often indicates that an || or && was parsed as part
526 of the last argument of the previous construct, for example:
530 It may also indicate a misspelled constant that has been interpreted as
533 use constant TYPO => 1;
534 if (TYOP) { print "foo" }
536 The C<strict> pragma is useful in avoiding such errors.
538 =item Bareword in require contains "%s"
540 =item Bareword in require maps to disallowed filename "%s"
542 =item Bareword in require maps to empty filename
544 (F) The bareword form of require has been invoked with a filename which could
545 not have been generated by a valid bareword permitted by the parser. You
546 shouldn't be able to get this error from Perl code, but XS code may throw it
547 if it passes an invalid module name to C<Perl_load_module>.
549 =item Bareword in require must not start with a double-colon: "%s"
551 (F) In C<require Bare::Word>, the bareword is not allowed to start with a
552 double-colon. Write C<require ::Foo::Bar> as C<require Foo::Bar> instead.
554 =item Bareword "%s" not allowed while "strict subs" in use
556 (F) With "strict subs" in use, a bareword is only allowed as a
557 subroutine identifier, in curly brackets or to the left of the "=>"
558 symbol. Perhaps you need to predeclare a subroutine?
560 =item Bareword "%s" refers to nonexistent package
562 (W bareword) You used a qualified bareword of the form C<Foo::>, but the
563 compiler saw no other uses of that namespace before that point. Perhaps
564 you need to predeclare a package?
566 =item BEGIN failed--compilation aborted
568 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a BEGIN
569 subroutine. Compilation stops immediately and the interpreter is
572 =item BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted
574 (F) Perl found a C<BEGIN {}> subroutine (or a C<use> directive, which
575 implies a C<BEGIN {}>) after one or more compilation errors had already
576 occurred. Since the intended environment for the C<BEGIN {}> could not
577 be guaranteed (due to the errors), and since subsequent code likely
578 depends on its correct operation, Perl just gave up.
580 =item \%d better written as $%d
582 (W syntax) Outside of patterns, backreferences live on as variables.
583 The use of backslashes is grandfathered on the right-hand side of a
584 substitution, but stylistically it's better to use the variable form
585 because other Perl programmers will expect it, and it works better if
586 there are more than 9 backreferences.
588 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
590 (W portable) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
591 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
592 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
594 =item bind() on closed socket %s
596 (W closed) You tried to do a bind on a closed socket. Did you forget to
597 check the return value of your socket() call? See L<perlfunc/bind>.
599 =item binmode() on closed filehandle %s
601 (W unopened) You tried binmode() on a filehandle that was never opened.
602 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
604 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
606 (W portable) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
608 =item Bizarre copy of %s
610 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy an internal value that is not
613 =item Bizarre SvTYPE [%d]
615 (P) When starting a new thread or returning values from a thread, Perl
616 encountered an invalid data type.
618 =item Both or neither range ends should be Unicode in regex; marked by
621 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
623 In a bracketed character class in a regular expression pattern, you
624 had a range which has exactly one end of it specified using C<\N{}>, and
625 the other end is specified using a non-portable mechanism. Perl treats
626 the range as a Unicode range, that is, all the characters in it are
627 considered to be the Unicode characters, and which may be different code
628 points on some platforms Perl runs on. For example, C<[\N{U+06}-\x08]>
629 is treated as if you had instead said C<[\N{U+06}-\N{U+08}]>, that is it
630 matches the characters whose code points in Unicode are 6, 7, and 8.
631 But that C<\x08> might indicate that you meant something different, so
632 the warning gets raised.
634 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
636 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to
637 iterate over %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition
638 which was too long, so it was truncated to the string shown.
640 =item Callback called exit
642 (F) A subroutine invoked from an external package via call_sv()
643 exited by calling exit.
645 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
647 (W prototype) You've called a function that has a prototype before the
648 parser saw a definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check
649 that the call conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an
650 early prototype declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the
651 subroutine definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype
652 checking. Alternatively, if you are certain that you're calling the
653 function correctly, you may put an ampersand before the name to avoid
654 the warning. See L<perlsub>.
658 (F) You passed an invalid number (like an infinity or not-a-number) to C<chr>.
660 =item Cannot complete in-place edit of %s: %s
662 (F) Your perl script appears to have changed directory while
663 performing an in-place edit of a file specified by a relative path,
664 and your system doesn't include the directory relative POSIX functions
665 needed to handle that.
667 =item Cannot compress %f in pack
669 (F) You tried compressing an infinity or not-a-number as an unsigned
670 integer with BER, which makes no sense.
672 =item Cannot compress integer in pack
674 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was too large to compress.
675 The BER compressed integer format can only be used with positive
676 integers, and you attempted to compress a very large number (> 1e308).
677 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
679 =item Cannot compress negative numbers in pack
681 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was negative. The BER compressed integer
682 format can only be used with positive integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
684 =item Cannot convert a reference to %s to typeglob
686 (F) You manipulated Perl's symbol table directly, stored a reference
687 in it, then tried to access that symbol via conventional Perl syntax.
688 The access triggers Perl to autovivify that typeglob, but it there is
689 no legal conversion from that type of reference to a typeglob.
691 =item Cannot copy to %s
693 (P) Perl detected an attempt to copy a value to an internal type that cannot
694 be directly assigned to.
696 =item Cannot find encoding "%s"
698 (S io) You tried to apply an encoding that did not exist to a filehandle,
699 either with open() or binmode().
701 =item Cannot open %s as a dirhandle: it is already open as a filehandle
703 (F) You tried to use opendir() to associate a dirhandle to a symbol (glob
704 or scalar) that already holds a filehandle. Since this idiom might render
705 your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
708 =item Cannot open %s as a filehandle: it is already open as a dirhandle
710 (F) You tried to use open() to associate a filehandle to a symbol (glob
711 or scalar) that already holds a dirhandle. Since this idiom might render
712 your code confusing, it was deprecated in Perl 5.10. As of Perl 5.28, it
715 =item Cannot pack %f with '%c'
717 (F) You tried converting an infinity or not-a-number to an integer,
718 which makes no sense.
720 =item Cannot printf %f with '%c'
722 (F) You tried printing an infinity or not-a-number as a character (%c),
723 which makes no sense. Maybe you meant '%s', or just stringifying it?
725 =item Cannot set tied @DB::args
727 (F) C<caller> tried to set C<@DB::args>, but found it tied. Tying C<@DB::args>
728 is not supported. (Before this error was added, it used to crash.)
730 =item Cannot tie unreifiable array
732 (P) You somehow managed to call C<tie> on an array that does not
733 keep a reference count on its arguments and cannot be made to
734 do so. Such arrays are not even supposed to be accessible to
735 Perl code, but are only used internally.
737 =item Cannot yet reorder sv_vcatpvfn() arguments from va_list
739 (F) Some XS code tried to use C<sv_vcatpvfn()> or a related function with a
740 format string that specifies explicit indexes for some of the elements, and
741 using a C-style variable-argument list (a C<va_list>). This is not currently
742 supported. XS authors wanting to do this must instead construct a C array
743 of C<SV*> scalars containing the arguments.
745 =item Can only compress unsigned integers in pack
747 (F) An argument to pack("w",...) was not an integer. The BER compressed
748 integer format can only be used with positive integers, and you attempted
749 to compress something else. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
751 =item Can't bless non-reference value
753 (F) Only hard references may be blessed. This is how Perl "enforces"
754 encapsulation of objects. See L<perlobj>.
756 =item Can't "break" in a loop topicalizer
758 (F) You called C<break>, but you're in a C<foreach> block rather than
759 a C<given> block. You probably meant to use C<next> or C<last>.
761 =item Can't "break" outside a given block
763 (F) You called C<break>, but you're not inside a C<given> block.
765 =item Can't call method "%s" on an undefined value
767 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
768 object reference or package name contains an undefined value. Something
769 like this will reproduce the error:
772 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
773 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
775 =item Can't call method "%s" on unblessed reference
777 (F) A method call must know in what package it's supposed to run. It
778 ordinarily finds this out from the object reference you supply, but you
779 didn't supply an object reference in this case. A reference isn't an
780 object reference until it has been blessed. See L<perlobj>.
782 =item Can't call method "%s" without a package or object reference
784 (F) You used the syntax of a method call, but the slot filled by the
785 object reference or package name contains an expression that returns a
786 defined value which is neither an object reference nor a package name.
787 Something like this will reproduce the error:
790 process $BADREF 1,2,3;
791 $BADREF->process(1,2,3);
793 =item Can't call mro_isa_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
795 (P) Perl got confused as to whether a hash was a plain hash or a
796 symbol table hash when trying to update @ISA caches.
798 =item Can't call mro_method_changed_in() on anonymous symbol table
800 (F) An XS module tried to call C<mro_method_changed_in> on a hash that was
801 not attached to the symbol table.
803 =item Can't chdir to %s
805 (F) You called C<perl -x/foo/bar>, but F</foo/bar> is not a directory
806 that you can chdir to, possibly because it doesn't exist.
808 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s" for nosuid
810 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for
813 =item Can't coerce %s to %s in %s
815 (F) Certain types of SVs, in particular real symbol table entries
816 (typeglobs), can't be forced to stop being what they are. So you can't
826 but then $foo no longer contains a glob.
828 =item Can't "continue" outside a when block
830 (F) You called C<continue>, but you're not inside a C<when>
833 =item Can't create pipe mailbox
835 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The process is suffering from exhausted
836 quotas or other plumbing problems.
838 =item Can't declare %s in "%s"
840 (F) Only scalar, array, and hash variables may be declared as "my", "our" or
841 "state" variables. They must have ordinary identifiers as names.
843 =item Can't "default" outside a topicalizer
845 (F) You have used a C<default> block that is neither inside a
846 C<foreach> loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is
847 issued on exit from the C<default> block, so you won't get the
848 error if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
850 =item Can't determine class of operator %s, assuming BASEOP
852 (S) This warning indicates something wrong in the internals of perl.
853 Perl was trying to find the class (e.g. LISTOP) of a particular OP,
854 and was unable to do so. This is likely to be due to a bug in the perl
855 internals, or due to a bug in XS code which manipulates perl optrees.
857 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s is not a regular file
859 (S inplace) You tried to use the B<-i> switch on a special file, such as
860 a file in /dev, a FIFO or an uneditable directory. The file was ignored.
862 =item Can't do inplace edit on %s: %s
864 (S inplace) The creation of the new file failed for the indicated
867 =item Can't do inplace edit: %s would not be unique
869 (S inplace) Your filesystem does not support filenames longer than 14
870 characters and Perl was unable to create a unique filename during
871 inplace editing with the B<-i> switch. The file was ignored.
873 =item Can't do %s("%s") on non-UTF-8 locale; resolved to "%s".
875 (W locale) You are 1) running under "C<use locale>"; 2) the current
876 locale is not a UTF-8 one; 3) you tried to do the designated case-change
877 operation on the specified Unicode character; and 4) the result of this
878 operation would mix Unicode and locale rules, which likely conflict.
879 Mixing of different rule types is forbidden, so the operation was not
880 done; instead the result is the indicated value, which is the best
881 available that uses entirely Unicode rules. That turns out to almost
882 always be the original character, unchanged.
884 It is generally a bad idea to mix non-UTF-8 locales and Unicode, and
885 this issue is one of the reasons why. This warning is raised when
886 Unicode rules would normally cause the result of this operation to
887 contain a character that is in the range specified by the locale,
888 0..255, and hence is subject to the locale's rules, not Unicode's.
890 If you are using locale purely for its characteristics related to things
891 like its numeric and time formatting (and not C<LC_CTYPE>), consider
892 using a restricted form of the locale pragma (see L<perllocale/The "use
893 locale" pragma>) like "S<C<use locale ':not_characters'>>".
895 Note that failed case-changing operations done as a result of
896 case-insensitive C</i> regular expression matching will show up in this
897 warning as having the C<fc> operation (as that is what the regular
898 expression engine calls behind the scenes.)
900 =item Can't do waitpid with flags
902 (F) This machine doesn't have either waitpid() or wait4(), so only
903 waitpid() without flags is emulated.
905 =item Can't emulate -%s on #! line
907 (F) The #! line specifies a switch that doesn't make sense at this
908 point. For example, it'd be kind of silly to put a B<-x> on the #!
911 =item Can't %s %s-endian %ss on this platform
913 (F) Your platform's byte-order is neither big-endian nor little-endian,
914 or it has a very strange pointer size. Packing and unpacking big- or
915 little-endian floating point values and pointers may not be possible.
916 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
918 =item Can't exec "%s": %s
920 (W exec) A system(), exec(), or piped open call could not execute the
921 named program for the indicated reason. Typical reasons include: the
922 permissions were wrong on the file, the file wasn't found in
923 C<$ENV{PATH}>, the executable in question was compiled for another
924 architecture, or the #! line in a script points to an interpreter that
925 can't be run for similar reasons. (Or maybe your system doesn't support
930 (F) Perl was trying to execute the indicated program for you because
931 that's what the #! line said. If that's not what you wanted, you may
932 need to mention "perl" on the #! line somewhere.
934 =item Can't execute %s
936 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the copies of the script to execute
937 found in the PATH did not have correct permissions.
939 =item Can't find an opnumber for "%s"
941 (F) A string of a form C<CORE::word> was given to prototype(), but there
942 is no builtin with the name C<word>.
944 =item Can't find label %s
946 (F) You said to goto a label that isn't mentioned anywhere that it's
947 possible for us to go to. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
949 =item Can't find %s on PATH
951 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
954 =item Can't find %s on PATH, '.' not in PATH
956 (F) You used the B<-S> switch, but the script to execute could not be
957 found in the PATH, or at least not with the correct permissions. The
958 script exists in the current directory, but PATH prohibits running it.
960 =item Can't find string terminator %s anywhere before EOF
962 (F) Perl strings can stretch over multiple lines. This message means
963 that the closing delimiter was omitted. Because bracketed quotes count
964 nesting levels, the following is missing its final parenthesis:
966 print q(The character '(' starts a side comment.);
968 If you're getting this error from a here-document, you may have
969 included unseen whitespace before or after your closing tag or there
970 may not be a linebreak after it. A good programmer's editor will have
971 a way to help you find these characters (or lack of characters). See
972 L<perlop> for the full details on here-documents.
974 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s"
976 =item Can't find Unicode property definition "%s" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
978 (F) The named property which you specified via C<\p> or C<\P> is not one
979 known to Perl. Perhaps you misspelled the name? See
980 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>
981 for a complete list of available official
982 properties. If it is a
983 L<user-defined property|perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties>
984 it must have been defined by the time the regular expression is
987 If you didn't mean to use a Unicode property, escape the C<\p>, either
988 by C<\\p> (just the C<\p>) or by C<\Q\p> (the rest of the string, or
993 (F) A fatal error occurred while trying to fork while opening a
996 =item Can't fork, trying again in 5 seconds
998 (W pipe) A fork in a piped open failed with EAGAIN and will be retried
1001 =item Can't get filespec - stale stat buffer?
1003 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. This arises because of the difference
1004 between access checks under VMS and under the Unix model Perl assumes.
1005 Under VMS, access checks are done by filename, rather than by bits in
1006 the stat buffer, so that ACLs and other protections can be taken into
1007 account. Unfortunately, Perl assumes that the stat buffer contains all
1008 the necessary information, and passes it, instead of the filespec, to
1009 the access-checking routine. It will try to retrieve the filespec using
1010 the device name and FID present in the stat buffer, but this works only
1011 if you haven't made a subsequent call to the CRTL stat() routine,
1012 because the device name is overwritten with each call. If this warning
1013 appears, the name lookup failed, and the access-checking routine gave up
1014 and returned FALSE, just to be conservative. (Note: The access-checking
1015 routine knows about the Perl C<stat> operator and file tests, so you
1016 shouldn't ever see this warning in response to a Perl command; it arises
1017 only if some internal code takes stat buffers lightly.)
1019 =item Can't get pipe mailbox device name
1021 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. After creating a mailbox to act as a
1022 pipe, Perl can't retrieve its name for later use.
1024 =item Can't get SYSGEN parameter value for MAXBUF
1026 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl asked $GETSYI how big you want your
1027 mailbox buffers to be, and didn't get an answer.
1029 =item Can't "goto" into a binary or list expression
1031 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a binary
1032 or list expression. You can't get there from here. The reason for this
1033 restriction is that the interpreter would get confused as to how many
1034 arguments there are, resulting in stack corruption or crashes. This
1035 error occurs in cases such as these:
1038 print do { F: }; # Can't jump into the arguments to print
1041 $x + do { G: $y }; # How is + supposed to get its first operand?
1043 =item Can't "goto" into a "given" block
1045 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a C<given>
1046 block. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1048 =item Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
1050 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a foreach
1051 loop. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1053 =item Can't "goto" out of a pseudo block
1055 (F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump out of what might look like
1056 a block, except that it isn't a proper block. This usually occurs if
1057 you tried to jump out of a sort() block or subroutine, which is a no-no.
1058 See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1060 =item Can't goto subroutine from an eval-%s
1062 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of an eval
1065 =item Can't goto subroutine from a sort sub (or similar callback)
1067 (F) The "goto subroutine" call can't be used to jump out of the
1068 comparison sub for a sort(), or from a similar callback (such
1069 as the reduce() function in List::Util).
1071 =item Can't goto subroutine outside a subroutine
1073 (F) The deeply magical "goto subroutine" call can only replace one
1074 subroutine call for another. It can't manufacture one out of whole
1075 cloth. In general you should be calling it out of only an AUTOLOAD
1076 routine anyway. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
1078 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
1080 (W signal) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD
1081 signal (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this
1082 signal will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
1083 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value. This
1084 situation typically indicates that the parent program under which Perl
1085 may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
1087 =item Can't kill a non-numeric process ID
1089 (F) Process identifiers must be (signed) integers. It is a fatal error to
1090 attempt to kill() an undefined, empty-string or otherwise non-numeric
1093 =item Can't "last" outside a loop block
1095 (F) A "last" statement was executed to break out of the current block,
1096 except that there's this itty bitty problem called there isn't a current
1097 block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't count as a "loopish"
1098 block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or grep(). You can
1099 usually double the curlies to get the same effect though, because the
1100 inner curlies will be considered a block that loops once. See
1103 =item Can't linearize anonymous symbol table
1105 (F) Perl tried to calculate the method resolution order (MRO) of a
1106 package, but failed because the package stash has no name.
1108 =item Can't load '%s' for module %s
1110 (F) The module you tried to load failed to load a dynamic extension.
1111 This may either mean that you upgraded your version of perl to one
1112 that is incompatible with your old dynamic extensions (which is known
1113 to happen between major versions of perl), or (more likely) that your
1114 dynamic extension was built against an older version of the library
1115 that is installed on your system. You may need to rebuild your old
1118 =item Can't localize lexical variable %s
1120 (F) You used local on a variable name that was previously declared as a
1121 lexical variable using "my" or "state". This is not allowed. If you
1122 want to localize a package variable of the same name, qualify it with
1125 =item Can't localize through a reference
1127 (F) You said something like C<local $$ref>, which Perl can't currently
1128 handle, because when it goes to restore the old value of whatever $ref
1129 pointed to after the scope of the local() is finished, it can't be sure
1130 that $ref will still be a reference.
1132 =item Can't locate %s
1134 (F) You said to C<do> (or C<require>, or C<use>) a file that couldn't be found.
1135 Perl looks for the file in all the locations mentioned in @INC, unless
1136 the file name included the full path to the file. Perhaps you need
1137 to set the PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT environment variable to say where the
1138 extra library is, or maybe the script needs to add the library name
1139 to @INC. Or maybe you just misspelled the name of the file. See
1140 L<perlfunc/require> and L<lib>.
1142 =item Can't locate auto/%s.al in @INC
1144 (F) A function (or method) was called in a package which allows
1145 autoload, but there is no function to autoload. Most probable causes
1146 are a misprint in a function/method name or a failure to C<AutoSplit>
1147 the file, say, by doing C<make install>.
1149 =item Can't locate loadable object for module %s in @INC
1151 (F) The module you loaded is trying to load an external library, like
1152 for example, F<foo.so> or F<bar.dll>, but the L<DynaLoader> module was
1153 unable to locate this library. See L<DynaLoader>.
1155 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s"
1157 (F) You called a method correctly, and it correctly indicated a package
1158 functioning as a class, but that package doesn't define that particular
1159 method, nor does any of its base classes. See L<perlobj>.
1161 =item Can't locate object method "%s" via package "%s" (perhaps you forgot
1164 (F) You called a method on a class that did not exist, and the method
1165 could not be found in UNIVERSAL. This often means that a method
1166 requires a package that has not been loaded.
1168 =item Can't locate package %s for @%s::ISA
1170 (W syntax) The @ISA array contained the name of another package that
1171 doesn't seem to exist.
1173 =item Can't locate PerlIO%s
1175 (F) You tried to use in open() a PerlIO layer that does not exist,
1176 e.g. open(FH, ">:nosuchlayer", "somefile").
1178 =item Can't make list assignment to %ENV on this system
1180 (F) List assignment to %ENV is not supported on some systems, notably
1183 =item Can't make loaded symbols global on this platform while loading %s
1185 (S) A module passed the flag 0x01 to DynaLoader::dl_load_file() to request
1186 that symbols from the stated file are made available globally within the
1187 process, but that functionality is not available on this platform. Whilst
1188 the module likely will still work, this may prevent the perl interpreter
1189 from loading other XS-based extensions which need to link directly to
1190 functions defined in the C or XS code in the stated file.
1192 =item Can't modify %s in %s
1194 (F) You aren't allowed to assign to the item indicated, or otherwise try
1195 to change it, such as with an auto-increment.
1197 =item Can't modify nonexistent substring
1199 (P) The internal routine that does assignment to a substr() was handed
1202 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s
1204 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call of &%s in %s
1206 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
1207 such. See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1209 =item Can't modify reference to %s in %s assignment
1211 (F) Only a limited number of constructs can be used as the argument to a
1212 reference constructor on the left-hand side of an assignment, and what
1213 you used was not one of them. See L<perlref/Assigning to References>.
1215 =item Can't modify reference to localized parenthesized array in list
1218 (F) Assigning to C<\local(@array)> or C<\(local @array)> is not supported, as
1219 it is not clear exactly what it should do. If you meant to make @array
1220 refer to some other array, use C<\@array = \@other_array>. If you want to
1221 make the elements of @array aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1222 right-hand side, use C<\(@array) = @scalar_refs>.
1224 =item Can't modify reference to parenthesized hash in list assignment
1226 (F) Assigning to C<\(%hash)> is not supported. If you meant to make %hash
1227 refer to some other hash, use C<\%hash = \%other_hash>. If you want to
1228 make the elements of %hash into aliases of the scalars referenced on the
1229 right-hand side, use a hash slice: C<\@hash{@keys} = @those_scalar_refs>.
1231 =item Can't msgrcv to read-only var
1233 (F) The target of a msgrcv must be modifiable to be used as a receive
1236 =item Can't "next" outside a loop block
1238 (F) A "next" statement was executed to reiterate the current block, but
1239 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1240 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map() or
1241 grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1242 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that loops
1243 once. See L<perlfunc/next>.
1245 =item Can't open %s: %s
1247 (S inplace) The implicit opening of a file through use of the C<< <> >>
1248 filehandle, either implicitly under the C<-n> or C<-p> command-line
1249 switches, or explicitly, failed for the indicated reason. Usually
1250 this is because you don't have read permission for a file which
1251 you named on the command line.
1253 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-e> switch, but F</dev/null> (or
1254 your operating system's equivalent) could not be opened.
1256 =item Can't open a reference
1258 (W io) You tried to open a scalar reference for reading or writing,
1259 using the 3-arg open() syntax:
1263 but your version of perl is compiled without perlio, and this form of
1264 open is not supported.
1266 =item Can't open bidirectional pipe
1268 (W pipe) You tried to say C<open(CMD, "|cmd|")>, which is not supported.
1269 You can try any of several modules in the Perl library to do this, such
1270 as IPC::Open2. Alternately, direct the pipe's output to a file using
1271 ">", and then read it in under a different file handle.
1273 =item Can't open error file %s as stderr
1275 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1276 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '2>' or '2>>' on
1277 the command line for writing.
1279 =item Can't open input file %s as stdin
1281 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1282 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '<' on the
1283 command line for reading.
1285 =item Can't open output file %s as stdout
1287 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1288 redirection, and couldn't open the file specified after '>' or '>>' on
1289 the command line for writing.
1291 =item Can't open output pipe (name: %s)
1293 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl does its own command line
1294 redirection, and couldn't open the pipe into which to send data destined
1297 =item Can't open perl script "%s": %s
1299 (F) The script you specified can't be opened for the indicated reason.
1301 If you're debugging a script that uses #!, and normally relies on the
1302 shell's $PATH search, the -S option causes perl to do that search, so
1303 you don't have to type the path or C<`which $scriptname`>.
1305 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1307 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1308 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1309 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1310 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not
1313 =item Can't redeclare "%s" in "%s"
1315 (F) A "my", "our" or "state" declaration was found within another declaration,
1316 such as C<my ($x, my($y), $z)> or C<our (my $x)>.
1318 =item Can't "redo" outside a loop block
1320 (F) A "redo" statement was executed to restart the current block, but
1321 there isn't a current block. Note that an "if" or "else" block doesn't
1322 count as a "loopish" block, as doesn't a block given to sort(), map()
1323 or grep(). You can usually double the curlies to get the same effect
1324 though, because the inner curlies will be considered a block that
1325 loops once. See L<perlfunc/redo>.
1327 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1329 (S inplace) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup
1330 file. Perl was unable to remove the original file to replace it with
1331 the modified file. The file was left unmodified.
1333 =item Can't rename in-place work file '%s' to '%s': %s
1335 (F) When closed implicitly, the temporary file for in-place editing
1336 couldn't be renamed to the original filename.
1338 =item Can't rename %s to %s: %s, skipping file
1340 (F) The rename done by the B<-i> switch failed for some reason,
1341 probably because you don't have write permission to the directory.
1343 =item Can't reopen input pipe (name: %s) in binary mode
1345 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl thought stdin was a pipe, and tried
1346 to reopen it to accept binary data. Alas, it failed.
1348 =item Can't represent character for Ox%X on this platform
1350 (F) There is a hard limit to how big a character code point can be due
1351 to the fundamental properties of UTF-8, especially on EBCDIC
1352 platforms. The given code point exceeds that. The only work-around is
1353 to not use such a large code point.
1355 =item Can't reset %ENV on this system
1357 (F) You called C<reset('E')> or similar, which tried to reset
1358 all variables in the current package beginning with "E". In
1359 the main package, that includes %ENV. Resetting %ENV is not
1360 supported on some systems, notably VMS.
1362 =item Can't resolve method "%s" overloading "%s" in package "%s"
1364 (F)(P) Error resolving overloading specified by a method name (as
1365 opposed to a subroutine reference): no such method callable via the
1366 package. If the method name is C<???>, this is an internal error.
1368 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1370 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such as
1371 temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue. This
1374 =item Can't return outside a subroutine
1376 (F) The return statement was executed in mainline code, that is, where
1377 there was no subroutine call to return out of. See L<perlsub>.
1379 =item Can't return %s to lvalue scalar context
1381 (F) You tried to return a complete array or hash from an lvalue
1382 subroutine, but you called the subroutine in a way that made Perl
1383 think you meant to return only one value. You probably meant to
1384 write parentheses around the call to the subroutine, which tell
1385 Perl that the call should be in list context.
1387 =item Can't stat script "%s"
1389 (P) For some reason you can't fstat() the script even though you have it
1390 open already. Bizarre.
1392 =item Can't take log of %g
1394 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the logarithm of a
1395 negative number or zero. There's a Math::Complex package that comes
1396 standard with Perl, though, if you really want to do that for the
1399 =item Can't take sqrt of %g
1401 (F) For ordinary real numbers, you can't take the square root of a
1402 negative number. There's a Math::Complex package that comes standard
1403 with Perl, though, if you really want to do that.
1405 =item Can't undef active subroutine
1407 (F) You can't undefine a routine that's currently running. You can,
1408 however, redefine it while it's running, and you can even undef the
1409 redefined subroutine while the old routine is running. Go figure.
1411 =item Can't unweaken a nonreference
1413 (F) You attempted to unweaken something that was not a reference. Only
1414 references can be unweakened.
1416 =item Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1418 (P) The internal sv_upgrade routine adds "members" to an SV, making it
1419 into a more specialized kind of SV. The top several SV types are so
1420 specialized, however, that they cannot be interconverted. This message
1421 indicates that such a conversion was attempted.
1423 =item Can't use '%c' after -mname
1425 (F) You tried to call perl with the B<-m> switch, but you put something
1426 other than "=" after the module name.
1428 =item Can't use a hash as a reference
1430 (F) You tried to use a hash as a reference, as in
1431 C<< %foo->{"bar"} >> or C<< %$ref->{"hello"} >>. Versions of perl
1432 <= 5.22.0 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't
1433 have. This was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1435 =item Can't use an array as a reference
1437 (F) You tried to use an array as a reference, as in
1438 C<< @foo->[23] >> or C<< @$ref->[99] >>. Versions of perl <= 5.22.0
1439 used to allow this syntax, but shouldn't have. This
1440 was deprecated in perl 5.6.1.
1442 =item Can't use anonymous symbol table for method lookup
1444 (F) The internal routine that does method lookup was handed a symbol
1445 table that doesn't have a name. Symbol tables can become anonymous
1446 for example by undefining stashes: C<undef %Some::Package::>.
1448 =item Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
1450 (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
1451 be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.
1453 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1455 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic
1456 references are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
1458 =item Can't use %! because Errno.pm is not available
1460 (F) The first time the C<%!> hash is used, perl automatically loads the
1461 Errno.pm module. The Errno module is expected to tie the %! hash to
1462 provide symbolic names for C<$!> errno values.
1464 =item Can't use both '<' and '>' after type '%c' in %s
1466 (F) A type cannot be forced to have both big-endian and little-endian
1467 byte-order at the same time, so this combination of modifiers is not
1468 allowed. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1470 =item Can't use 'defined(@array)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1472 (F) defined() is not useful on arrays because it
1473 checks for an undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the
1474 array is empty, just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1476 =item Can't use 'defined(%hash)' (Maybe you should just omit the defined()?)
1478 (F) C<defined()> is not usually right on hashes.
1480 Although C<defined %hash> is false on a plain not-yet-used hash, it
1481 becomes true in several non-obvious circumstances, including iterators,
1482 weak references, stash names, even remaining true after C<undef %hash>.
1483 These things make C<defined %hash> fairly useless in practice, so it now
1484 generates a fatal error.
1486 If a check for non-empty is what you wanted then just put it in boolean
1487 context (see L<perldata/Scalar values>):
1493 If you had C<defined %Foo::Bar::QUUX> to check whether such a package
1494 variable exists then that's never really been reliable, and isn't
1495 a good way to enquire about the features of a package, or whether
1498 =item Can't use %s for loop variable
1500 (P) The parser got confused when trying to parse a C<foreach> loop.
1502 =item Can't use global %s in %s
1504 (F) You tried to declare a magical variable as a lexical variable. This
1505 is not allowed, because the magic can be tied to only one location
1506 (namely the global variable) and it would be incredibly confusing to
1507 have variables in your program that looked like magical variables but
1510 =item Can't use '%c' in a group with different byte-order in %s
1512 (F) You attempted to force a different byte-order on a type
1513 that is already inside a group with a byte-order modifier.
1514 For example you cannot force little-endianness on a type that
1515 is inside a big-endian group.
1517 =item Can't use "my %s" in sort comparison
1519 (F) The global variables $a and $b are reserved for sort comparisons.
1520 You mentioned $a or $b in the same line as the <=> or cmp operator,
1521 and the variable had earlier been declared as a lexical variable.
1522 Either qualify the sort variable with the package name, or rename the
1525 =item Can't use %s ref as %s ref
1527 (F) You've mixed up your reference types. You have to dereference a
1528 reference of the type needed. You can use the ref() function to
1529 test the type of the reference, if need be.
1531 =item Can't use string ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1533 =item Can't use string ("%s"...) as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
1535 (F) You've told Perl to dereference a string, something which
1536 C<use strict> blocks to prevent it happening accidentally. See
1537 L<perlref/"Symbolic references">. This can be triggered by an C<@> or C<$>
1538 in a double-quoted string immediately before interpolating a variable,
1539 for example in C<"user @$twitter_id">, which says to treat the contents
1540 of C<$twitter_id> as an array reference; use a C<\> to have a literal C<@>
1541 symbol followed by the contents of C<$twitter_id>: C<"user \@$twitter_id">.
1543 =item Can't use subscript on %s
1545 (F) The compiler tried to interpret a bracketed expression as a
1546 subscript. But to the left of the brackets was an expression that
1547 didn't look like a hash or array reference, or anything else subscriptable.
1549 =item Can't use \%c to mean $%c in expression
1551 (W syntax) In an ordinary expression, backslash is a unary operator that
1552 creates a reference to its argument. The use of backslash to indicate a
1553 backreference to a matched substring is valid only as part of a regular
1554 expression pattern. Trying to do this in ordinary Perl code produces a
1555 value that prints out looking like SCALAR(0xdecaf). Use the $1 form
1558 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1560 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1561 references can be weakened.
1563 =item Can't "when" outside a topicalizer
1565 (F) You have used a when() block that is neither inside a C<foreach>
1566 loop nor a C<given> block. (Note that this error is issued on exit
1567 from the C<when> block, so you won't get the error if the match fails,
1568 or if you use an explicit C<continue>.)
1570 =item Can't x= to read-only value
1572 (F) You tried to repeat a constant value (often the undefined value)
1573 with an assignment operator, which implies modifying the value itself.
1574 Perhaps you need to copy the value to a temporary, and repeat that.
1576 =item Character following "\c" must be printable ASCII
1578 (F) In C<\cI<X>>, I<X> must be a printable (non-control) ASCII character.
1580 Note that ASCII characters that don't map to control characters are
1581 discouraged, and will generate the warning (when enabled)
1582 L</""\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"">.
1584 =item Character following \%c must be '{' or a single-character Unicode property name in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1586 (F) (In the above the C<%c> is replaced by either C<p> or C<P>.) You
1587 specified something that isn't a legal Unicode property name. Most
1588 Unicode properties are specified by C<\p{...}>. But if the name is a
1589 single character one, the braces may be omitted.
1591 =item Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack
1597 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255; the C<"C"> format is
1598 only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1599 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1603 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1606 =item Character in 'c' format wrapped in pack
1612 where $x is either less than -128 or more than 127; the C<"c"> format
1613 is only for encoding native operating system characters (ASCII, EBCDIC,
1614 and so on) and not for Unicode characters, so Perl behaved as if you meant
1616 pack("c", $x & 255);
1618 If you actually want to pack Unicode codepoints, use the C<"U"> format
1621 =item Character in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1623 (W unpack) You tried something like
1625 unpack("H", "\x{2a1}")
1627 where the format expects to process a byte (a character with a value
1628 below 256), but a higher value was provided instead. Perl uses the
1629 value modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1631 unpack("H", "\x{a1}")
1633 =item Character in 'W' format wrapped in pack
1639 where $x is either less than 0 or more than 255. However, C<U0>-mode
1640 expects all values to fall in the interval [0, 255], so Perl behaved
1643 pack("U0W", $x & 255)
1645 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in pack
1647 (W pack) You tried something like
1649 pack("u", "\x{1f3}b")
1651 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1652 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1653 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1655 pack("u", "\x{f3}b")
1657 =item Character(s) in '%c' format wrapped in unpack
1659 (W unpack) You tried something like
1661 unpack("s", "\x{1f3}b")
1663 where the format expects to process a sequence of bytes (character with a
1664 value below 256), but some of the characters had a higher value. Perl
1665 uses the character values modulus 256 instead, as if you had provided:
1667 unpack("s", "\x{f3}b")
1669 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain a sequence of multiple
1670 spaces; marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
1672 (F) You defined a character name which had multiple space characters
1673 in a row. Change them to single spaces. Usually these names are
1674 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1675 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>. See
1676 L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1678 =item charnames alias definitions may not contain trailing white-space;
1679 marked by S<<-- HERE> in %s
1681 (F) You defined a character name which ended in a space
1682 character. Remove the trailing space(s). Usually these names are
1683 defined in the C<:alias> import argument to C<use charnames>, but they
1684 could be defined by a translator installed into C<$^H{charnames}>.
1685 See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
1687 =item chdir() on unopened filehandle %s
1689 (W unopened) You tried chdir() on a filehandle that was never opened.
1691 =item "\c%c" is more clearly written simply as "%s"
1693 (W syntax) The C<\cI<X>> construct is intended to be a way to specify
1694 non-printable characters. You used it for a printable one, which
1695 is better written as simply itself, perhaps preceded by a backslash
1696 for non-word characters. Doing it the way you did is not portable
1697 between ASCII and EBCDIC platforms.
1699 =item Cloning substitution context is unimplemented
1701 (F) Creating a new thread inside the C<s///> operator is not supported.
1703 =item closedir() attempted on invalid dirhandle %s
1705 (W io) The dirhandle you tried to close is either closed or not really
1706 a dirhandle. Check your control flow.
1708 =item close() on unopened filehandle %s
1710 (W unopened) You tried to close a filehandle that was never opened.
1712 =item Closure prototype called
1714 (F) If a closure has attributes, the subroutine passed to an attribute
1715 handler is the prototype that is cloned when a new closure is created.
1716 This subroutine cannot be called.
1718 =item \C no longer supported in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1720 (F) The \C character class used to allow a match of single byte
1721 within a multi-byte utf-8 character, but was removed in v5.24 as
1722 it broke encapsulation and its implementation was extremely buggy.
1723 If you really need to process the individual bytes, you probably
1724 want to convert your string to one where each underlying byte is
1725 stored as a character, with utf8::encode().
1727 =item Code missing after '/'
1729 (F) You had a (sub-)template that ends with a '/'. There must be
1730 another template code following the slash. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1732 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, and not portable
1734 (S non_unicode portable) You had a code point that has never been in any
1735 standard, so it is likely that languages other than Perl will NOT
1736 understand it. This code point also will not fit in a 32-bit word on
1737 ASCII platforms and therefore is non-portable between systems.
1739 At one time, it was legal in some standards to have code points up to
1740 0x7FFF_FFFF, but not higher, and this code point is higher.
1742 Acceptance of these code points is a Perl extension, and you should
1743 expect that nothing other than Perl can handle them; Perl itself on
1744 EBCDIC platforms before v5.24 does not handle them.
1746 Perl also makes no guarantees that the representation of these code
1747 points won't change at some point in the future, say when machines
1748 become available that have larger than a 64-bit word. At that time,
1749 files containing any of these, written by an older Perl might require
1750 conversion before being readable by a newer Perl.
1752 =item Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, may not be portable
1754 (S non_unicode) You had a code point above the Unicode maximum
1757 Perl allows strings to contain a superset of Unicode code points, but
1758 these may not be accepted by other languages/systems. Further, even if
1759 these languages/systems accept these large code points, they may have
1760 chosen a different representation for them than the UTF-8-like one that
1761 Perl has, which would mean files are not exchangeable between them and
1764 On EBCDIC platforms, code points above 0x3FFF_FFFF have a different
1765 representation in Perl v5.24 than before, so any file containing these
1766 that was written before that version will require conversion before
1767 being readable by a later Perl.
1769 =item %s: Command not found
1771 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> or another shell
1772 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1773 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1777 =item %s: command not found
1779 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<bash> or another shell
1780 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1781 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1785 =item %s: command not found: %s
1787 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<zsh> or another shell
1788 instead of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into
1789 Perl yourself. The #! line at the top of your file could look like
1793 =item Compilation failed in require
1795 (F) Perl could not compile a file specified in a C<require> statement.
1796 Perl uses this generic message when none of the errors that it
1797 encountered were severe enough to halt compilation immediately.
1799 =item Complex regular subexpression recursion limit (%d) exceeded
1801 (W regexp) The regular expression engine uses recursion in complex
1802 situations where back-tracking is required. Recursion depth is limited
1803 to 32766, or perhaps less in architectures where the stack cannot grow
1804 arbitrarily. ("Simple" and "medium" situations are handled without
1805 recursion and are not subject to a limit.) Try shortening the string
1806 under examination; looping in Perl code (e.g. with C<while>) rather than
1807 in the regular expression engine; or rewriting the regular expression so
1808 that it is simpler or backtracks less. (See L<perlfaq2> for information
1809 on I<Mastering Regular Expressions>.)
1811 =item connect() on closed socket %s
1813 (W closed) You tried to do a connect on a closed socket. Did you forget
1814 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
1815 L<perlfunc/connect>.
1817 =item Constant(%s): Call to &{$^H{%s}} did not return a defined value
1819 (F) The subroutine registered to handle constant overloading
1820 (see L<overload>) or a custom charnames handler (see
1821 L<charnames/CUSTOM TRANSLATORS>) returned an undefined value.
1823 =item Constant(%s): $^H{%s} is not defined
1825 (F) The parser found inconsistencies while attempting to define an
1826 overloaded constant. Perhaps you forgot to load the corresponding
1829 =item Constant is not %s reference
1831 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1832 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference.
1833 The message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This
1834 usually indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1835 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1837 =item Constants from lexical variables potentially modified elsewhere are no longer permitted
1839 (F) You wrote something like
1842 $sub = sub () { $var };
1844 but $var is referenced elsewhere and could be modified after the C<sub>
1845 expression is evaluated. Either it is explicitly modified elsewhere
1846 (C<$var = 3>) or it is passed to a subroutine or to an operator like
1847 C<printf> or C<map>, which may or may not modify the variable.
1849 Traditionally, Perl has captured the value of the variable at that
1850 point and turned the subroutine into a constant eligible for inlining.
1851 In those cases where the variable can be modified elsewhere, this
1852 breaks the behavior of closures, in which the subroutine captures
1853 the variable itself, rather than its value, so future changes to the
1854 variable are reflected in the subroutine's return value.
1856 This usage was deprecated, and as of Perl 5.32 is no longer allowed,
1857 making it possible to change the behavior in the future.
1859 If you intended for the subroutine to be eligible for inlining, then
1860 make sure the variable is not referenced elsewhere, possibly by
1864 $sub = sub () { $var2 };
1866 If you do want this subroutine to be a closure that reflects future
1867 changes to the variable that it closes over, add an explicit C<return>:
1870 $sub = sub () { return $var };
1872 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
1874 (W redefine)(S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
1875 been eligible for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions">
1876 for commentary and workarounds.
1878 =item Constant subroutine %s undefined
1880 (W misc) You undefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible
1881 for inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
1884 =item Constant(%s) unknown
1886 (F) The parser found inconsistencies either while attempting
1887 to define an overloaded constant, or when trying to find the
1888 character name specified in the C<\N{...}> escape. Perhaps you
1889 forgot to load the corresponding L<overload> pragma?
1891 =item :const is experimental
1893 (S experimental::const_attr) The "const" attribute is experimental.
1894 If you want to use the feature, disable the warning with C<no warnings
1895 'experimental::const_attr'>, but know that in doing so you are taking
1896 the risk that your code may break in a future Perl version.
1898 =item :const is not permitted on named subroutines
1900 (F) The "const" attribute causes an anonymous subroutine to be run and
1901 its value captured at the time that it is cloned. Named subroutines are
1902 not cloned like this, so the attribute does not make sense on them.
1904 =item Copy method did not return a reference
1906 (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See
1907 L<overload/Copy Constructor>.
1909 =item &CORE::%s cannot be called directly
1911 (F) You tried to call a subroutine in the C<CORE::> namespace
1912 with C<&foo> syntax or through a reference. Some subroutines
1913 in this package cannot yet be called that way, but must be
1914 called as barewords. Something like this will work:
1916 BEGIN { *shove = \&CORE::push; }
1917 shove @array, 1,2,3; # pushes on to @array
1919 =item CORE::%s is not a keyword
1921 (F) The CORE:: namespace is reserved for Perl keywords.
1923 =item Corrupted regexp opcode %d > %d
1925 (P) This is either an error in Perl, or, if you're using
1926 one, your L<custom regular expression engine|perlreapi>. If not the
1927 latter, report the problem to L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
1929 =item corrupted regexp pointers
1931 (P) The regular expression engine got confused by what the regular
1932 expression compiler gave it.
1934 =item corrupted regexp program
1936 (P) The regular expression engine got passed a regexp program without a
1939 =item Corrupt malloc ptr 0x%x at 0x%x
1941 (P) The malloc package that comes with Perl had an internal failure.
1943 =item Count after length/code in unpack
1945 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string, but
1946 you have also specified an explicit size for the string. See
1949 =item Declaring references is experimental
1951 (S experimental::declared_refs) This warning is emitted if you use
1952 a reference constructor on the right-hand side of C<my>, C<state>, C<our>, or
1953 C<local>. Simply suppress the warning if you want to use the feature, but
1954 know that in doing so you are taking the risk of using an experimental
1955 feature which may change or be removed in a future Perl version:
1957 no warnings "experimental::declared_refs";
1958 use feature "declared_refs";
1962 The following are used in lib/diagnostics.t for testing two =items that
1963 share the same description. Changes here need to be propagated to there
1965 =item Deep recursion on anonymous subroutine
1967 =item Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"
1969 (W recursion) This subroutine has called itself (directly or indirectly)
1970 100 times more than it has returned. This probably indicates an
1971 infinite recursion, unless you're writing strange benchmark programs, in
1972 which case it indicates something else.
1974 This threshold can be changed from 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary,
1975 setting the C pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value.
1977 =item (?(DEFINE)....) does not allow branches in regex; marked by
1978 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
1980 (F) You used something like C<(?(DEFINE)...|..)> which is illegal. The
1981 most likely cause of this error is that you left out a parenthesis inside
1982 of the C<....> part.
1984 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
1987 =item %s defines neither package nor VERSION--version check failed
1989 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but in the Module file
1990 there are neither package declarations nor a C<$VERSION>.
1992 =item delete argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or slice
1994 (F) The argument to C<delete> must be either a hash or array element,
2000 or a hash or array slice, such as:
2002 @foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
2003 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2005 or a hash key/value or array index/value slice, such as:
2007 %foo[$bar, $baz, $xyzzy]
2008 %{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
2010 =item Delimiter for here document is too long
2012 (F) In a here document construct like C<<<FOO>, the label C<FOO> is too
2013 long for Perl to handle. You have to be seriously twisted to write code
2014 that triggers this error.
2016 =item Deprecated use of my() in false conditional. This will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30
2018 (D deprecated) You used a declaration similar to C<my $x if 0>. There
2019 has been a long-standing bug in Perl that causes a lexical variable
2020 not to be cleared at scope exit when its declaration includes a false
2021 conditional. Some people have exploited this bug to achieve a kind of
2022 static variable. Since we intend to fix this bug, we don't want people
2023 relying on this behavior. You can achieve a similar static effect by
2024 declaring the variable in a separate block outside the function, eg
2026 sub f { my $x if 0; return $x++ }
2030 { my $x; sub f { return $x++ } }
2032 Beginning with perl 5.10.0, you can also use C<state> variables to have
2033 lexicals that are initialized only once (see L<feature>):
2035 sub f { state $x; return $x++ }
2037 This use of C<my()> in a false conditional has been deprecated since
2038 Perl 5.10, and it will become a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
2040 =item DESTROY created new reference to dead object '%s'
2042 (F) A DESTROY() method created a new reference to the object which is
2043 just being DESTROYed. Perl is confused, and prefers to abort rather
2044 than to create a dangling reference.
2046 =item Did not produce a valid header
2048 See L</500 Server error>.
2050 =item %s did not return a true value
2052 (F) A required (or used) file must return a true value to indicate that
2053 it compiled correctly and ran its initialization code correctly. It's
2054 traditional to end such a file with a "1;", though any true value would
2055 do. See L<perlfunc/require>.
2057 =item (Did you mean &%s instead?)
2059 (W misc) You probably referred to an imported subroutine &FOO as $FOO or
2062 =item (Did you mean "local" instead of "our"?)
2064 (W shadow) Remember that "our" does not localize the declared global
2065 variable. You have declared it again in the same lexical scope, which
2068 =item (Did you mean $ or @ instead of %?)
2070 (W) You probably said %hash{$key} when you meant $hash{$key} or
2071 @hash{@keys}. On the other hand, maybe you just meant %hash and got
2076 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
2077 you called it with no args and C<$@> was empty.
2079 =item Document contains no data
2081 See L</500 Server error>.
2083 =item %s does not define %s::VERSION--version check failed
2085 (F) You said something like "use Module 42" but the Module did not
2086 define a C<$VERSION>.
2088 =item '/' does not take a repeat count
2090 (F) You cannot put a repeat count of any kind right after the '/' code.
2091 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2093 =item do "%s" failed, '.' is no longer in @INC; did you mean do "./%s"?
2095 (D deprecated) Previously C< do "somefile"; > would search the current
2096 directory for the specified file. Since perl v5.26.0, F<.> has been
2097 removed from C<@INC> by default, so this is no longer true. To search the
2098 current directory (and only the current directory) you can write
2099 C< do "./somefile"; >.
2101 =item Don't know how to get file name
2103 (P) C<PerlIO_getname>, a perl internal I/O function specific to VMS, was
2104 somehow called on another platform. This should not happen.
2106 =item Don't know how to handle magic of type \%o
2108 (P) The internal handling of magical variables has been cursed.
2110 =item do_study: out of memory
2112 (P) This should have been caught by safemalloc() instead.
2114 =item (Do you need to predeclare %s?)
2116 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
2117 "%s found where operator expected". It often means a subroutine or module
2118 name is being referenced that hasn't been declared yet. This may be
2119 because of ordering problems in your file, or because of a missing
2120 "sub", "package", "require", or "use" statement. If you're referencing
2121 something that isn't defined yet, you don't actually have to define the
2122 subroutine or package before the current location. You can use an empty
2123 "sub foo;" or "package FOO;" to enter a "forward" declaration.
2125 =item dump() must be written as CORE::dump() as of Perl 5.30
2127 (F) You used the obsolete C<dump()> built-in function. That was deprecated in
2128 Perl 5.8.0. As of Perl 5.30 it must be written in fully qualified format:
2131 See L<perlfunc/dump>.
2133 =item dump is not supported
2135 (F) Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
2137 =item Duplicate free() ignored
2139 (S malloc) An internal routine called free() on something that had
2142 =item Duplicate modifier '%c' after '%c' in %s
2144 (W unpack) You have applied the same modifier more than once after a
2145 type in a pack template. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2147 =item elseif should be elsif
2149 (S syntax) There is no keyword "elseif" in Perl because Larry thinks
2150 it's ugly. Your code will be interpreted as an attempt to call a method
2151 named "elseif" for the class returned by the following block. This is
2152 unlikely to be what you want.
2154 =item Empty \%c in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2158 =item Empty \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2160 (F) You used something like C<\b{}>, C<\B{}>, C<\o{}>, C<\p>, C<\P>, or
2161 C<\x> without specifying anything for it to operate on.
2163 Unfortunately, for backwards compatibility reasons, an empty C<\x> is
2164 legal outside S<C<use re 'strict'>> and expands to a NUL character.
2166 =item Empty (?) without any modifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
2168 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>>)
2169 C<(?)> does nothing, so perhaps this is a typo.
2171 =item ${^ENCODING} is no longer supported
2173 (F) The special variable C<${^ENCODING}>, formerly used to implement
2174 the C<encoding> pragma, is no longer supported as of Perl 5.26.0.
2176 Setting it to anything other than C<undef> is a fatal error as of Perl
2179 =item entering effective %s failed
2181 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
2182 effective uids or gids failed.
2184 =item %ENV is aliased to %s
2186 (F) You're running under taint mode, and the C<%ENV> variable has been
2187 aliased to another hash, so it doesn't reflect anymore the state of the
2188 program's environment. This is potentially insecure.
2190 =item Error converting file specification %s
2192 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Because Perl may have to deal with file
2193 specifications in either VMS or Unix syntax, it converts them to a
2194 single form when it must operate on them directly. Either you've passed
2195 an invalid file specification to Perl, or you've found a case the
2196 conversion routines don't handle. Drat.
2198 =item Eval-group in insecure regular expression
2200 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2201 expression that contains the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion, which
2202 is unsafe. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>, and L<perlsec>.
2204 =item Eval-group not allowed at runtime, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
2206 (F) Perl tried to compile a regular expression containing the
2207 C<(?{ ... })> zero-width assertion at run time, as it would when the
2208 pattern contains interpolated values. Since that is a security risk,
2209 it is not allowed. If you insist, you may still do this by using the
2210 C<re 'eval'> pragma or by explicitly building the pattern from an
2211 interpolated string at run time and using that in an eval(). See
2212 L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
2214 =item Eval-group not allowed, use re 'eval' in regex m/%s/
2216 (F) A regular expression contained the C<(?{ ... })> zero-width
2217 assertion, but that construct is only allowed when the C<use re 'eval'>
2218 pragma is in effect. See L<perlre/(?{ code })>.
2220 =item EVAL without pos change exceeded limit in regex; marked by
2221 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2223 (F) You used a pattern that nested too many EVAL calls without consuming
2224 any text. Restructure the pattern so that text is consumed.
2226 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2229 =item Excessively long <> operator
2231 (F) The contents of a <> operator may not exceed the maximum size of a
2232 Perl identifier. If you're just trying to glob a long list of
2233 filenames, try using the glob() operator, or put the filenames into a
2234 variable and glob that.
2236 =item exec? I'm not *that* kind of operating system
2238 (F) The C<exec> function is not implemented on some systems, e.g., Symbian
2239 OS. See L<perlport>.
2241 =item %sExecution of %s aborted due to compilation errors.
2243 (F) The final summary message when a Perl compilation fails.
2245 =item exists argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
2247 (F) The argument to C<exists> must be a hash or array element or a
2248 subroutine with an ampersand, such as:
2254 =item exists argument is not a subroutine name
2256 (F) The argument to C<exists> for C<exists &sub> must be a subroutine name,
2257 and not a subroutine call. C<exists &sub()> will generate this error.
2259 =item Exiting eval via %s
2261 (W exiting) You are exiting an eval by unconventional means, such as a
2262 goto, or a loop control statement.
2264 =item Exiting format via %s
2266 (W exiting) You are exiting a format by unconventional means, such as a
2267 goto, or a loop control statement.
2269 =item Exiting pseudo-block via %s
2271 (W exiting) You are exiting a rather special block construct (like a
2272 sort block or subroutine) by unconventional means, such as a goto, or a
2273 loop control statement. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
2275 =item Exiting subroutine via %s
2277 (W exiting) You are exiting a subroutine by unconventional means, such
2278 as a goto, or a loop control statement.
2280 =item Exiting substitution via %s
2282 (W exiting) You are exiting a substitution by unconventional means, such
2283 as a return, a goto, or a loop control statement.
2285 =item Expecting close bracket in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2287 (F) You wrote something like
2291 to denote a capturing group of the form
2292 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>,
2293 but omitted the C<")">.
2295 =item Expecting interpolated extended charclass in regex; marked by <--
2298 (F) It looked like you were attempting to interpolate an
2299 already-compiled extended character class, like so:
2301 my $thai_or_lao = qr/(?[ \p{Thai} + \p{Lao} ])/;
2303 qr/(?[ \p{Digit} & $thai_or_lao ])/;
2305 But the marked code isn't syntactically correct to be such an
2308 =item Experimental aliasing via reference not enabled
2310 (F) To do aliasing via references, you must first enable the feature:
2312 no warnings "experimental::refaliasing";
2313 use feature "refaliasing";
2316 =item Experimental %s on scalar is now forbidden
2318 (F) An experimental feature added in Perl 5.14 allowed C<each>, C<keys>,
2319 C<push>, C<pop>, C<shift>, C<splice>, C<unshift>, and C<values> to be called with a
2320 scalar argument. This experiment is considered unsuccessful, and
2321 has been removed. The C<postderef> feature may meet your needs better.
2323 =item Experimental subroutine signatures not enabled
2325 (F) To use subroutine signatures, you must first enable them:
2327 no warnings "experimental::signatures";
2328 use feature "signatures";
2329 sub foo ($left, $right) { ... }
2331 =item Explicit blessing to '' (assuming package main)
2333 (W misc) You are blessing a reference to a zero length string. This has
2334 the effect of blessing the reference into the package main. This is
2335 usually not what you want. Consider providing a default target package,
2336 e.g. bless($ref, $p || 'MyPackage');
2338 =item %s: Expression syntax
2340 (A) You've accidentally run your script through B<csh> instead of Perl.
2341 Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl yourself.
2343 =item %s failed--call queue aborted
2345 (F) An untrapped exception was raised while executing a UNITCHECK,
2346 CHECK, INIT, or END subroutine. Processing of the remainder of the
2347 queue of such routines has been prematurely ended.
2349 =item Failed to close in-place work file %s: %s
2351 (F) Closing an output file from in-place editing, as with the C<-i>
2352 command-line switch, failed.
2354 =item False [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2356 (W regexp)(F) A character class range must start and end at a literal
2357 character, not another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-"
2358 in your false range is interpreted as a literal "-". In a C<(?[...])>
2359 construct, this is an error, rather than a warning. Consider quoting
2360 the "-", "\-". The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression
2361 the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
2363 =item Fatal VMS error (status=%d) at %s, line %d
2365 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Something untoward happened in a VMS
2366 system service or RTL routine; Perl's exit status should provide more
2367 details. The filename in "at %s" and the line number in "line %d" tell
2368 you which section of the Perl source code is distressed.
2370 =item fcntl is not implemented
2372 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement fcntl(). What is this, a
2373 PDP-11 or something?
2375 =item FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
2377 (F) A tied array claimed to have a negative number of elements, which
2380 =item Field too wide in 'u' format in pack
2382 (W pack) Each line in an uuencoded string starts with a length indicator
2383 which can't encode values above 63. So there is no point in asking for
2384 a line length bigger than that. Perl will behave as if you specified
2385 C<u63> as the format.
2387 =item File::Glob::glob() will disappear in perl 5.30. Use File::Glob::bsd_glob() instead.
2389 (D deprecated) C<< File::Glob >> has a function called C<< glob >>, which
2390 just calls C<< bsd_glob >>. However, its prototype is different from the
2391 prototype of C<< CORE::glob >>, and hence, C<< File::Glob::glob >> should
2394 C<< File::Glob::glob() >> was deprecated in perl 5.8.0. A deprecation
2395 message was issued from perl 5.26.0 onwards, and the function will
2396 disappear in perl 5.30.0.
2398 Code using C<< File::Glob::glob() >> should call
2399 C<< File::Glob::bsd_glob() >> instead.
2401 =item Filehandle %s opened only for input
2403 (W io) You tried to write on a read-only filehandle. If you intended
2404 it to be a read-write filehandle, you needed to open it with "+<" or
2405 "+>" or "+>>" instead of with "<" or nothing. If you intended only to
2406 write the file, use ">" or ">>". See L<perlfunc/open>.
2408 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
2410 (W io) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing, If
2411 you intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it
2412 with "+<" or "+>" or "+>>" instead of with ">". If you intended only to
2413 read from the file, use "<". See L<perlfunc/open>. Another possibility
2414 is that you attempted to open filedescriptor 0 (also known as STDIN) for
2415 output (maybe you closed STDIN earlier?).
2417 =item Filehandle %s reopened as %s only for input
2419 (W io) You opened for reading a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2420 as STDOUT or STDERR. This occurred because you closed STDOUT or STDERR
2423 =item Filehandle STDIN reopened as %s only for output
2425 (W io) You opened for writing a filehandle that got the same filehandle id
2426 as STDIN. This occurred because you closed STDIN previously.
2428 =item Final $ should be \$ or $name
2430 (F) You must now decide whether the final $ in a string was meant to be
2431 a literal dollar sign, or was meant to introduce a variable name that
2432 happens to be missing. So you have to put either the backslash or the
2435 =item flock() on closed filehandle %s
2437 (W closed) The filehandle you're attempting to flock() got itself closed
2438 some time before now. Check your control flow. flock() operates on
2439 filehandles. Are you attempting to call flock() on a dirhandle by the
2442 =item Format not terminated
2444 (F) A format must be terminated by a line with a solitary dot. Perl got
2445 to the end of your file without finding such a line.
2447 =item Format %s redefined
2449 (W redefine) You redefined a format. To suppress this warning, say
2452 no warnings 'redefine';
2453 eval "format NAME =...";
2456 =item Found = in conditional, should be ==
2466 (or something like that).
2468 =item %s found where operator expected
2470 (S syntax) The Perl lexer knows whether to expect a term or an operator.
2471 If it sees what it knows to be a term when it was expecting to see an
2472 operator, it gives you this warning. Usually it indicates that an
2473 operator or delimiter was omitted, such as a semicolon.
2475 =item gdbm store returned %d, errno %d, key "%s"
2477 (S) A warning from the GDBM_File extension that a store failed.
2479 =item gethostent not implemented
2481 (F) Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(), probably
2482 because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname
2485 =item get%sname() on closed socket %s
2487 (W closed) You tried to get a socket or peer socket name on a closed
2488 socket. Did you forget to check the return value of your socket() call?
2490 =item getpwnam returned invalid UIC %#o for user "%s"
2492 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. The call to C<sys$getuai> underlying the
2493 C<getpwnam> operator returned an invalid UIC.
2495 =item getsockopt() on closed socket %s
2497 (W closed) You tried to get a socket option on a closed socket. Did you
2498 forget to check the return value of your socket() call? See
2499 L<perlfunc/getsockopt>.
2501 =item given is experimental
2503 (S experimental::smartmatch) C<given> depends on smartmatch, which
2504 is experimental, so its behavior may change or even be removed
2505 in any future release of perl. See the explanation under
2506 L<perlsyn/Experimental Details on given and when>.
2508 =item Global symbol "%s" requires explicit package name (did you forget to
2511 (F) You've said "use strict" or "use strict vars", which indicates
2512 that all variables must either be lexically scoped (using "my" or "state"),
2513 declared beforehand using "our", or explicitly qualified to say
2514 which package the global variable is in (using "::").
2516 =item glob failed (%s)
2518 (S glob) Something went wrong with the external program(s) used
2519 for C<glob> and C<< <*.c> >>. Usually, this means that you supplied a C<glob>
2520 pattern that caused the external program to fail and exit with a
2521 nonzero status. If the message indicates that the abnormal exit
2522 resulted in a coredump, this may also mean that your csh (C shell)
2523 is broken. If so, you should change all of the csh-related variables
2524 in config.sh: If you have tcsh, make the variables refer to it as
2525 if it were csh (e.g. C<full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'>); otherwise, make them
2526 all empty (except that C<d_csh> should be C<'undef'>) so that Perl will
2527 think csh is missing. In either case, after editing config.sh, run
2528 C<./Configure -S> and rebuild Perl.
2530 =item Glob not terminated
2532 (F) The lexer saw a left angle bracket in a place where it was expecting
2533 a term, so it's looking for the corresponding right angle bracket, and
2534 not finding it. Chances are you left some needed parentheses out
2535 earlier in the line, and you really meant a "less than".
2537 =item gmtime(%f) failed
2539 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that it could not handle:
2540 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
2542 =item gmtime(%f) too large
2544 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was larger than
2545 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong
2546 date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
2547 not-a-number value).
2549 =item gmtime(%f) too small
2551 (W overflow) You called C<gmtime> with a number that was smaller than
2552 it can reliably handle and C<gmtime> probably returned the wrong date.
2554 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
2556 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
2557 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
2559 =item goto must have label
2561 (F) Unlike with "next" or "last", you're not allowed to goto an
2562 unspecified destination. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
2564 =item Goto undefined subroutine%s
2566 (F) You tried to call a subroutine with C<goto &sub> syntax, but
2567 the indicated subroutine hasn't been defined, or if it was, it
2568 has since been undefined.
2570 =item Group name must start with a non-digit word character in regex; marked by
2571 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2573 (F) Group names must follow the rules for perl identifiers, meaning
2574 they must start with a non-digit word character. A common cause of
2575 this error is using (?&0) instead of (?0). See L<perlre>.
2577 =item ()-group starts with a count
2579 (F) A ()-group started with a count. A count is supposed to follow
2580 something: a template character or a ()-group. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
2582 =item %s had compilation errors.
2584 (F) The final summary message when a C<perl -c> fails.
2586 =item Had to create %s unexpectedly
2588 (S internal) A routine asked for a symbol from a symbol table that ought
2589 to have existed already, but for some reason it didn't, and had to be
2590 created on an emergency basis to prevent a core dump.
2592 =item %s has too many errors
2594 (F) The parser has given up trying to parse the program after 10 errors.
2595 Further error messages would likely be uninformative.
2597 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow
2599 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a larger exponent
2600 than the floating point supports.
2602 =item Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow
2604 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has a smaller exponent
2605 than the floating point supports. With the IEEE 754 floating point,
2606 this may also mean that the subnormals (formerly known as denormals)
2607 are being used, which may or may not be an error.
2609 =item Hexadecimal float: internal error (%s)
2611 (F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
2613 =item Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow
2615 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
2616 the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
2617 the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
2619 =item Hexadecimal float: precision loss
2621 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
2622 digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
2623 long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
2624 (needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
2626 =item Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format
2628 (F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
2629 the internals of the long double format are unknown;
2630 therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
2632 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
2634 (W portable) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
2635 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
2636 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
2638 =item Identifier too long
2640 (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables, functions, etc.) to
2641 about 250 characters for simple names, and somewhat more for compound
2642 names (like C<$A::B>). You've exceeded Perl's limits. Future versions
2643 of Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
2645 =item Ignoring zero length \N{} in character class in regex; marked by
2646 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2648 (W regexp) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
2649 zero-length sequence. When such an escape is used in a character
2650 class its behavior is not well defined. Check that the correct
2651 escape has been used, and the correct charname handler is in scope.
2653 =item Illegal %s digit '%c' ignored
2655 (W digit) Here C<%s> is one of "binary", "octal", or "hex".
2656 You may have tried to use a digit other than one that is legal for the
2657 given type, such as only 0 and 1 for binary. For octals, this is raised
2658 only if the illegal character is an '8' or '9'. For hex, 'A' - 'F' and
2659 'a' - 'f' are legal.
2660 Interpretation of the number stopped just before the offending digit or
2663 =item Illegal binary digit '%c'
2665 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
2667 =item Illegal character after '_' in prototype for %s : %s
2669 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype
2670 declaration. The '_' in a prototype must be followed by a ';',
2671 indicating the rest of the parameters are optional, or one of '@'
2672 or '%', since those two will accept 0 or more final parameters.
2674 =item Illegal character \%o (carriage return)
2676 (F) Perl normally treats carriage returns in the program text as
2677 it would any other whitespace, which means you should never see
2678 this error when Perl was built using standard options. For some
2679 reason, your version of Perl appears to have been built without
2680 this support. Talk to your Perl administrator.
2682 =item Illegal character following sigil in a subroutine signature
2684 (F) A parameter in a subroutine signature contained an unexpected character
2685 following the C<$>, C<@> or C<%> sigil character. Normally the sigil
2686 should be followed by the variable name or C<=> etc. Perhaps you are
2687 trying use a prototype while in the scope of C<use feature 'signatures'>?
2690 sub foo ($$) {} # legal - a prototype
2692 use feature 'signatures;
2693 sub foo ($$) {} # illegal - was expecting a signature
2695 :prototype($$) {} # legal
2698 =item Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s
2700 (W illegalproto) An illegal character was found in a prototype declaration.
2701 Legal characters in prototypes are $, @, %, *, ;, [, ], &, \, and +.
2702 Perhaps you were trying to write a subroutine signature but didn't enable
2703 that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>), so your signature was
2704 instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
2706 =item Illegal declaration of anonymous subroutine
2708 (F) When using the C<sub> keyword to construct an anonymous subroutine,
2709 you must always specify a block of code. See L<perlsub>.
2711 =item Illegal declaration of subroutine %s
2713 (F) A subroutine was not declared correctly. See L<perlsub>.
2715 =item Illegal division by zero
2717 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0. Either something was wrong in
2718 your logic, or you need to put a conditional in to guard against
2721 =item Illegal modulus zero
2723 (F) You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most
2724 numbers don't take to this kindly.
2726 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
2728 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
2729 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
2731 =item Illegal octal digit '%c'
2733 (F) You used an 8 or 9 in an octal number.
2735 =item Illegal operator following parameter in a subroutine signature
2737 (F) A parameter in a subroutine signature, was followed by something
2738 other than C<=> introducing a default, C<,> or C<)>.
2740 use feature 'signatures';
2741 sub foo ($=1) {} # legal
2742 sub foo ($a = 1) {} # legal
2743 sub foo ($a += 1) {} # illegal
2744 sub foo ($a == 1) {} # illegal
2746 =item Illegal pattern in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2748 (F) You wrote something like
2752 The C<"+"> is valid only when followed by digits, indicating a
2753 capturing group. See
2754 L<C<(?I<PARNO>)>|perlre/(?PARNO) (?-PARNO) (?+PARNO) (?R) (?0)>.
2756 =item Illegal suidscript
2758 (F) The script run under suidperl was somehow illegal.
2760 =item Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: -%c
2762 (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be used to set the
2763 following switches: B<-[CDIMUdmtw]>.
2765 =item Illegal user-defined property name
2767 (F) You specified a Unicode-like property name in a regular expression
2768 pattern (using C<\p{}> or C<\P{}>) that Perl knows isn't an official
2769 Unicode property, and was likely meant to be a user-defined property
2770 name, but it can't be one of those, as they must begin with either C<In>
2771 or C<Is>. Check the spelling. See also
2772 L</Can't find Unicode property definition "%s">.
2774 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
2776 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's
2777 internal environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=>
2778 delimiter used to separate keys from values. The element is ignored.
2780 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
2782 (W internal) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical
2783 name or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
2784 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the line was
2787 =item (in cleanup) %s
2789 (W misc) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
2790 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by the
2791 system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast number of
2792 times, the warning is issued only once for any number of failures that
2793 would otherwise result in the same message being repeated.
2795 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag could
2796 also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
2798 =item Incomplete expression within '(?[ ])' in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE>
2801 (F) There was a syntax error within the C<(?[ ])>. This can happen if the
2802 expression inside the construct was completely empty, or if there are
2803 too many or few operands for the number of operators. Perl is not smart
2804 enough to give you a more precise indication as to what is wrong.
2806 =item Inconsistent hierarchy during C3 merge of class '%s': merging failed on
2809 (F) The method resolution order (MRO) of the given class is not
2810 C3-consistent, and you have enabled the C3 MRO for this class. See the C3
2811 documentation in L<mro> for more information.
2813 =item Indentation on line %d of here-doc doesn't match delimiter
2815 (F) You have an indented here-document where one or more of its lines
2816 have whitespace at the beginning that does not match the closing
2819 For example, line 2 below is wrong because it does not have at least
2820 2 spaces, but lines 1 and 3 are fine because they have at least 2:
2830 Note that tabs and spaces are compared strictly, meaning 1 tab will
2833 =item Infinite recursion in regex
2835 (F) You used a pattern that references itself without consuming any input
2836 text. You should check the pattern to ensure that recursive patterns
2837 either consume text or fail.
2839 =item Infinite recursion via empty pattern
2841 (F) You tried to use the empty pattern inside of a regex code block,
2842 for instance C</(?{ s!!! })/>, which resulted in re-executing
2843 the same pattern, which is an infinite loop which is broken by
2844 throwing an exception.
2846 =item Initialization of state variables in list currently forbidden
2848 (F) C<state> only permits initializing a single variable, specified
2849 without parentheses. So C<state $a = 42> and C<state @a = qw(a b c)> are
2850 allowed, but not C<state ($a) = 42> or C<(state $a) = 42>. To initialize
2851 more than one C<state> variable, initialize them one at a time.
2853 =item %%s[%s] in scalar context better written as $%s[%s]
2855 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used an array index/value slice
2856 (indicated by %) to select a single element of an array. Generally
2857 it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2858 is that C<$foo[&bar]> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value it
2859 returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<%foo[&bar]> provides
2860 a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things if you're
2861 expecting only one subscript. When called in list context, it also
2862 returns the index (what C<&bar> returns) in addition to the value.
2864 =item %%s{%s} in scalar context better written as $%s{%s}
2866 (W syntax) In scalar context, you've used a hash key/value slice
2867 (indicated by %) to select a single element of a hash. Generally it's
2868 better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $). The difference
2869 is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both in the value
2870 it returns and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> and
2871 provides a list context to its subscript, which can do weird things
2872 if you're expecting only one subscript. When called in list context,
2873 it also returns the key in addition to the value.
2875 =item Insecure dependency in %s
2877 (F) You tried to do something that the tainting mechanism didn't like.
2878 The tainting mechanism is turned on when you're running setuid or
2879 setgid, or when you specify B<-T> to turn it on explicitly. The
2880 tainting mechanism labels all data that's derived directly or indirectly
2881 from the user, who is considered to be unworthy of your trust. If any
2882 such data is used in a "dangerous" operation, you get this error. See
2883 L<perlsec> for more information.
2885 =item Insecure directory in %s
2887 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2888 setgid script if C<$ENV{PATH}> contains a directory that is writable by
2889 the world. Also, the PATH must not contain any relative directory.
2892 =item Insecure $ENV{%s} while running %s
2894 (F) You can't use system(), exec(), or a piped open in a setuid or
2895 setgid script if any of C<$ENV{PATH}>, C<$ENV{IFS}>, C<$ENV{CDPATH}>,
2896 C<$ENV{ENV}>, C<$ENV{BASH_ENV}> or C<$ENV{TERM}> are derived from data
2897 supplied (or potentially supplied) by the user. The script must set
2898 the path to a known value, using trustworthy data. See L<perlsec>.
2900 =item Insecure user-defined property %s
2902 (F) Perl detected tainted data when trying to compile a regular
2903 expression that contains a call to a user-defined character property
2904 function, i.e. C<\p{IsFoo}> or C<\p{InFoo}>.
2905 See L<perlunicode/User-Defined Character Properties> and L<perlsec>.
2907 =item Integer overflow in format string for %s
2909 (F) The indexes and widths specified in the format string of C<printf()>
2910 or C<sprintf()> are too large. The numbers must not overflow the size of
2911 integers for your architecture.
2913 =item Integer overflow in %s number
2915 (S overflow) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified
2916 either as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for
2917 your architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number.
2918 On a 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
2919 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
2920 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
2921 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
2922 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
2925 =item Integer overflow in srand
2927 (S overflow) The number you have passed to srand is too big to fit
2928 in your architecture's integer representation. The number has been
2929 replaced with the largest integer supported (0xFFFFFFFF on 32-bit
2930 architectures). This means you may be getting less randomness than
2931 you expect, because different random seeds above the maximum will
2932 return the same sequence of random numbers.
2934 =item Integer overflow in version
2936 =item Integer overflow in version %d
2938 (W overflow) Some portion of a version initialization is too large for
2939 the size of integers for your architecture. This is not a warning
2940 because there is no rational reason for a version to try and use an
2941 element larger than typically 2**32. This is usually caused by trying
2942 to use some odd mathematical operation as a version, like 100/9.
2944 =item Internal disaster in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2946 (P) Something went badly wrong in the regular expression parser.
2947 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2950 =item Internal inconsistency in tracking vforks
2952 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl keeps track of the number of times
2953 you've called C<fork> and C<exec>, to determine whether the current call
2954 to C<exec> should affect the current script or a subprocess (see
2955 L<perlvms/"exec LIST">). Somehow, this count has become scrambled, so
2956 Perl is making a guess and treating this C<exec> as a request to
2957 terminate the Perl script and execute the specified command.
2959 =item internal %<num>p might conflict with future printf extensions
2961 (S internal) Perl's internal routine that handles C<printf> and C<sprintf>
2962 formatting follows a slightly different set of rules when called from
2963 C or XS code. Specifically, formats consisting of digits followed
2964 by "p" (e.g., "%7p") are reserved for future use. If you see this
2965 message, then an XS module tried to call that routine with one such
2968 =item Internal urp in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2970 (P) Something went badly awry in the regular expression parser. The
2971 S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was
2974 =item %s (...) interpreted as function
2976 (W syntax) You've run afoul of the rule that says that any list operator
2977 followed by parentheses turns into a function, with all the list
2978 operators arguments found inside the parentheses. See
2979 L<perlop/Terms and List Operators (Leftward)>.
2981 =item In '(?...)', the '(' and '?' must be adjacent in regex;
2982 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2984 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(?"> in this context in a regular
2985 expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2986 intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"?">, but you separated them
2989 =item In '(*...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
2990 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
2992 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in this context in a regular
2993 expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
2994 intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
2995 Fix the pattern and retry.
2997 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
2999 (F) The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
3000 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
3002 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
3004 (F) The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not
3005 recognized by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
3007 =item Invalid character in charnames alias definition; marked by
3010 (F) You tried to create a custom alias for a character name, with
3011 the C<:alias> option to C<use charnames> and the specified character in
3012 the indicated name isn't valid. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3014 =item Invalid \0 character in %s for %s: %s\0%s
3016 (W syscalls) Embedded \0 characters in pathnames or other system call
3017 arguments produce a warning as of 5.20. The parts after the \0 were
3018 formerly ignored by system calls.
3020 =item Invalid character in \N{...}; marked by S<<-- HERE> in \N{%s}
3022 (F) Only certain characters are valid for character names. The
3023 indicated one isn't. See L<charnames/CUSTOM ALIASES>.
3025 =item Invalid conversion in %s: "%s"
3027 (W printf) Perl does not understand the given format conversion. See
3028 L<perlfunc/sprintf>.
3030 =item Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regex; marked by
3031 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3033 (W regexp)(F) The numeric escape (for example C<\xHH>) of value < 256
3034 didn't correspond to a single character through the conversion
3035 from the encoding specified by the encoding pragma.
3036 The escape was replaced with REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD)
3037 instead, except within S<C<(?[ ])>>, where it is a fatal error.
3038 The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
3039 escape was discovered.
3041 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}
3043 =item Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...} in regex; marked by
3044 S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3046 (F) The character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal
3047 number. Either it is empty, or you tried to use a character other than
3048 0 - 9 or A - F, a - f in a hexadecimal number.
3050 =item Invalid module name %s with -%c option: contains single ':'
3052 (F) The module argument to perl's B<-m> and B<-M> command-line options
3053 cannot contain single colons in the module name, but only in the
3054 arguments after "=". In other words, B<-MFoo::Bar=:baz> is ok, but
3055 B<-MFoo:Bar=baz> is not.
3057 =item Invalid mro name: '%s'
3059 (F) You tried to C<mro::set_mro("classname", "foo")> or C<use mro 'foo'>,
3060 where C<foo> is not a valid method resolution order (MRO). Currently,
3061 the only valid ones supported are C<dfs> and C<c3>, unless you have loaded
3062 a module that is a MRO plugin. See L<mro> and L<perlmroapi>.
3064 =item Invalid negative number (%s) in chr
3066 (W utf8) You passed a negative number to C<chr>. Negative numbers are
3067 not valid character numbers, so it returns the Unicode replacement
3070 =item Invalid number '%s' for -C option.
3072 (F) You supplied a number to the -C option that either has extra leading
3073 zeroes or overflows perl's unsigned integer representation.
3075 =item invalid option -D%c, use -D'' to see choices
3077 (S debugging) Perl was called with invalid debugger flags. Call perl
3078 with the B<-D> option with no flags to see the list of acceptable values.
3079 See also L<perlrun/-Dletters>.
3081 =item Invalid quantifier in {,} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3083 (F) The pattern looks like a {min,max} quantifier, but the min or max
3084 could not be parsed as a valid number - either it has leading zeroes,
3085 or it represents too big a number to cope with. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3086 where in the regular expression the problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3088 =item Invalid [] range "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3090 (F) The range specified in a character class had a minimum character
3091 greater than the maximum character. One possibility is that you forgot the
3092 C<{}> from your ending C<\x{}> - C<\x> without the curly braces can go only
3093 up to C<ff>. The S<<-- HERE> shows whereabouts in the regular expression the
3094 problem was discovered. See L<perlre>.
3096 =item Invalid range "%s" in transliteration operator
3098 (F) The range specified in the tr/// or y/// operator had a minimum
3099 character greater than the maximum character. See L<perlop>.
3101 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
3103 (F) Something other than a colon or whitespace was seen between the
3104 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute had a
3105 parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated too soon.
3108 =item Invalid separator character %s in PerlIO layer specification %s
3110 (W layer) When pushing layers onto the Perl I/O system, something other
3111 than a colon or whitespace was seen between the elements of a layer list.
3112 If the previous attribute had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that
3113 list was terminated too soon.
3115 =item Invalid strict version format (%s)
3117 (F) A version number did not meet the "strict" criteria for versions.
3118 A "strict" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3119 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
3120 v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three components.
3121 The parenthesized text indicates which criteria were not met.
3122 See the L<version> module for more details on allowed version formats.
3124 =item Invalid type '%s' in %s
3126 (F) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type.
3127 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3129 (W) The given character is not a valid pack or unpack type but used to be
3132 =item Invalid version format (%s)
3134 (F) A version number did not meet the "lax" criteria for versions.
3135 A "lax" version number is a positive decimal number (integer or
3136 decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal
3137 v-string. If the v-string has fewer than three components, it
3138 must have a leading 'v' character. Otherwise, the leading 'v' is
3139 optional. Both decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a
3140 trailing "alpha" component separated by an underscore character
3141 after a fractional or dotted-decimal component. The parenthesized
3142 text indicates which criteria were not met. See the L<version> module
3143 for more details on allowed version formats.
3145 =item Invalid version object
3147 (F) The internal structure of the version object was invalid.
3148 Perhaps the internals were modified directly in some way or
3149 an arbitrary reference was blessed into the "version" class.
3151 =item In '(*VERB...)', the '(' and '*' must be adjacent in regex;
3152 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3154 (F) The two-character sequence C<"(*"> in this context in a regular
3155 expression pattern should be an indivisible token, with nothing
3156 intervening between the C<"("> and the C<"*">, but you separated them.
3158 =item ioctl is not implemented
3160 (F) Your machine apparently doesn't implement ioctl(), which is pretty
3161 strange for a machine that supports C.
3163 =item ioctl() on unopened %s
3165 (W unopened) You tried ioctl() on a filehandle that was never opened.
3166 Check your control flow and number of arguments.
3168 =item IO layers (like '%s') unavailable
3170 (F) Your Perl has not been configured to have PerlIO, and therefore
3171 you cannot use IO layers. To have PerlIO, Perl must be configured
3174 =item IO::Socket::atmark not implemented on this architecture
3176 (F) Your machine doesn't implement the sockatmark() functionality,
3177 neither as a system call nor an ioctl call (SIOCATMARK).
3179 =item '%s' is an unknown bound type in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3181 (F) You used C<\b{...}> or C<\B{...}> and the C<...> is not known to
3182 Perl. The current valid ones are given in
3183 L<perlrebackslash/\b{}, \b, \B{}, \B>.
3185 =item %s is forbidden - matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3188 (F) The pattern you've specified might cause the regular expression to
3189 infinite loop so it is forbidden. The S<<-- HERE>
3190 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3193 =item %s() isn't allowed on :utf8 handles
3195 (F) The sysread(), recv(), syswrite() and send() operators are
3196 not allowed on handles that have the C<:utf8> layer, either explicitly, or
3197 implicitly, eg., with the C<:encoding(UTF-16LE)> layer.
3199 Previously sysread() and recv() currently use only the C<:utf8> flag for the stream,
3200 ignoring the actual layers. Since sysread() and recv() did no UTF-8
3201 validation they can end up creating invalidly encoded scalars.
3203 Similarly, syswrite() and send() used only the C<:utf8> flag, otherwise ignoring
3204 any layers. If the flag is set, both wrote the value UTF-8 encoded, even if
3205 the layer is some different encoding, such as the example above.
3207 Ideally, all of these operators would completely ignore the C<:utf8> state,
3208 working only with bytes, but this would result in silently breaking existing
3211 =item "%s" is more clearly written simply as "%s" in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3213 (W regexp) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
3215 You specified a character that has the given plainer way of writing it, and
3216 which is also portable to platforms running with different character sets.
3218 =item $* is no longer supported as of Perl 5.30
3220 (F) The special variable C<$*>, deprecated in older perls, was removed in
3221 5.10.0, is no longer supported and is a fatal error as of Perl 5.30. In
3222 previous versions of perl the use of C<$*> enabled or disabled multi-line
3223 matching within a string.
3225 Instead of using C<$*> you should use the C</m> (and maybe C</s>) regexp
3226 modifiers. You can enable C</m> for a lexical scope (even a whole file)
3227 with C<use re '/m'>. (In older versions: when C<$*> was set to a true value
3228 then all regular expressions behaved as if they were written using C</m>.)
3230 Use of this variable will be a fatal error in Perl 5.30.
3232 =item $# is no longer supported as of Perl 5.30
3234 (F) The special variable C<$#>, deprecated in older perls, was removed as of
3235 5.10.0, is no longer supported and is a fatal error as of Perl 5.30. You
3236 should use the printf/sprintf functions instead.
3238 =item '%s' is not a code reference
3240 (W overload) The second (fourth, sixth, ...) argument of
3241 overload::constant needs to be a code reference. Either
3242 an anonymous subroutine, or a reference to a subroutine.
3244 =item '%s' is not an overloadable type
3246 (W overload) You tried to overload a constant type the overload package is
3249 =item isa is experimental
3251 (S experimental::isa) This warning is emitted if you use the (C<isa>)
3252 operator. This operator is currently experimental and its behaviour may
3253 change in future releases of Perl.
3255 =item -i used with no filenames on the command line, reading from STDIN
3257 (S inplace) The C<-i> option was passed on the command line, indicating
3258 that the script is intended to edit files in place, but no files were
3259 given. This is usually a mistake, since editing STDIN in place doesn't
3260 make sense, and can be confusing because it can make perl look like
3261 it is hanging when it is really just trying to read from STDIN. You
3262 should either pass a filename to edit, or remove C<-i> from the command
3263 line. See L<perlrun|perlrun/-i[extension]> for more details.
3265 =item Junk on end of regexp in regex m/%s/
3267 (P) The regular expression parser is confused.
3269 =item \K not permitted in lookahead/lookbehind in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
3271 (F) Your regular expression used C<\K> in a lookhead or lookbehind
3272 assertion, which isn't permitted.
3274 =item Label not found for "last %s"
3276 (F) You named a loop to break out of, but you're not currently in a loop
3277 of that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3280 =item Label not found for "next %s"
3282 (F) You named a loop to continue, but you're not currently in a loop of
3283 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3286 =item Label not found for "redo %s"
3288 (F) You named a loop to restart, but you're not currently in a loop of
3289 that name, not even if you count where you were called from. See
3292 =item leaving effective %s failed
3294 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
3295 effective uids or gids failed.
3297 =item length/code after end of string in unpack
3299 (F) While unpacking, the string buffer was already used up when an unpack
3300 length/code combination tried to obtain more data. This results in
3301 an undefined value for the length. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3303 =item length() used on %s (did you mean "scalar(%s)"?)
3305 (W syntax) You used length() on either an array or a hash when you
3306 probably wanted a count of the items.
3308 Array size can be obtained by doing:
3312 The number of items in a hash can be obtained by doing:
3316 =item Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input
3318 (F) An extension is attempting to insert text into the current parse
3319 (using L<lex_stuff_pvn|perlapi/lex_stuff_pvn> or similar), but tried to insert a character that
3320 couldn't be part of the current input. This is an inherent pitfall
3321 of the stuffing mechanism, and one of the reasons to avoid it. Where
3322 it is necessary to stuff, stuffing only plain ASCII is recommended.
3324 =item Lexing code internal error (%s)
3326 (F) Lexing code supplied by an extension violated the lexer's API in a
3329 =item listen() on closed socket %s
3331 (W closed) You tried to do a listen on a closed socket. Did you forget
3332 to check the return value of your socket() call? See
3335 =item List form of piped open not implemented
3337 (F) On some platforms, notably Windows, the three-or-more-arguments
3338 form of C<open> does not support pipes, such as C<open($pipe, '|-', @args)>.
3339 Use the two-argument C<open($pipe, '|prog arg1 arg2...')> form instead.
3341 =item Literal vertical space in [] is illegal except under /x in regex;
3342 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3344 (F) (only under C<S<use re 'strict'>> or within C<(?[...])>)
3346 Likely you forgot the C</x> modifier or there was a typo in the pattern.
3347 For example, did you really mean to match a form-feed? If so, all the
3348 ASCII vertical space control characters are representable by escape
3349 sequences which won't present such a jarring appearance as your pattern
3350 does when displayed.
3357 =item %s: loadable library and perl binaries are mismatched (got handshake key %p, needed %p)
3359 (P) A dynamic loading library C<.so> or C<.dll> was being loaded into the
3360 process that was built against a different build of perl than the
3361 said library was compiled against. Reinstalling the XS module will
3362 likely fix this error.
3364 =item Locale '%s' contains (at least) the following characters which
3365 have unexpected meanings: %s The Perl program will use the expected
3368 (W locale) You are using the named UTF-8 locale. UTF-8 locales are
3369 expected to have very particular behavior, which most do. This message
3370 arises when perl found some departures from the expectations, and is
3371 notifying you that the expected behavior overrides these differences.
3372 In some cases the differences are caused by the locale definition being
3373 defective, but the most common causes of this warning are when there are
3374 ambiguities and conflicts in following the Standard, and the locale has
3375 chosen an approach that differs from Perl's.
3377 One of these is because that, contrary to the claims, Unicode is not
3378 completely locale insensitive. Turkish and some related languages
3379 have two types of C<"I"> characters. One is dotted in both upper- and
3380 lowercase, and the other is dotless in both cases. Unicode allows a
3381 locale to use either the Turkish rules, or the rules used in all other
3382 instances, where there is only one type of C<"I">, which is dotless in
3383 the uppercase, and dotted in the lower. The perl core does not (yet)
3384 handle the Turkish case, and this message warns you of that. Instead,
3385 the L<Unicode::Casing> module allows you to mostly implement the Turkish
3388 The other common cause is for the characters
3392 These are probematic. The C standard says that these should be
3393 considered punctuation in the C locale (and the POSIX standard defers to
3394 the C standard), and Unicode is generally considered a superset of
3395 the C locale. But Unicode has added an extra category, "Symbol", and
3396 classifies these particular characters as being symbols. Most UTF-8
3397 locales have them treated as punctuation, so that L<ispunct(2)> returns
3398 non-zero for them. But a few locales have it return 0. Perl takes
3399 the first approach, not using C<ispunct()> at all (see L<Note [5] in
3400 perlrecharclass|perlrecharclass/[5]>), and this message is raised to notify you that you
3401 are getting Perl's approach, not the locale's.
3403 =item Locale '%s' may not work well.%s
3405 (W locale) You are using the named locale, which is a non-UTF-8 one, and
3406 which perl has determined is not fully compatible with what it can
3407 handle. The second C<%s> gives a reason.
3409 By far the most common reason is that the locale has characters in it
3410 that are represented by more than one byte. The only such locales that
3411 Perl can handle are the UTF-8 locales. Most likely the specified locale
3412 is a non-UTF-8 one for an East Asian language such as Chinese or
3413 Japanese. If the locale is a superset of ASCII, the ASCII portion of it
3416 Some essentially obsolete locales that aren't supersets of ASCII, mainly
3417 those in ISO 646 or other 7-bit locales, such as ASMO 449, can also have
3418 problems, depending on what portions of the ASCII character set get
3419 changed by the locale and are also used by the program.
3420 The warning message lists the determinable conflicting characters.
3422 Note that not all incompatibilities are found.
3424 If this happens to you, there's not much you can do except switch to use a
3425 different locale or use L<Encode> to translate from the locale into
3426 UTF-8; if that's impracticable, you have been warned that some things
3429 This message is output once each time a bad locale is switched into
3430 within the scope of C<S<use locale>>, or on the first possibly-affected
3431 operation if the C<S<use locale>> inherits a bad one. It is not raised
3432 for any operations from the L<POSIX> module.
3434 =item localtime(%f) failed
3436 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that it could not handle:
3437 too large, too small, or NaN. The returned value is C<undef>.
3439 =item localtime(%f) too large
3441 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was larger
3442 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3443 wrong date. This warning is also triggered with NaN (the special
3444 not-a-number value).
3446 =item localtime(%f) too small
3448 (W overflow) You called C<localtime> with a number that was smaller
3449 than it can reliably handle and C<localtime> probably returned the
3452 =item Lookbehind longer than %d not implemented in regex m/%s/
3454 (F) There is currently a limit on the length of string which lookbehind can
3455 handle. This restriction may be eased in a future release.
3457 =item Lost precision when %s %f by 1
3459 (W imprecision) The value you attempted to increment or decrement by one
3460 is too large for the underlying floating point representation to store
3461 accurately, hence the target of C<++> or C<--> is unchanged. Perl issues this
3462 warning because it has already switched from integers to floating point
3463 when values are too large for integers, and now even floating point is
3464 insufficient. You may wish to switch to using L<Math::BigInt> explicitly.
3466 =item lstat() on filehandle%s
3468 (W io) You tried to do an lstat on a filehandle. What did you mean
3469 by that? lstat() makes sense only on filenames. (Perl did a fstat()
3470 instead on the filehandle.)
3472 =item lvalue attribute %s already-defined subroutine
3474 (W misc) Although L<attributes.pm|attributes> allows this, turning the lvalue
3475 attribute on or off on a Perl subroutine that is already defined
3476 does not always work properly. It may or may not do what you
3477 want, depending on what code is inside the subroutine, with exact
3478 details subject to change between Perl versions. Only do this
3479 if you really know what you are doing.
3481 =item lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined
3483 (W misc) Using the C<:lvalue> declarative syntax to make a Perl
3484 subroutine an lvalue subroutine after it has been defined is
3485 not permitted. To make the subroutine an lvalue subroutine,
3486 add the lvalue attribute to the definition, or put the C<sub
3487 foo :lvalue;> declaration before the definition.
3489 See also L<attributes.pm|attributes>.
3491 =item Magical list constants are not supported
3493 (F) You assigned a magical array to a stash element, and then tried
3494 to use the subroutine from the same slot. You are asking Perl to do
3495 something it cannot do, details subject to change between Perl versions.
3497 =item Malformed integer in [] in pack
3499 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
3500 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3502 =item Malformed integer in [] in unpack
3504 (F) Between the brackets enclosing a numeric repeat count only digits
3505 are permitted. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3507 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
3509 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
3516 with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
3517 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may
3518 appear if components are not found, or are too long. See
3519 "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in L<perlos2>.
3521 =item Malformed prototype for %s: %s
3523 (F) You tried to use a function with a malformed prototype. The
3524 syntax of function prototypes is given a brief compile-time check for
3525 obvious errors like invalid characters. A more rigorous check is run
3526 when the function is called.
3527 Perhaps the function's author was trying to write a subroutine signature
3528 but didn't enable that feature first (C<use feature 'signatures'>),
3529 so the signature was instead interpreted as a bad prototype.
3531 =item Malformed UTF-8 character%s
3533 (S utf8)(F) Perl detected a string that should be UTF-8, but didn't
3534 comply with UTF-8 encoding rules, or represents a code point whose
3535 ordinal integer value doesn't fit into the word size of the current
3536 platform (overflows). Details as to the exact malformation are given in
3537 the variable, C<%s>, part of the message.
3539 One possible cause is that you set the UTF8 flag yourself for data that
3540 you thought to be in UTF-8 but it wasn't (it was for example legacy 8-bit
3541 data). To guard against this, you can use C<Encode::decode('UTF-8', ...)>.
3543 If you use the C<:encoding(UTF-8)> PerlIO layer for input, invalid byte
3544 sequences are handled gracefully, but if you use C<:utf8>, the flag is set
3545 without validating the data, possibly resulting in this error message.
3547 See also L<Encode/"Handling Malformed Data">.
3549 =item Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N{%s} immediately after '%s'
3551 (F) The charnames handler returned malformed UTF-8.
3553 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in "%s"
3555 (F) This message indicates a bug either in the Perl core or in XS
3556 code. Such code was trying to find out if a character, allegedly
3557 stored internally encoded as UTF-8, was of a given type, such as
3558 being punctuation or a digit. But the character was not encoded
3559 in legal UTF-8. The C<%s> is replaced by a string that can be used
3560 by knowledgeable people to determine what the type being checked
3563 Passing malformed strings was deprecated in Perl 5.18, and
3564 became fatal in Perl 5.26.
3566 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in '%c' format in unpack
3568 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3569 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3571 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in pack
3573 (F) You tried to pack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3574 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3576 =item Malformed UTF-8 string in unpack
3578 (F) You tried to unpack something that didn't comply with UTF-8 encoding
3579 rules and perl was unable to guess how to make more progress.
3581 =item Malformed UTF-16 surrogate
3583 (F) Perl thought it was reading UTF-16 encoded character data but while
3584 doing it Perl met a malformed Unicode surrogate.
3586 =item Mandatory parameter follows optional parameter
3588 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a = undef,
3589 $b", making an earlier parameter optional and a later one mandatory.
3590 Parameters are filled from left to right, so it's impossible for the
3591 caller to omit an earlier one and pass a later one. If you want to act
3592 as if the parameters are filled from right to left, declare the rightmost
3593 optional and then shuffle the parameters around in the subroutine's body.
3595 =item Matched non-Unicode code point 0x%X against Unicode property; may
3598 (S non_unicode) Perl allows strings to contain a superset of
3599 Unicode code points; each code point may be as large as what is storable
3600 in a signed integer on your system, but these may not be accepted by
3601 other languages/systems. This message occurs when you matched a string
3602 containing such a code point against a regular expression pattern, and
3603 the code point was matched against a Unicode property, C<\p{...}> or
3604 C<\P{...}>. Unicode properties are only defined on Unicode code points,
3605 so the result of this match is undefined by Unicode, but Perl (starting
3606 in v5.20) treats non-Unicode code points as if they were typical
3607 unassigned Unicode ones, and matched this one accordingly. Whether a
3608 given property matches these code points or not is specified in
3609 L<perluniprops/Properties accessible through \p{} and \P{}>.
3611 This message is suppressed (unless it has been made fatal) if it is
3612 immaterial to the results of the match if the code point is Unicode or
3613 not. For example, the property C<\p{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> only can match
3614 the 22 characters C<[0-9A-Fa-f]>, so obviously all other code points,
3615 Unicode or not, won't match it. (And C<\P{ASCII_Hex_Digit}> will match
3616 every code point except these 22.)
3618 Getting this message indicates that the outcome of the match arguably
3619 should have been the opposite of what actually happened. If you think
3620 that is the case, you may wish to make the C<non_unicode> warnings
3621 category fatal; if you agree with Perl's decision, you may wish to turn
3624 See L<perlunicode/Beyond Unicode code points> for more information.
3626 =item %s matches null string many times in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
3629 (W regexp) The pattern you've specified would be an infinite loop if the
3630 regular expression engine didn't specifically check for that. The S<<-- HERE>
3631 shows whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3634 =item Maximal count of pending signals (%u) exceeded
3636 (F) Perl aborted due to too high a number of signals pending. This
3637 usually indicates that your operating system tried to deliver signals
3638 too fast (with a very high priority), starving the perl process from
3639 resources it would need to reach a point where it can process signals
3640 safely. (See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">.)
3642 =item "%s" may clash with future reserved word
3644 (W) This warning may be due to running a perl5 script through a perl4
3645 interpreter, especially if the word that is being warned about is
3648 =item '%' may not be used in pack
3650 (F) You can't pack a string by supplying a checksum, because the
3651 checksumming process loses information, and you can't go the other way.
3652 See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
3654 =item Method for operation %s not found in package %s during blessing
3656 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
3657 doesn't resolve to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
3659 =item Method %s not permitted
3661 See L</500 Server error>.
3663 =item Might be a runaway multi-line %s string starting on line %d
3665 (S) An advisory indicating that the previous error may have been caused
3666 by a missing delimiter on a string or pattern, because it eventually
3667 ended earlier on the current line.
3669 =item Misplaced _ in number
3671 (W syntax) An underscore (underbar) in a numeric constant did not
3672 separate two digits.
3674 =item Missing argument for %n in %s
3676 (F) A C<%n> was used in a format string with no corresponding argument for
3677 perl to write the current string length to.
3679 =item Missing argument in %s
3681 (W missing) You called a function with fewer arguments than other
3682 arguments you supplied indicated would be needed.
3684 Currently only emitted when a printf-type format required more
3685 arguments than were supplied, but might be used in the future for
3686 other cases where we can statically determine that arguments to
3687 functions are missing, e.g. for the L<perlfunc/pack> function.
3689 =item Missing argument to -%c
3691 (F) The argument to the indicated command line switch must follow
3692 immediately after the switch, without intervening spaces.
3694 =item Missing braces on \N{}
3696 =item Missing braces on \N{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3698 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
3699 double-quotish context. This can also happen when there is a space
3700 (or comment) between the C<\N> and the C<{> in a regex with the C</x> modifier.
3701 This modifier does not change the requirement that the brace immediately
3704 =item Missing braces on \o{}
3706 (F) A C<\o> must be followed immediately by a C<{> in double-quotish context.
3708 =item Missing comma after first argument to %s function
3710 (F) While certain functions allow you to specify a filehandle or an
3711 "indirect object" before the argument list, this ain't one of them.
3713 =item Missing command in piped open
3715 (W pipe) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or
3716 C<open(FH, "command |")> construction, but the command was missing or
3719 =item Missing control char name in \c
3721 (F) A double-quoted string ended with "\c", without the required control
3724 =item Missing ']' in prototype for %s : %s
3726 (W illegalproto) A grouping was started with C<[> but never closed with C<]>.
3728 =item Missing name in "%s sub"
3730 (F) The syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that
3731 they have a name with which they can be found.
3733 =item Missing $ on loop variable
3735 (F) Apparently you've been programming in B<csh> too much. Variables
3736 are always mentioned with the $ in Perl, unlike in the shells, where it
3737 can vary from one line to the next.
3739 =item (Missing operator before %s?)
3741 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3742 "%s found where operator expected". Often the missing operator is a comma.
3744 =item Missing or undefined argument to %s
3746 (F) You tried to call require or do with no argument or with an undefined
3747 value as an argument. Require expects either a package name or a
3748 file-specification as an argument; do expects a filename. See
3749 L<perlfunc/require EXPR> and L<perlfunc/do EXPR>.
3751 =item Missing right brace on \%c{} in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3753 (F) Missing right brace in C<\x{...}>, C<\p{...}>, C<\P{...}>, or C<\N{...}>.
3755 =item Missing right brace on \N{}
3757 =item Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after \N
3759 (F) C<\N> has two meanings.
3761 The traditional one has it followed by a name enclosed in braces,
3762 meaning the character (or sequence of characters) given by that
3763 name. Thus C<\N{ASTERISK}> is another way of writing C<*>, valid in both
3764 double-quoted strings and regular expression patterns. In patterns,
3765 it doesn't have the meaning an unescaped C<*> does.
3767 Starting in Perl 5.12.0, C<\N> also can have an additional meaning (only)
3768 in patterns, namely to match a non-newline character. (This is short
3769 for C<[^\n]>, and like C<.> but is not affected by the C</s> regex modifier.)
3771 This can lead to some ambiguities. When C<\N> is not followed immediately
3772 by a left brace, Perl assumes the C<[^\n]> meaning. Also, if the braces
3773 form a valid quantifier such as C<\N{3}> or C<\N{5,}>, Perl assumes that this
3774 means to match the given quantity of non-newlines (in these examples,
3775 3; and 5 or more, respectively). In all other case, where there is a
3776 C<\N{> and a matching C<}>, Perl assumes that a character name is desired.
3778 However, if there is no matching C<}>, Perl doesn't know if it was
3779 mistakenly omitted, or if C<[^\n]{> was desired, and raises this error.
3780 If you meant the former, add the right brace; if you meant the latter,
3781 escape the brace with a backslash, like so: C<\N\{>
3783 =item Missing right curly or square bracket
3785 (F) The lexer counted more opening curly or square brackets than closing
3786 ones. As a general rule, you'll find it's missing near the place you
3789 =item (Missing semicolon on previous line?)
3791 (S syntax) This is an educated guess made in conjunction with the message
3792 "%s found where operator expected". Don't automatically put a semicolon on
3793 the previous line just because you saw this message.
3795 =item Modification of a read-only value attempted
3797 (F) You tried, directly or indirectly, to change the value of a
3798 constant. You didn't, of course, try "2 = 1", because the compiler
3799 catches that. But an easy way to do the same thing is:
3801 sub mod { $_[0] = 1 }
3804 Another way is to assign to a substr() that's off the end of the string.
3806 Yet another way is to assign to a C<foreach> loop I<VAR> when I<VAR>
3807 is aliased to a constant in the look I<LIST>:
3810 foreach my $n ($x, 2) {
3811 $n *= 2; # modifies the $x, but fails on attempt to
3814 =item Modification of non-creatable array value attempted, %s
3816 (F) You tried to make an array value spring into existence, and the
3817 subscript was probably negative, even counting from end of the array
3820 =item Modification of non-creatable hash value attempted, %s
3822 (P) You tried to make a hash value spring into existence, and it
3823 couldn't be created for some peculiar reason.
3825 =item Module name must be constant
3827 (F) Only a bare module name is allowed as the first argument to a "use".
3829 =item Module name required with -%c option
3831 (F) The C<-M> or C<-m> options say that Perl should load some module, but
3832 you omitted the name of the module. Consult
3833 L<perlrun|perlrun/-m[-]module> for full details about C<-M> and C<-m>.
3835 =item More than one argument to '%s' open
3837 (F) The C<open> function has been asked to open multiple files. This
3838 can happen if you are trying to open a pipe to a command that takes a
3839 list of arguments, but have forgotten to specify a piped open mode.
3840 See L<perlfunc/open> for details.
3842 =item mprotect for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3844 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3845 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a shared string buffer
3846 could not be made read-only.
3848 =item mprotect for %p %u failed with %d
3850 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see L<perlhacktips>),
3851 but an op tree could not be made read-only.
3853 =item mprotect RW for COW string %p %u failed with %d
3855 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_COW (see
3856 L<perlguts/"Copy on Write">), but a read-only shared string
3857 buffer could not be made mutable.
3859 =item mprotect RW for %p %u failed with %d
3861 (S) You compiled perl with B<-D>PERL_DEBUG_READONLY_OPS (see
3862 L<perlhacktips>), but a read-only op tree could not be made
3863 mutable before freeing the ops.
3865 =item msg%s not implemented
3867 (F) You don't have System V message IPC on your system.
3869 =item Multidimensional syntax %s not supported
3871 (W syntax) Multidimensional arrays aren't written like C<$foo[1,2,3]>.
3872 They're written like C<$foo[1][2][3]>, as in C.
3874 =item Multiple slurpy parameters not allowed
3876 (F) In subroutine signatures, a slurpy parameter (C<@> or C<%>) must be
3877 the last parameter, and there must not be more than one of them; for
3880 sub foo ($a, @b) {} # legal
3881 sub foo ($a, @b, %) {} # invalid
3883 =item '/' must follow a numeric type in unpack
3885 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '/', but this did not
3886 follow some unpack specification producing a numeric value.
3887 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3889 =item %s must not be a named sequence in transliteration operator
3891 (F) Transliteration (C<tr///> and C<y///>) transliterates individual
3892 characters. But a named sequence by definition is more than an
3893 individual character, and hence doing this operation on it doesn't make
3896 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
3898 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try
3901 =item "my" subroutine %s can't be in a package
3903 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3904 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front.
3906 =item "my %s" used in sort comparison
3908 (W syntax) The package variables $a and $b are used for sort comparisons.
3909 You used $a or $b in as an operand to the C<< <=> >> or C<cmp> operator inside a
3910 sort comparison block, and the variable had earlier been declared as a
3911 lexical variable. Either qualify the sort variable with the package
3912 name, or rename the lexical variable.
3914 =item "my" variable %s can't be in a package
3916 (F) Lexically scoped variables aren't in a package, so it doesn't make
3917 sense to try to declare one with a package qualifier on the front. Use
3918 local() if you want to localize a package variable.
3920 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
3922 (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable
3923 names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then
3924 just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The C<our>
3925 declaration is also provided for this purpose.
3927 NOTE: This warning detects package symbols that have been used
3928 only once. This means lexical variables will never trigger this
3929 warning. It also means that all of the package variables $c, @c,
3930 %c, as well as *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or
3931 format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once
3932 but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.
3933 Symbols beginning with an underscore and symbols using special
3934 identifiers (q.v. L<perldata>) are exempt from this warning.
3936 =item Need exactly 3 octal digits in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3938 (F) Within S<C<(?[ ])>>, all constants interpreted as octal need to be
3939 exactly 3 digits long. This helps catch some ambiguities. If your
3940 constant is too short, add leading zeros, like
3942 (?[ [ \078 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3943 (?[ [ \0078 ] ]) # Works
3944 (?[ [ \007 8 ] ]) # Clearer
3946 The maximum number this construct can express is C<\777>. If you
3947 need a larger one, you need to use L<\o{}|perlrebackslash/Octal escapes> instead. If you meant
3948 two separate things, you need to separate them:
3950 (?[ [ \7776 ] ]) # Syntax error!
3951 (?[ [ \o{7776} ] ]) # One meaning
3952 (?[ [ \777 6 ] ]) # Another meaning
3953 (?[ [ \777 \006 ] ]) # Still another
3955 =item Negative '/' count in unpack
3957 (F) The length count obtained from a length/code unpack operation was
3958 negative. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
3960 =item Negative length
3962 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with a buffer
3963 length that is less than 0. This is difficult to imagine.
3965 =item Negative offset to vec in lvalue context
3967 (F) When C<vec> is called in an lvalue context, the second argument must be
3968 greater than or equal to zero.
3970 =item Negative repeat count does nothing
3972 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
3973 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator fewer than 0
3974 times, which doesn't make sense.
3976 =item Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3978 (F) You can't quantify a quantifier without intervening parentheses.
3979 So things like ** or +* or ?* are illegal. The S<<-- HERE> shows
3980 whereabouts in the regular expression the problem was discovered.
3982 Note that the minimal matching quantifiers, C<*?>, C<+?>, and
3983 C<??> appear to be nested quantifiers, but aren't. See L<perlre>.
3985 =item %s never introduced
3987 (S internal) The symbol in question was declared but somehow went out of
3988 scope before it could possibly have been used.
3990 =item next::method/next::can/maybe::next::method cannot find enclosing method
3992 (F) C<next::method> needs to be called within the context of a
3993 real method in a real package, and it could not find such a context.
3996 =item \N in a character class must be a named character: \N{...} in regex;
3997 marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
3999 (F) The new (as of Perl 5.12) meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a
4000 bracketed character class, for the same reason that C<.> in a character
4001 class loses its specialness: it matches almost everything, which is
4002 probably not what you want.
4004 =item \N{} here is restricted to one character in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
4006 (F) Named Unicode character escapes (C<\N{...}>) may return a
4007 multi-character sequence. Even though a character class is
4008 supposed to match just one character of input, perl will match the
4009 whole thing correctly, except under certain conditions. These currently
4014 =item When the class is inverted (C<[^...]>)
4016 The mathematically logical behavior for what matches when inverting
4017 is very different from what people expect, so we have decided to
4020 =item The escape is the beginning or final end point of a range
4022 Similarly unclear is what should be generated when the
4023 C<\N{...}> is used as one of the end points of the range, such as in
4025 [\x{41}-\N{ARABIC SEQUENCE YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE WITH AE}]
4027 What is meant here is unclear, as the C<\N{...}> escape is a sequence
4028 of code points, so this is made an error.
4030 =item In a regex set
4032 The syntax S<C<(?[ ])>> in a regular expression yields a list of
4033 single code points, none can be a sequence.
4037 =item No %s allowed while running setuid
4039 (F) Certain operations are deemed to be too insecure for a setuid or
4040 setgid script to even be allowed to attempt. Generally speaking there
4041 will be another way to do what you want that is, if not secure, at least
4042 securable. See L<perlsec>.
4044 =item No code specified for -%c
4046 (F) Perl's B<-e> and B<-E> command-line options require an argument. If
4047 you want to run an empty program, pass the empty string as a separate
4048 argument or run a program consisting of a single 0 or 1:
4054 =item No comma allowed after %s
4056 (F) A list operator that has a filehandle or "indirect object" is
4057 not allowed to have a comma between that and the following arguments.
4058 Otherwise it'd be just another one of the arguments.
4060 One possible cause for this is that you expected to have imported
4061 a constant to your name space with B<use> or B<import> while no such
4062 importing took place, it may for example be that your operating
4063 system does not support that particular constant. Hopefully you did
4064 use an explicit import list for the constants you expect to see;
4065 please see L<perlfunc/use> and L<perlfunc/import>. While an
4066 explicit import list would probably have caught this error earlier
4067 it naturally does not remedy the fact that your operating system
4068 still does not support that constant. Maybe you have a typo in
4069 the constants of the symbol import list of B<use> or B<import> or in the
4070 constant name at the line where this error was triggered?
4072 =item No command into which to pipe on command line
4074 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4075 redirection, and found a '|' at the end of the command line, so it
4076 doesn't know where you want to pipe the output from this command.
4078 =item No DB::DB routine defined
4080 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
4081 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
4082 module) didn't define a routine to be called at the beginning of each
4085 =item No dbm on this machine
4087 (P) This is counted as an internal error, because every machine should
4088 supply dbm nowadays, because Perl comes with SDBM. See L<SDBM_File>.
4090 =item No DB::sub routine defined
4092 (F) The currently executing code was compiled with the B<-d> switch, but
4093 for some reason the current debugger (e.g. F<perl5db.pl> or a C<Devel::>
4094 module) didn't define a C<DB::sub> routine to be called at the beginning
4095 of each ordinary subroutine call.
4097 =item No digits found for %s literal
4099 (F) No hexadecimal digits were found following C<0x> or no binary digits
4100 were found following C<0b>.
4102 =item No directory specified for -I
4104 (F) The B<-I> command-line switch requires a directory name as part of the
4105 I<same> argument. Use B<-Ilib>, for instance. B<-I lib> won't work.
4107 =item No error file after 2> or 2>> on command line
4109 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4110 redirection, and found a '2>' or a '2>>' on the command line, but can't
4111 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stderr.
4113 =item No group ending character '%c' found in template
4115 (F) A pack or unpack template has an opening '(' or '[' without its
4116 matching counterpart. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4118 =item No input file after < on command line
4120 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4121 redirection, and found a '<' on the command line, but can't find the
4122 name of the file from which to read data for stdin.
4124 =item No next::method '%s' found for %s
4126 (F) C<next::method> found no further instances of this method name
4127 in the remaining packages of the MRO of this class. If you don't want
4128 it throwing an exception, use C<maybe::next::method>
4129 or C<next::can>. See L<mro>.
4131 =item Non-finite repeat count does nothing
4133 (W numeric) You tried to execute the
4134 L<C<x>|perlop/Multiplicative Operators> repetition operator C<Inf> (or
4135 C<-Inf>) or C<NaN> times, which doesn't make sense.
4137 =item Non-hex character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4139 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-hexadecimal character where
4140 a hex one was expected, like
4145 =item Non-hex character '%c' terminates \x early. Resolved as "%s"
4147 (W digit) In parsing a hexadecimal numeric constant, a character was
4148 unexpectedly encountered that isn't hexadecimal. The resulting value
4151 Note that, within braces, every character starting with the first
4152 non-hexadecimal up to the ending brace is ignored.
4154 =item Non-octal character in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in m/%s/
4156 (F) In a regular expression, there was a non-octal character where
4157 an octal one was expected, like
4161 =item Non-octal character '%c' terminates \o early. Resolved as "%s"
4163 (W digit) In parsing an octal numeric constant, a character was
4164 unexpectedly encountered that isn't octal. The resulting value
4167 When not using C<\o{...}>, you wrote something like C<\08>, or C<\179>
4168 in a double-quotish string. The resolution is as indicated, with all
4169 but the last digit treated as a single character, specified in octal.
4170 The last digit is the next character in the string. To tell Perl that
4171 this is indeed what you want, you can use the C<\o{ }> syntax, or use
4172 exactly three digits to specify the octal for the character.
4174 Note that, within braces, every character starting with the first
4175 non-octal up to the ending brace is ignored.
4177 =item "no" not allowed in expression
4179 (F) The "no" keyword is recognized and executed at compile time, and
4180 returns no useful value. See L<perlmod>.
4182 =item Non-string passed as bitmask
4184 (W misc) A number has been passed as a bitmask argument to select().
4185 Use the vec() function to construct the file descriptor bitmasks for
4186 select. See L<perlfunc/select>.
4188 =item No output file after > on command line
4190 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4191 redirection, and found a lone '>' at the end of the command line, so it
4192 doesn't know where you wanted to redirect stdout.
4194 =item No output file after > or >> on command line
4196 (F) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl handles its own command line
4197 redirection, and found a '>' or a '>>' on the command line, but can't
4198 find the name of the file to which to write data destined for stdout.
4200 =item No package name allowed for subroutine %s in "our"
4202 =item No package name allowed for variable %s in "our"
4204 (F) Fully qualified subroutine and variable names are not allowed in "our"
4205 declarations, because that doesn't make much sense under existing rules.
4206 Such syntax is reserved for future extensions.
4208 =item No Perl script found in input
4210 (F) You called C<perl -x>, but no line was found in the file beginning
4211 with #! and containing the word "perl".
4213 =item No setregid available
4215 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setregid() call for
4218 =item No setreuid available
4220 (F) Configure didn't find anything resembling the setreuid() call for
4223 =item No such class %s
4225 (F) You provided a class qualifier in a "my", "our" or "state"
4226 declaration, but this class doesn't exist at this point in your program.
4228 =item No such class field "%s" in variable %s of type %s
4230 (F) You tried to access a key from a hash through the indicated typed
4231 variable but that key is not allowed by the package of the same type.
4232 The indicated package has restricted the set of allowed keys using the
4235 =item No such hook: %s
4237 (F) You specified a signal hook that was not recognized by Perl.
4238 Currently, Perl accepts C<__DIE__> and C<__WARN__> as valid signal hooks.
4240 =item No such pipe open
4242 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. The internal routine my_pclose() tried to
4243 close a pipe which hadn't been opened. This should have been caught
4244 earlier as an attempt to close an unopened filehandle.
4246 =item No such signal: SIG%s
4248 (W signal) You specified a signal name as a subscript to %SIG that was
4249 not recognized. Say C<kill -l> in your shell to see the valid signal
4250 names on your system.
4252 =item No Unicode property value wildcard matches:
4254 (W regexp) You specified a wildcard for a Unicode property value, but
4255 there is no property value in the current Unicode release that matches
4256 it. Check your spelling.
4258 =item Not a CODE reference
4260 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4261 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
4262 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4265 =item Not a GLOB reference
4267 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a "typeglob" (that is, a
4268 symbol table entry that looks like C<*foo>), but found a reference to
4269 something else instead. You can use the ref() function to find out what
4270 kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
4272 =item Not a HASH reference
4274 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a hash value, but found a
4275 reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function to
4276 find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
4278 =item '#' not allowed immediately following a sigil in a subroutine signature
4280 (F) In a subroutine signature definition, a comment following a sigil
4281 (C<$>, C<@> or C<%>), needs to be separated by whitespace or a comma etc., in
4282 particular to avoid confusion with the C<$#> variable. For example:
4285 sub f ($# ignore first arg
4288 sub f ($, # ignore first arg
4291 =item Not an ARRAY reference
4293 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to an array value, but found
4294 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4295 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
4297 =item Not a SCALAR reference
4299 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a scalar value, but found
4300 a reference to something else instead. You can use the ref() function
4301 to find out what kind of ref it really was. See L<perlref>.
4303 =item Not a subroutine reference
4305 (F) Perl was trying to evaluate a reference to a code value (that is, a
4306 subroutine), but found a reference to something else instead. You can
4307 use the ref() function to find out what kind of ref it really was. See
4310 =item Not a subroutine reference in overload table
4312 (F) An attempt was made to specify an entry in an overloading table that
4313 doesn't somehow point to a valid subroutine. See L<overload>.
4315 =item Not enough arguments for %s
4317 (F) The function requires more arguments than you specified.
4319 =item Not enough format arguments
4321 (W syntax) A format specified more picture fields than the next line
4322 supplied. See L<perlform>.
4326 (A) You've accidentally run your script through the Bourne shell instead
4327 of Perl. Check the #! line, or manually feed your script into Perl
4330 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
4332 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
4333 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
4334 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name
4335 F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL> to translate to the number of seconds which
4336 need to be added to UTC to get local time.
4338 =item NULL OP IN RUN
4340 (S debugging) Some internal routine called run() with a null opcode
4343 =item Null picture in formline
4345 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
4346 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
4347 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
4351 (P) An attempt was made to realloc NULL.
4353 =item NULL regexp argument
4355 (P) The internal pattern matching routines blew it big time.
4357 =item NULL regexp parameter
4359 (P) The internal pattern matching routines are out of their gourd.
4361 =item Number too long
4363 (F) Perl limits the representation of decimal numbers in programs to
4364 about 250 characters. You've exceeded that length. Future
4365 versions of Perl are likely to eliminate this arbitrary limitation. In
4366 the meantime, try using scientific notation (e.g. "1e6" instead of
4369 =item Number with no digits
4371 (F) Perl was looking for a number but found nothing that looked like
4372 a number. This happens, for example with C<\o{}>, with no number between
4375 =item Numeric format result too large
4377 (F) The length of the result of a numeric format supplied to sprintf()
4378 or printf() would have been too large for the underlying C function to
4379 report. This limit is typically 2GB.
4381 =item Numeric variables with more than one digit may not start with '0'
4383 (F) The only numeric variable which is allowed to start with a 0 is C<$0>,
4384 and you mentioned a variable that starts with 0 that has more than one
4385 digit. You probably want to remove the leading 0, or if the intent was
4386 to express a variable name in octal you should convert to decimal.
4388 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
4390 (W portable) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
4391 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
4392 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
4394 =item Odd name/value argument for subroutine '%s'
4396 (F) A subroutine using a slurpy hash parameter in its signature
4397 received an odd number of arguments to populate the hash. It requires
4398 the arguments to be paired, with the same number of keys as values.
4399 The caller of the subroutine is presumably at fault.
4401 The message attempts to include the name of the called subroutine. If the
4402 subroutine has been aliased, the subroutine's original name will be shown,
4403 regardless of what name the caller used.
4405 =item Odd number of arguments for overload::constant
4407 (W overload) The call to overload::constant contained an odd number of
4408 arguments. The arguments should come in pairs.
4410 =item Odd number of elements in anonymous hash
4412 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4413 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4415 =item Odd number of elements in hash assignment
4417 (W misc) You specified an odd number of elements to initialize a hash,
4418 which is odd, because hashes come in key/value pairs.
4420 =item Offset outside string
4422 (F)(W layer) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv/seek operation
4423 with an offset pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to
4424 imagine. The sole exceptions to this are that zero padding will
4425 take place when going past the end of the string when either
4426 C<sysread()>ing a file, or when seeking past the end of a scalar opened
4427 for I/O (in anticipation of future reads and to imitate the behavior
4430 =item Old package separator used in string
4432 (W syntax) You used the old package separator, "'", in a variable
4433 named inside a double-quoted string; e.g., C<"In $name's house">. This
4434 is equivalent to C<"In $name::s house">. If you meant the former, put
4435 a backslash before the apostrophe (C<"In $name\'s house">).
4437 =item %s() on unopened %s
4439 (W unopened) An I/O operation was attempted on a filehandle that was
4440 never initialized. You need to do an open(), a sysopen(), or a socket()
4441 call, or call a constructor from the FileHandle package.
4443 =item -%s on unopened filehandle %s
4445 (W unopened) You tried to invoke a file test operator on a filehandle
4446 that isn't open. Check your control flow. See also L<perlfunc/-X>.
4450 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
4454 (S internal) An internal warning that the grammar is screwed up.
4456 =item Operand with no preceding operator in regex; marked by S<<-- HERE> in
4459 (F) You wrote something like
4461 (?[ \p{Digit} \p{Thai} ])
4463 There are two operands, but no operator giving how you want to combine
4466 =item Operation "%s": no method found, %s
4468 (F) An attempt was made to perform an overloaded operation for which no
4469 handler was defined. While some handlers can be autogenerated in terms
4470 of other handlers, there is no default handler for any operation, unless
4471 the C<fallback> overloading key is specified to be true. See L<overload>.
4473 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for non-Unicode code point 0x%X
4475 (S non_unicode) You performed an operation requiring Unicode rules
4476 on a code point that is not in Unicode, so what it should do is not
4477 defined. Perl has chosen to have it do nothing, and warn you.
4479 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4480 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4482 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
4483 C<no warnings 'non_unicode';>.
4485 =item Operation "%s" returns its argument for UTF-16 surrogate U+%X
4487 (S surrogate) You performed an operation requiring Unicode
4488 rules on a Unicode surrogate. Unicode frowns upon the use
4489 of surrogates for anything but storing strings in UTF-16, but
4490 rules are (reluctantly) defined for the surrogates, and
4491 they are to do nothing for this operation. Because the use of
4492 surrogates can be dangerous, Perl warns.
4494 If the operation shown is "ToFold", it means that case-insensitive
4495 matching in a regular expression was done on the code point.
4497 If you know what you are doing you can turn off this warning by
4498 C<no warnings 'surrogate';>.
4500 =item Operator or semicolon missing before %s
4502 (S ambiguous) You used a variable or subroutine call where the parser
4503 was expecting an operator. The parser has assumed you really meant to
4504 use an operator, but this is highly likely to be incorrect. For
4505 example, if you say "*foo *foo" it will be interpreted as if you said
4508 =item Optional parameter lacks default expression
4510 (F) In a subroutine signature, you wrote something like "$a =", making a
4511 named optional parameter without a default value. A nameless optional
4512 parameter is permitted to have no default value, but a named one must
4513 have a specific default. You probably want "$a = undef".
4515 =item "our" variable %s redeclared
4517 (W shadow) You seem to have already declared the same global once before
4518 in the current lexical scope.
4520 =item Out of memory!
4522 (X) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
4523 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. Perl has
4524 no option but to exit immediately.
4526 At least in Unix you may be able to get past this by increasing your
4527 process datasize limits: in csh/tcsh use C<limit> and
4528 C<limit datasize n> (where C<n> is the number of kilobytes) to check
4529 the current limits and change them, and in ksh/bash/zsh use C<ulimit -a>
4530 and C<ulimit -d n>, respectively.
4532 =item Out of memory during %s extend
4534 (X) An attempt was made to extend an array, a list, or a string beyond
4535 the largest possible memory allocation.
4537 =item Out of memory during "large" request for %s
4539 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
4540 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
4541 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so a
4542 possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
4544 =item Out of memory during request for %s
4546 (X)(F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was
4547 insufficient remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the
4550 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
4551 depends on the way perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
4552 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an
4553 emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the error
4554 is trappable I<once>, and the error message will include the line and file
4555 where the failed request happened.
4557 =item Out of memory during ridiculously large request
4559 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. This error
4560 is most likely to be caused by a typo in the Perl program. e.g.,
4561 C<$arr[time]> instead of C<$arr[$time]>.
4563 =item Out of memory for yacc stack
4565 (F) The yacc parser wanted to grow its stack so it could continue
4566 parsing, but realloc() wouldn't give it more memory, virtual or
4569 =item '.' outside of string in pack
4571 (F) The argument to a '.' in your template tried to move the working
4572 position to before the start of the packed string being built.
4574 =item '@' outside of string in unpack
4576 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
4577 the string being unpacked. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4579 =item '@' outside of string with malformed UTF-8 in unpack
4581 (F) You had a template that specified an absolute position outside
4582 the string being unpacked. The string being unpacked was also invalid
4583 UTF-8. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4585 =item overload arg '%s' is invalid
4587 (W overload) The L<overload> pragma was passed an argument it did not
4588 recognize. Did you mistype an operator?
4590 =item Overloaded dereference did not return a reference
4592 (F) An object with an overloaded dereference operator was dereferenced,
4593 but the overloaded operation did not return a reference. See
4596 =item Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP
4598 (F) An object with a C<qr> overload was used as part of a match, but the
4599 overloaded operation didn't return a compiled regexp. See L<overload>.
4601 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
4603 (W reserved) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a
4604 package-specific handler. That name might have a meaning to Perl itself
4605 some day, even though it doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a
4606 mixed-case attribute name, instead. See L<attributes>.
4608 =item pack/unpack repeat count overflow
4610 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows your
4611 signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
4615 (W io) A single call to write() produced more lines than can fit on a
4616 page. See L<perlform>.
4620 (P) An internal error.
4622 =item panic: attempt to call %s in %s
4624 (P) One of the file test operators entered a code branch that calls
4625 an ACL related-function, but that function is not available on this
4626 platform. Earlier checks mean that it should not be possible to
4627 enter this branch on this platform.
4629 =item panic: child pseudo-process was never scheduled
4631 (P) A child pseudo-process in the ithreads implementation on Windows
4632 was not scheduled within the time period allowed and therefore was not
4633 able to initialize properly.
4635 =item panic: ck_grep, type=%u
4637 (P) Failed an internal consistency check trying to compile a grep.
4639 =item panic: corrupt saved stack index %ld
4641 (P) The savestack was requested to restore more localized values than
4642 there are in the savestack.
4644 =item panic: del_backref
4646 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
4649 =item panic: do_subst
4651 (P) The internal pp_subst() routine was called with invalid operational
4654 =item panic: do_trans_%s
4656 (P) The internal do_trans routines were called with invalid operational
4659 =item panic: fold_constants JMPENV_PUSH returned %d
4661 (P) While attempting folding constants an exception other than an C<eval>
4664 =item panic: frexp: %f
4666 (P) The library function frexp() failed, making printf("%f") impossible.
4668 =item panic: goto, type=%u, ix=%ld
4670 (P) We popped the context stack to a context with the specified label,
4671 and then discovered it wasn't a context we know how to do a goto in.
4673 =item panic: gp_free failed to free glob pointer
4675 (P) The internal routine used to clear a typeglob's entries tried
4676 repeatedly, but each time something re-created entries in the glob.
4677 Most likely the glob contains an object with a reference back to
4678 the glob and a destructor that adds a new object to the glob.
4680 =item panic: INTERPCASEMOD, %s
4682 (P) The lexer got into a bad state at a case modifier.
4684 =item panic: INTERPCONCAT, %s
4686 (P) The lexer got into a bad state parsing a string with brackets.
4688 =item panic: kid popen errno read
4690 (F) A forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
4692 =item panic: last, type=%u
4694 (P) We popped the context stack to a block context, and then discovered
4695 it wasn't a block context.
4697 =item panic: leave_scope clearsv
4699 (P) A writable lexical variable became read-only somehow within the
4702 =item panic: leave_scope inconsistency %u
4704 (P) The savestack probably got out of sync. At least, there was an
4705 invalid enum on the top of it.
4707 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
4709 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
4710 references to an object.
4712 =item panic: malloc, %s
4714 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of malloc.
4716 =item panic: memory wrap
4718 (P) Something tried to allocate either more memory than possible or a
4721 =item panic: pad_alloc, %p!=%p
4723 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4724 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4726 =item panic: pad_free curpad, %p!=%p
4728 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4729 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4731 =item panic: pad_free po
4733 (P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. An attempt was
4734 made to free a target that had not been allocated to begin with.
4736 =item panic: pad_reset curpad, %p!=%p
4738 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4739 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4741 =item panic: pad_sv po
4743 (P) A zero scratch pad offset was detected internally. Most likely
4744 an operator needed a target but that target had not been allocated
4745 for whatever reason.
4747 =item panic: pad_swipe curpad, %p!=%p
4749 (P) The compiler got confused about which scratch pad it was allocating
4750 and freeing temporaries and lexicals from.
4752 =item panic: pad_swipe po
4754 (P) An invalid scratch pad offset was detected internally.
4756 =item panic: pp_iter, type=%u
4758 (P) The foreach iterator got called in a non-loop context frame.
4760 =item panic: pp_match%s
4762 (P) The internal pp_match() routine was called with invalid operational
4765 =item panic: realloc, %s
4767 (P) Something requested a negative number of bytes of realloc.
4769 =item panic: reference miscount on nsv in sv_replace() (%d != 1)
4771 (P) The internal sv_replace() function was handed a new SV with a
4772 reference count other than 1.
4774 =item panic: restartop in %s
4776 (P) Some internal routine requested a goto (or something like it), and
4777 didn't supply the destination.
4779 =item panic: return, type=%u
4781 (P) We popped the context stack to a subroutine or eval context, and
4782 then discovered it wasn't a subroutine or eval context.
4784 =item panic: scan_num, %s
4786 (P) scan_num() got called on something that wasn't a number.
4788 =item panic: Sequence (?{...}): no code block found in regex m/%s/
4790 (P) While compiling a pattern that has embedded (?{}) or (??{}) code
4791 blocks, perl couldn't locate the code block that should have already been
4792 seen and compiled by perl before control passed to the regex compiler.
4794 =item panic: strxfrm() gets absurd - a => %u, ab => %u
4796 (P) The interpreter's sanity check of the C function strxfrm() failed.
4797 In your current locale the returned transformation of the string "ab"
4798 is shorter than that of the string "a", which makes no sense.
4800 =item panic: sv_chop %s
4802 (P) The sv_chop() routine was passed a position that is not within the
4803 scalar's string buffer.
4805 =item panic: sv_insert, midend=%p, bigend=%p
4807 (P) The sv_insert() routine was told to remove more string than there
4810 =item panic: top_env
4812 (P) The compiler attempted to do a goto, or something&